The culmination of a long process?

In browsing through my Google Reader feed this morning I came across this note on Juvenile Instructor, a Mormon history-focused blog:

The Mormon History Association

The Fall 2009 issue (35:4) just arrived in the mail. I will be providing a review later in the week.

While this seemingly boring comment appears unrelated to virtually everything else I’ve written on this blog, I’m taking particular interest because this issue of the Journal of Mormon History includes my first published piece of historical research–an article about the Mormon Pavilion at the 1964-65 World’s Fair.

The article began as my senior thesis at Columbia. In addition to helping me grow as a scholar and historian, the thesis served as a way for me to connect with my Utah roots while away at college in New York. Moreover, researching and writing the paper also provided a good education about the dominant culture of my hometown–something I knew very little about growing up in my Utah “gentile” network.

The thesis sat dormant on my bookshelf at home for a number of years until I shared it with one of my professors at UT-Arlington. With his encouragement and feedback I decided to submit the article for publication in early 2008 and learned that it had been accepted in August 2008. Over the next year I sent revisions back and forth with the very thorough and helpful editor of the Journal and am immensely proud of the end result–a product that is vastly superior to my original draft as a result of the critical and insightful feedback I received from the editor as well as the anonymous readers.

I’m looking forward to what the Juvenile Instructor’s review has to say about the article. Hopefully I’ll also get some email from interested parties. Once my copy shows up in the mail I’ll take some pictures of the Journal and post them here. Perhaps I’ll also find the inspiration for another, slightly more extensive post, about the process of article submission and revision.

‘Til then!