Most of my career has been spent as an editor of publications. The first three publications below are those for which I have current duty at the University of Arkansas. The fourth is an independent creative project started to use up some pent-up creative steam, and the final publication is a historical journal that I edited for the Washington County Historical Society for eight years.
Arkansas magazine
Arkansas is the quarterly print magazine of the Arkansas Alumni Association. My responsibilities include editorial planning, assignments and editing of content. I work with contributors from across campus to tell stories that give our alumni a picture of the university as it is today, with a goal of keeping them engaged and proud of their alma mater. I also coordinate with the staff of the alumni association for articles and information regarding their chapters, societies and individual alumni updates. Last, I work with our graphic designers and photographers to produce each 64-page issue.
Arkansas News
Arkansas News is a daily compendium of news and events at the university that is published to the web and distributed via email to more than 40,000 addresses of students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the university. The website and email include both media releases prepared by the university and submissions provided from across campus by college and school communications, academic departments and student organizations. During 2021, we had more than 2 million visitors to the news site.
I edit both the university’s media releases and the articles submitted from around campus, bringing them into Associated Press style and correcting for grammar and syntax. For the Arkansas News email, I also determine placement of stories.
Catalog of Studies
The Catalog of Studies is the guide to academic programs at the University of Arkansas. It is edited annually as changes to coursework and academic programs are approved by the campus faculty, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees and the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
The Catalog of Studies is probably the most important publication that the university publishes, although it’s the easiest to overlook. It is among the first publications a high school student may see when researching the university’s academic offerings, and it is the archival record of the university each year, containing the programs of study, the faculty, the centers of research and the full list of courses approved to be offered.
For the undergraduate catalog, I coordinate editing among a dozen contributors from across campus and make final edits. For the graduate and law catalogs, I work with the associate deans of the Graduate School and School of Law to make their edits. I’m also one of three point persons at the university who deals with the software vendor for the catalog and works with the vendor’s web development team to implement design and programming changes to the catalog.
Ozark Hollow
A friend and I began publishing Ozark Hollow, a “mini-lit magazine,” at the beginning of 2022. It is subscription-based and distributed via email through the Substack platform. It remains a creative outlet and induces some level of sanity. Like many of my projects, it started as a learning exercise to see how an email newsletter might be used for journalistic purposes. Substack offers a fairly straightforward — some might say plain — layout with limited design options, which in some ways is the height of design.
Flashback
Outside of the university, I also edit the Washington County Historical Society’s quarterly historical journal, Flashback. Although it is not published by the university, I think that it represents an ideal example of the three-fold philosophy of a land-grant university – education, research and service. I edited it for eight years, sourcing articles and images for each 48-page issue as well as writing articles when I had time.
Word, Image and Sound 