Guidelines for Appalachian Journal Reviewers
Please single-space the entire review (including any long, indented quotations) and send it as an e-mail attachment, preferably in WordPerfect or Word. Please use a subject line on your email that identifies the book (i.e., Review of Merciful Days by Jesse Graves). Try to include judiciously selected quotations from the book to support your commentary. Also please include page numbers in parentheses after each quoted passage. Begin your review with a heading that includes the following information:
Title of the Book
By Author's name (Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication)
$ price, paper or cloth. ISBN number, number of pages
Here are a couple of examples:
Burning Bright
By Ron Rash (New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2010)
$22.99, cloth. ISBN 9780061804113, 205 pp.
Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains & What the Mountains Did to the Movies
By J.W. Williamson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995)
$18.95, paper. ISBN 0807845035, 325 pp.
Deadlines for Submission
AppalJ has "rolling" deadlines and some flexibility, but for an unsolicited review to receive the best chance of acceptance, we request that you pay attention to these deadlines:
- for the Fall issue June 1
- for the Winter issue September 1
- for the Spring issue December 1
- for the Summer issue March 1
Further Instructions
We like opinionated reviews that make clear statements based on well-informed funds of knowledge. Please provide compelling reasons and examples to back up those opinions. Although AppalJ does not impose strict word limitations on reviews, we ask you to impose your own: write what you think the book merits. Some books need shorter reviews of 700 words or less; some deserve more. Very long pieces sometimes invite editing; or, they turn into review-essays, which we like. All copy-edited reviews are returned to reviewers for approval before publication, even if changes have been minor. Broadly cross-referencing your review to other relevant works is invited, if appropriate to the subject at hand. (But please do not list typographical errors, unless they significantly impair the value of the work.)
Please include a bio note. At the end of the review, please include your full name in the form you would like to see it on the table of contents, followed by a bio note with the name you use in informal settings and a brief (sentence or two, or three) statement which may mention your academic or other affiliation, publications, research or teaching interests, or information which makes clear your qualifications for reviewing this work. We like a biographical note that includes some personal as well as some professional information.
Payment is two copies of the Appalachian Journal (and all the recognition and prestige that follow).