The Epitome of Academic Expedition: My First Book Publication

Anyone in academia will know that publishing is crucial. It is one of the major expertise potential employers (mostly universities and colleges) look for when assessing resumes of job applicants. The pressure to publish gets even more intense after you have been employed. So, anyone who desires to teach, always find his/herself juggling tedious school work (if you are still a student) and/or teaching in order to maintain his/her job as a professor. For those hired with tenure track, the likelihood of losing their tenure position with the university is higher, if after a said period of time, s/he have not published or conducted major research. For me, the experience is a bit different as starting a career in academia is only one of the numerous opportunities education has offered me so far.

When I started out as a young lass in 7th Grade, I had always wanted to be a pediatrician. Though the dream has not faded, life's roller coaster has projected me into a melange of academic learning, which I think it's the most appreciable trajectory for any young person with similar background. I started writing since I was a little girl - in the beginning I kept detailed dairies of my daily experiences. Then, I kept records of my family and I experiences during the war in Liberia - which my mother destroyed for fear of losing our lives if caught with the manuscripts. Along similar lines, I still document my experiences as I travel around the world. Nevertheless, through all of these experiences it never occurred to me that I could publish any of my written work. In actual fact, I had been afraid to nurture the thought due to the biases, stereotypes, discrimination publishers (mainly Western companies) hold against emerging writers from the Global South. They usually say,

"English is not your first language"
"your writing is terrible"
"you have to read more fiction so that you can be able to write"
"you write like you speak"
"get use to rejection from publishers because your writing is not good enough"
and the list goes on.

For me, these discouraging lies are all the more reasons I dare to publish. As an intelligent human being, I am teachable and I have the ability to learn new things. So, I took on my first book challenge last year. I thought to myself, if I have received "A's" in most of my essay assignments then it's an indication that my papers are good enough and worth publishing. Sometimes, I wish my professors would have encouraged me to publish long time ago. Anyways, never too late as I am a self-motivator. After organizing one of the most successful conferences at York University's Centre for Refugee Studies, I decided to lead the conference speakers into a dream of their life - i.e., turning the papers they presented at the conference into an edited book. Without any prior training in the process, I got to work by preparing a format/guideline to send out to all speakers. By the end of the deadline (October 7, 2010) 11 papers were submitted - almost ready for publication.

The next step was to find a publisher. My first choice with Oxford University Forced Migration Review. Unfortunately, the Review does not take such large publication as it focuses more on non-academic publications. I was disappointed, but I continued my search. Whilst on Christmas holiday in Rhode Island, I stumbled against Brown Walker Publications. One email was all it took. By February 2010 Documenting the Undocumented: Redefining Refugee Status was published. This was the beginning of my "publishing snowball." The second book (Legal Discrepancies: Internal Displacement of Women and Children in Africa) followed in May with a book chapter (Mother Passed It On) in September. Since January 2010, at least four journal articles and two non-refereed papers have be produced with more underway.

Noteworthy, the process I have described above is not as simple as it is written. It requires lots of commitment, diligence and focus. But in the end, the reward is great. At this juncture, there is no stopping - titles are already lined up waiting to complete including the Good Citizens Project Human Rights Series for children in Liberia/Africa.

Liberian Studies Association Conference at Temple University, Philadelphia

The last time I ever gathered in the same setting with that many Liberians was probably sometime is July 1992 when we piled up on the deck of a peace-keeping ship en route to Ghana searching for peace and security as refugees. For some reason, I have always found myself in places where Liberians are "naturally" hard to find. I must emphasize that, Liberians tend to have this "twisted idea" that "their forefathers (not their foremothers) came from America." So, before the inception of the civil war - the "Great United States of America" was the only country on the planet. According to Liberians informal standard, if you had not travel to the US, then you've not travel anywhere. The point I'm drifting at is that, outside the US, you seldom see Liberians (although the trend is changing mainly due to the civil war). Even more pronounced is that, with such small population as a country, the few of us that make it to "proper" universities (if you know what I mean?) are in the minutest number, especially outside of the US.

For example, at the University of Ghana we were only three Liberian female students between 1997 and 2000. At the University of British Columbia, we were only two female students between 2001 and 2004. At the University of Nottingham, before I enrolled as an international student for academic year 2005/2006, I specifically requested to be connected to other Liberian students, there was none! Later on in the year, I will find a Liberia-British student who didn't consider herself to be a Liberian because she's never lived in Liberia. At York University, where I'm currently studying, I know of only two other Liberians students (a male and a female) c'est tout! In the grand scheme of things, my limited sample is apparently a happenstance, albeit, some level of "truth" can still be seen. Thus, you can appreciate my excitement when I received an email from Professor Elwood Dunn (my mentor) encouraging me to submit a paper to the 42nd Liberian Studies Association Annual Conference.

I was truly elated! I immediately submitted my abstract and invited my good friend to apply as well. By mid February both of our papers were accepted for oral presentation. We quickly booked flights and organized accommodation with family members in anticipation for our first Liberian academic gathering ever! Nevermind that, on March 25th I had to teach between 8:30am and 10:30am before boarding an American Airline Flight which later delayed for almost 6hrs pushing my ETA to almost 1am so that I ended up having only 3hrs of sleep in order to make my 9:30am presentation - I still made it just in time!

I had prepared a 4-page paper to present in 20 minutes - I usually refrain from doing power-point presentations because I personally think they can be too distracting - but I ended up speaking for 10 crisp minutes. I did not realize how captivating my presentation was until I had finished and saw participants lined up to speak with me. I am always very humbled by such reaction at conferences/events as I consider myself to be simple, down-to-earth and approachable. I do appreciate how far I have come in life but it is no excuse to be pompous, proud or snobbish, in fact, I detest such people because I believe, though I had to work hard to acquire my achievements, it is only by chance that opportunity was granted me (know what I mean?). In other words, no matter my hard work, if (say) WUSC had not offered me the opportunity to emigrate to Canada, I'm not sure I would have had this much successes - Note: there's no way of predicting otherwise though.

Anyways, the long to the short is that, for three consecutive days, I was blessed to be in the presence of renown Liberian scholars, activists, entertainers, and more. The highlight of the conference was when Professor Elwood Dunn appointed me to be a part of LSA Ad Hoc Committee, whose major goal is to review the organization's Constitution as well as make recommendation(s) to the Executive Team before the next conference in 2011. Finally, after all these years of education, I have established my links with Liberian academics - the best is yet to come!