Call for Blog Contributors!

by the Editors

Are you a long-time reader, but desire to be a contributor? Now is your chance! We are looking for new contributors to write for our blog.

Successful posts are around 500 words, engage religion in the American West, and focus on one idea. Blog posts are more conversational than formal academic papers, and are a great forum for thinking through new ideas or current events.

If you are interested, email your contact information, along with a brief description of the blog posts you have in mind, to relamwest@gmail.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Call for Contributors: RAW enters a new phase

by the Editors

Five years ago the Religion in the American West Seminar at the American Academy of Religion was created. Since seminars at the AAR run as five-year non-renewable terms, the RAW Seminar at the AAR came to a close last week with its final meeting occurring at the AAR annual conference in Chicago (for a list of presenters see here). As we noted previously, we have proposed the creation of a Religion in the American West Group, which would allow us to continue meeting for the next five years with the option of renewing (for info on AAR program unit types, click here). We will keep you updated as that effort develops. In the meantime, the blog continues!

In the midst of these changes, the Religion in the American West blog enters a new phase. Thus, it seems appropriate to issue a call for new and continuing contributors. If you have contributed to the blog in the past, please continue to do so! If have not contributed in the past but you do research and writing on religion in the American West (or would like to), please contact us (relamwest@gmail.com)—we welcome your contributions! In particular, we would like to hear from you if you have presented in the past as part of the RAW Seminar at AAR, or if you would like to be a part of the RAW Group in the future. But we welcome anyone who would like to propose a topic and contribute a post. Are you writing on a topic relevant to the American West—thesis, dissertation, article, book project—and want to test out an idea, get some feedback? Try posting it to the blog! Did you come across an interesting primary document during your last trip to the archives and want to share it? Please do. Read a good book recently and want to write a review? The blog's a great place for reviews. Interesting field experiences? Please tell us about it. Saw something while travelling through Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico—even California!, etc.—and snapped a photo? Please send it in for our Casual Friday posts, where you don't have to have a fully developed idea or post to go along with it! We welcome your reflections on any aspect of religion in the American West(s)—and the study thereof!

Got something to contribute? Have a query? Suggestion? Comments? Send them to us at relamwest@gmail.com

or comment below!

We hope to hear from you soon!

Editorial Transitions

Hi everyone--we have a couple changes to announce in our editorial staff. First, we're very pleased to welcome Stan Thayne as a new co-editor for the blog. Stan's first post is below -- make sure you read it, because it's super-cool. Second, Brandi Denison is taking a leave of absence from editing for a while. (She will continue to contribute posts.) We are sorry to lose her, however temporarily, but we thank her for all her hard work (since this blog was born!!) and we wish her very well indeed.

Contributors Wanted!

We’d like to keep up the once-a-week posting that we’ve got going on here.  To that end, we asked for blog post pledges Sunday at our seminar meeting.  But many of you did not get to attend the seminar meeting!  This post is for you.  Will you help us keep the blog going at this rate for the next year? 

Blog posts do not have to be long: 200-250 words is plenty, though you’re welcome to write more. 

Blog posts can take a variety of forms:

• alerting readers to a useful resource
• reviewing a new or not-so-new book or article
• ruminating on an idea or event
• reporting on a recent conference, lecture, or other happening
• ranting about something at least tangentially related to religion in the west

These are all welcome!  You might come up with something that doesn’t fit any of these categories – that’s great too! 

You do not need any technological expertise to write a blog post: We can help with formatting, illustrations, hyperlinks, and the like – you come up with the idea and the text.  You send it to us as an email or a Microsoft Word document.  That’s it.

Your pledge does not have to be large: Even pledging one post will help.  In fact, if each of us writes a couple posts, we can probably cover the whole year!

WILL YOU PLEDGE?  If you would like to contribute a blog post (or two, or ten) over the next year, please contact us.  Tell us how many posts you’ll write before AAR 2012, and alert us to any conditions or qualifications on your pledge.  (For example, Quincy Newell pledged six posts, not including posts regarding Seminar business.  You might pledge three posts, of which one will be a book review.  Or not – it’s up to you!)  Please note, too, that the Seminar leadership and RAW blog editor reserve the right to refuse to publish any post that they deem unsuitable for the blog.