My Last Issue as Reviews Editor for FAFNIR

That's a wrap, folk. Our latest issue of Fafnir, volume 9, number 2, has just been published, and that's officially my last horrah with the journal. It's been a pretty rewarding time overall. Over the course of the last five years, I've had the opportunity to work with some fantastic editors and, of course, reviewers. In fact, it's probably been working with the reviewers themselves that I'll remember best about this experience. Although I'm closing out my tenure with relief -- the burnout was starting to get to me -- I'm still immensely proud of everything we've managed to accomplish these past five years.

Anyway, here are the highlights and personal accomplishments:

  • Developing the reviews section from scratch. 
    • We went from having 0-1 reviews per issue to about 6-11 per issue under my tenure.
  • Ushering almost 100 reviews to publication, oftentimes through several drafts.
    • Many reviews were from graduate students and Early Career Researchers. 
    • Worked with reviewers from five different continents and around (I think) ten different countries, including India and South Africa.
  • Creating official guidelines for reviews
  • Leading the initiative on creating a style sheet for Fafnir
  • Leading the initiative on Fafnir's redesigned layout
    • This launched with issue 6.1 and then was applied retroactively to issues 5.1 and 5.2.
  • Getting Fafnir its membership into the Directory of Open-Access Journals (the big ticket item), plus also smaller things like SHERPA/RoMEO and the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
  • Helping editor-in-chief Laura E. Goodin  professionalize our journal's copy-editing standards; personally, I checked the formatting for MLA in-text citations and the MLA works cited page.
Oh, and this is worthy of mention as well:
  • Winning a WORLD FANTASY AWARD in 2020!
I'll always be slightly -- okay, deeply -- disappointed that, as "only" the reviews editor, I didn't have my name on the official award, but I like to think that my contributions were a big part of why Fafnir became such a phenomenal international venue in which to publish SFF research. Nonetheless, I come away with a ton of good stories and experiences, and there's absolutely nothing I regret about these last five years in academic publishing.

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