Getting one's work read and engaged with is one of the more difficult challenges that early-career academics face. This is arguably particularly true of people at small, non-R1 schools or who have not published in top-ranked journals. You publish that paper that you have spent years on, think it is good … no one seems to read or engage with it.
I'd like to see if we at the Cocoon can do something about this! Readers who visit other blogs may know that many of these blogs regularly have Featured Authors — authors who are encouraged to share and discuss their work and ideas for a few weeks or a month. While some such blogs feature work by earlier career people (Flickers of Freedom is the most obvious example), there is, as of now, no blog dedicated to featuring early career people who have published peer-reviewed work, however well-known or unknown.
The Cocoon seems to me an ideal place to have just such a feature. This blog's mission has, from the outset, been to provide a safe and supportive forum for early-career (i.e. pre-tenured) people "to discuss their work, ideas, and personal-professional issues." I would like, therefore, to solicit interest in partaking in this new feature. Would you like to be a Featured Author on the Cocoon? Are you itching to share and discuss your published work? If so, just shoot me an email at marvan@ut.edu. Whether you'd like to just make one post, serve for a week, two weeks, or whatever (well, almost whatever) — we can arrange it! And please, don't be afraid. There's nothing wrong with a little self-promotion;), and speaking from experience, serving as a featured author can be great fun!
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