Multi-author academic book management

A peer-reviewed book exploring the research and practice of creating cities that support women’s health

Women’s Health and the World’s Cities

Client: University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR)

My Role

I managed all stages of development of this multi-author, peer-reviewed volume. I also provided developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading; drafted interstitial material and book jacket text; and selected photographs and managed image licensing.

Challenge

With three co-editors and 28 contributing authors, this was an ambitious and sprawling project. With my project management, we were able to pull from multiple perspectives and discover lessons that could only be learned through cross-disciplinary collaboration.

One of the primary objectives was to present perspectives of practitioners as well as researchers, in order to deliver a truly useful resource for those working to improve conditions for women in cities around the world. While this approach promised to deliver an impactful book, it brought numerous challenges: some of the contributors had never written an academic paper, and some did not write fluently in English. Even the researchers who contributed to the book — all of whom were generally familiar with academic publishing — came from different disciplines that hewed to different conventions (such as different citation styles, formatting, tones of voice, and even structure).

Solution

This project’s challenges were also its strengths: so many perspectives resulted in an especially useful, nuanced resource. But making the book cohesive required having one point of continuity — that was my role. By having me manage the various threads and loose ends at every stage — from substantially revising draft papers, to formatting files, to compiling all the citations into a single file with consistent style and without duplicates — Penn IUR was able to create a practical book that conveyed both big ideas as well as on-the-ground steps to make urban development more supportive of women’s health.