Ready to stop wishing that your academic journal article would somehow write itself?

(Plot spoiler: it won’t. I know. I’m sorry.)

IF YOU'RE AN ACADEMIC WRITER TIRED OF ALWAYS TRYING (BUT FAILING) TO GET YOUR JOURNAL ARTICLE WRITTEN, LET'S TALK.

You know you need to start publishing your work and develop your own scholarly ideas, voice, and identity, but you’re totally overwhelmed and don’t feel like you have the writing chops (much less the ideas or the confidence) necessary to get your writing published.

Join my 14-week step-by-step workshop and let me show you how to conquer your writing fears, create powerful rhetorical moves in your writing, and develop the writing skills you never learned as a graduate student!

Ever wish that someone would finally teach you how to be the effective and productive writer you want to be?

stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

• The tenure clock is ticking, you’ve got a list of requirements for publication, but you’re exhauted, overwhelmed, and not sure where to start writing, never mind when you’re going to find the time between prepping your classes, teaching, and grading.

• You’re overwhelmed trying to navigate a new job and new professional expectations. You know you need to start publishing and carving out a scholarly identity for yourself, but you’re still summarizing other people’s ideas like a graduate student instead of crafting your own compelling arguments and developing your new identity as a professional scholar.

• You’ve written a dissertation (and you probably think it’s cringey) but now you’re wondering if you should try to turn a dissertation chapter into your first article but aren’t sure how. (And how much of your dissertation should you publish as an article, anyway?)

• You wrote a conference or seminar paper in grad school and although you think it’s got some good ideas, you know it isn’t yet publishable and you’re not sure quite why or what you need to do to start revising it into a publishable piece of scholarship.

• You’ve been trying to get your article written for months (or even years, if we’re being real here) in fits and starts, but you don’ t feel like you have any direction, structure, or accountability.

This is the part where I come in.

I’m going to let you in on a secret: your graduate program didn’t teach you how to become a effective, efficient, or productive professional academic writer. Sure, you learned a lot about other people’s ideas and started thinking up a few of your own. But no one helped you develop your ideas into real scholarly arguments that matter and I’m pretty sure no one taught you how to transform your ideas, research, and writing into powerful and publishable scholarship.

And the fact that no one talks about academic writing or publishing (just like Fight Club, the first rule is that we don’t talk about academic writing) means that a lot of scholars just like you are struggling way more than necessary to figure out how to get their work published. The academic publishing process has a ton of hidden curriculum and unspoken rules and weird gate keeping and you’re somehow expected to figure out how to write and publish your work all by yourself.

How would you like to have the community support, structure, and accountability you need to get your article written and published so you can start helping us think about the world in new ways even if you're full of crippling self-doubt about your writing and ideas?

But you want to know the real reason you’re not getting your article written and out the door?

(hint: it’s not a time management problem)

You’re scared.

It’s okay to be scared. It’s normal to be scared. Academic writing isn’t something that anyone is born knowing how to do and academia can be a rough and unkind place sometimes, particularly when writing is involved. You’re probably struggling with a lot of shame, fear, or impostor syndrome around your writing. Sometimes those feelings get so big that writing starts feeling impossible. You might sit down to write and find yourself procrastinating, staring at a blinking cursor, or feeling so overwhelmed that it’s easier to just give up on writing and watch Netflix.

But here’s the other thing: academic writing doesn’t have to feel like this.

The biggest myths out there about academic writing are that you’re supposed to produce great writing all by yourself and that writing has to feel terrible. Somehow the myth of the individual genius consumed by angst and toiling over their writing in total isolation still lives, despite the fact that it fails everyone.

So what’s the alternative?

HERE’S WHAT I BELIEVE: THE MOST POWERFUL TOOLs IN YOUR WRITING ARSENAL are COMMUNITY SUPPORT and developing your writing skills.

What’s going to give you the skills and confidence to get writing done and send your work out into the world is a community to give you constructive feedback, emotional support, accountability, and a safe place to talk about your writing, people who really understand not only your ideas, but understand YOU and your writing struggles.

What if I told you that I happen to have THAT EXACT THING?

Welcome to Kickstart Your Journal Article!

This is THE workshop for overwhelmed academics ready to stop procrastinating and start writing journal articles about ideas that MATTER.

Let’s develop your ideas and get them published so you can advance your career and you can help us understand the world around us a little better.

THIS WORKSHOP WILL HELP YOU REVISE YOUR GLORIOUS MESS OF A ROUGH DRAFT INTO A POLISHED JOURNAL ARTICLE YOU CAN SUBMIT TO THE JOURNAL OF YOUR CHOICE SO YOUR GREAT IDEAS CAN HAVE THE IMPACT YOU WANT.

I’ll take you from feelings of fear and failure (and half-finished articles hanging out like groaning zombies in a folder on your computer where they are helping exactly no one) to clicking SUBMIT on your next article and feeling confident that you’ve submitted a solid article to the journal of your choice.

Whether you need to publish for your dissertation, tenure and promotion, or just have some research to publish, let’s get it done together.

what makes this workshop different?

Unlike a lot of online courses that recycle one-size-fits-all pre-recorded video content, I teach this workshop LIVE. (Yup, you get me and my bad jokes, all live!) A live, synchronous workshop means that you get real time access to my expertise and knowledge about academic writing and publishing, as well as the brilliance of your fellow participants, tailored to your article and writing skill level. You get the accountability and structure you need to make serious progress on your writing project and you can ask all the questions you’ve always wanted to ask about academic writing and get real answers.

I’m not interested in creating yet another online course. I’m interested in building a community.

And you’re invited!

Hey there. I’m your guide.

If we haven’t met, I’m Lisa L Munro, PhD.

I’m here to help you develop a scholarly idea that matters and more importantly, one that gets published.

I’m an academic historian by training (PhD, University of Arizona, 2015) and I’ve written and published several of my own academic journal articles using Wendy Belcher’s proven method and brilliant workbook as a guide. (I even blogged about my experience back in 2015!)  I’m now teaching Belcher’s method in my own workshops for journal article writers who want to develop their writing skills. I’ve been running workshops and writing courses for years, and have helped hundreds of academics and students hone their writing skills. 

I’ve learned a lot about the art and science of academic journal article writing over the years and I want to empower you with the tools you need to develop your brilliant ideas and get them published. I’ll teach you the secret handshakes to get into the club and get your ideas out into the world as a submittable academic journal article that you can feel good about sending to the journal of your choice.

Once you’ve finished working with me in this workshop, you’ll come away with some real results that will change how you feel about your writing. And that means you’re going to get more writing done and get published a lot more often from here on out.

One

You’re going to meet some great new colleagues in this workshop. Participants come from all different kinds of disciplines and backgrounds, which means that the workshop cohort will have massive collective brainpower. I keep these cohorts small (8-10 people), so you’ll be able to really engage with this intellectual community of fellow scholars and receive valuable feedback on your own work. Community makes a huge difference in how you feel about your writing!

Two

You’ll learn powerful writing skills and rhetorical strategies through a structured system of building blocks. We’re going to break down writing your journal article into small, manageable tasks that you’ll complete each week. You’ll learn all of the writing skills that you should have learned in graduate school (but didn’t) and that aren’t being taught to you in whatever professional development your institution offers. You’re going to see huge progress in your writing skills and abilities.

Three

Most importantly, you’re going to develop your ideas into a real journal article that you can feel confident about submitting to the best journal for your work. By the time we’re done working together, you’ll have learned a method, system, and skills for writing academic publications that you’ll use throughout your career. You’ll get your work published so it can start making a real impact on how we understand some of the biggest questions we’ve got about the world around us.

Testimonials

Don’t just take my word for it about how great this workshop is. Here’s what former workshop participants have said about their experiences working with me in this workshop.

Is this workshop right for you?

Good question. You’ll get the most out of this workshop if:

1. You’ve already got a rough draft of your article. It could be a first draft, a rejected article, an abandoned book chapter, a conference paper, or a dissertation chapter. We’ll be revising, rather than drafting from scratch.

2. Your draft is a research article, either quantitative or qualitative, with a central claim.

3. You’re a relatively novice author, either an advanced graduate student who wants to publish for job market purposes OR you’re an early career scholar or junior faculty member working on publishing your first few articles.

4. You’re in some kind of humanities or social science field.

Who is this workshop NOT for?

The workshop probably won’t be as helpful for you if you’re:

• In a STEM field or medical research

• developing an article that isn’t argumentative in nature (e.g. systematic literature review)

• still in the research phase (finish the research, draft something, and then let’s talk)

• a book writer (although many of the same principles apply to all academic writing regardless of genre)

NOT QUITE SURE IF YOU’RE READY FOR THE WORKSHOP?

Let’s have coffee and chat!

Dates and Times

September 5/6-December 5/6

This workshop has two different time slots to accommodate as many time zones as possible. We cover the same material in each one, so pick the time that’s best suited to your schedule. (All times listed in Eastern Time—New York for consistency.)

 Tuesdays, 10-12am Eastern

OR

Wednesdays, 7-9pm Eastern

When you register, you’ll receive a calendar link to add workshop dates and times to your own calendar.

Pricing

For Scholars

registration is closed for fall 2023

But you can still get on the waitlist to be notified when registration opens for the Spring 2024 cohort.

For Institutions

$1495

If you’ve got professional development money from your institution, please send us an email so we can start the paperwork necessary for your institution.

 Shouldn’t this be the year you get your journal article out into the world?

Let’s make it happen!!