In some recent posts about blooks and academia the name of author Kathleen Dixon Donnelly came up. She's a Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University. Dr. Donnelly graciously agreed to take time out from her holiday celebrations to do an interview. She uses Ha! a lot, hence the title of the post :-)
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Blooking Central: I'm a bit confused. I found this statement (at Lulu) regarding Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in 'Brum: "These are the entries from my three Gypsy Teacher 'blooks'." Which means that there are four total? Will you give me all the titles?
Donnelly: In chronological order they are:
- Gypsy Teacher: Dixon Donnelly @ Sea
- Gypsy Teacher: Every Wednesday?!: The Journal of a Teacher in Search of a Classroom
- Gypsy Teacher: A Yank in ‘Brum
Then I posted Gypsy Teacher: Dixon Donnelly in Asia.
I have revised Gypsy Teacher to include excerpts from this, but haven’t had time to post it up there yet.
BC: [an aside] See! I was right to ask -- there are FIVE blooks!
Donnelly: The most recent completed blog is Gyspy Teacher: A Yank Searches for a House In ‘Brum which I am in the process of pulling together into a blook. There isn’t much in there about teaching, so I don’t think any of it will be in the Gypsy Teacher ‘collection.’
BC: [another aside] Aha! Number six is in the works.
Donnelly: The only blog I am doing now is the monthly one on my Lulu site about the [American] presidential election. Not sure what I’ll do with those, but wanted to chart the changes in opinion as we head towards election day. Also thought those searching for ‘Hillary Clinton’ or ‘Barack Obama’ might find me.
If it’s confusing to you, I should go back to the Lulu site and see if I need to re-word to make it more clear.
BC: Have the blogs on which the blooks were based all survived? Can I reference them with links?
They should be up there, on blogger.com:
- http://www.dixondonnellyatsea.blogspot.com/
- http://www.everywednesday.blogspot.com/
- http://www.gypsyteacher.blogspot.com/ (A Yank in Brum; the first time I used the ‘gypsy teacher’ title)
- http://www.dixondonnellyinasia.blogspot.com/
- http://www.ayanksearchesforahouseinbrum.blogspot.com/
Haven’t checked any of those out for a long time, but someone just contacted me who found the Every Wednesdays postings about The Magdalene Sisters movie, so I think they are still up there.
BC: I've spent quite a bit of time at my blog talking about the actual nitty-gritty of blook production. Many folks craft their posts in a word processor before posting, which means that they generally have copies which can be manipulated off-web, as it were, to create their blook. Did you? If not, will you share how you managed to turn web content into print? Again, most folks have found it simplest to cut and paste, but you might have worked a different magic!
Donnelly: Definitely write in MS Word and then copy and paste. For the blogs and the blooks. I don’t trust the site to not eat what I’ve written, and I revise quite a bit. ‘It’s not the writing, it’s the re-writing.’ Forget who said that.
When I finish writing, and re-writing, I have My Irish Husband Tony read it. He loves everything I do [smart man] so if he mentions anything that doesn’t sound right, I know I have to change it. Then I post on the blog site, and strip into an e-mail message to send to my lists through kaydee@gypsyteacher.com. People send me links to their sites all the time, but I never take the time to go there. So I just send it along with a message, and they can read it if they like. I’ve gotten very encouraging comments.
BC: [a thought] The lady has lists that she emails to. Do you? I don't. Should I?
Donnelly: After the whole blog is finished, I paste each one separately into the format for the blooks, which I have kept consistent. Because MS Word isn’t really a layout program, it’s a bit tricky. I like the two-column format in Times Roman with a one-column Garamond heading, but sometimes it’s a pain. I then go through and edit like crazy. Once you know how the blog ends, there is a lot of leeway to go back and edit the earlier ones to create a consistent narrative. It’s amazing how much foreshadowing occurs in real life! I never change the facts or add new information, but the emphasis or the way I refer to something or someone might change.
When I think it’s finished, I print it out [thanks to my university printer] and pencil edit in hard copy, making sure the pages all look good--no widows, orphans, etc. Then I read backwards to proofread. Then I read it through again.
BC: [Anybody need me to interpret "widows and orphans"? Also, please note -- proofreading backwards is an excellent way to catch those nasty little errors. So is reading out loud.]
Donnelly: So no magic, just writing, re-writing, laying out, re-writing, proofreading again. Then Spell Check and proofread again.
BC: If you did not address revising in the question above, will you now?
Donnelly: Re-writing, re-writing, re-writing. Go away. Come back. Re-write some more. Proofread, Spell Check, proofread again.
BC: Can you give my readers some sense of the popularity of your blogs? Traditionally-published blooks seem to need a high readership and very active commenting.
Donnelly: I think I have a small but appreciative audience. My Irish Husband Tony, some very good friends in the States, and one or two people searching the net who go far enough down their Google list to find me. I can tell which of my friends and family have been reading by the questions they ask me. ‘So did you ever buy a house?’ ‘So where are you working now?’ etc. are dead giveaways. I’ve discovered that some friends read every one and my brother has read nothing!
BC: Please explain why you chose to self-publish. I was most surprised to find an academic that did not shun the stigma attached to both self-publishing and to blooking! It convinces me that blooks are more mainstream than the media is giving credence.
Donnelly: Chose! Ha! Because no one has chosen to publish me! In fairness, I have never formally submitted any of the Gypsy Teacher blooks to an agent or publisher. I put them up there as a sample of my work, figuring it was free to do, so what the heck?
I am actually a very un-academic academic. I received tenure at the first university I taught at full-time without publishing; then got a tenure track job at a large state university but was ‘not renewed’ with the implication that I should have published more [while teaching a full schedule], and now teach in the UK where there is no concept of ‘tenure’ [no summers off either!]. Those aspiring to ‘professor’ status are expected to, and given time to, publish; but those of us happy with Senior Lecturer, just teach more. Fine with me.
If you are wondering about the Ph.d., I did it on ‘writers who hung out together.’ I did publish one article in a small academic journal [I knew the editor], and submitted proposals for a full, but non-academic, book about them to agents and publishers to no avail. So I gave up. I have put up another Lulu site with my writings about my writers, but it’s a work in progress and not really suitable for public exposure just yet. I’m working on it.
So my gypsy teacher writing is very un-academic. Sometimes my fellow professors find one of my letters to the editor in The Guardian, or a piece about me in the local paper and are surprised to find that I am a writer as well as a teacher.
BC: I'm tickled that there is another blook in the works. That must mean that you're finding some monetary success. It does, doesn't it? :-)
Donnelly: Ha! Again. Zilch. Most of the sales I’ve had, and they are few and far between, are for the handbook I put up on Lulu about how to get publicity. ‘Hands on Public Relations.’ Every once in awhile one of those sells. And a friend or two has bought a Gypsy Teacher, but to be honest, if they express interest I just send them the Adobe file. Not a good business model.
I wouldn’t blame it on Lulu though. To get sales there you really have to work it, and I just haven’t been consistent enough. Over the summer I spent a lot of time on it, but then classes started again. I got an ISBN for Hands on Public Relations and now have to follow up and get it on Amazon, etc. but it just takes time.
Tony and I have a goal of ‘retire on the royalties,’ but right now that $91.40 isn’t going very far. My dream is to get a regular column either here or in the States, and then have a real publisher collect them. Then, of course, my back catalogue will be worth millions and we’ll buy that seafront mansion in Miami.
BC: Any thoughts on why or why not you should turn the political posts into a blook?
Donnelly: Not really sure how they will go. If I included enough about being a Democrat Abroad, they could fit with the Gypsy Teacher theme. I started them really hoping I could interest the Guardian or the Observer in publishing them monthly, so I was going to be totally neutral. Didn’t even get a nibble.
So I decided to post them myself, and the second one, about being at Democrats Abroad in London, fit in. Not sure what direction they will take. Planning to interview an Iowa friend in January about the caucus and write about the Democrats Abroad primary in February. I’m open to suggestions about this one.
BC: Thanks so much! Be sure to let me know when the new blook is out.
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