A publisher’s day moves from issuing credit notes and invoices, to briefing or being debriefed by one’s IT manager or marketing consultant or distribution partner, to being telephoned by the cover designer or book packager, to being pestered for a decision the editor for book A or book Z, and fighting hard to find time to read for oneself, as well as to keep up with a rapidly-changing industry.
The flexibility required, and the demands on one’s memory and one’s diplomatic abilities, can be huge – and I must confess to falling woefully short in almost every field.
I give myself pass marks in only one field – I try
Mainly because I try to rise to everything that is thrown my way, even in the middle of a hectic work-schedule.
And what I rise to sometimes produces mere drudgery, but often produces joy.
One such joy-giving moment has already come today:
Professor Stephen Sterling of Plymouth University, UK, is a contributor to my forthcoming title, Regenerative Learning: Nurturing People and Caring for the Planet (edited by Satish Kumar and Lorna Howarth, with an array of distinguished contributors from around the world, and with a Foreword by Pope Francis).
He has been co-editing, for over a year now, with Iain Stewart and Victoria Hurth, Re-Purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress – which has just been published as an open access (free to read) e-book on the direction of higher education in our turbulent times: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/14778/re-purposing-universities-for-sustainable-human-progress.
The 24 papers there have varying foci and conclusions, but the collection overall is a major and timely commentary on the ways that the world of higher education needs to be reshaped to respond to our multiple global crises.
Much to think about, here; and no doubt much will be debated. But how lovely to come across deep and thorough systemic thinking on the subject – which will no doubt find its time in the sun, once the concerns of people around the world force vested interests to focus on the need to reform education as a whole.
And that’s just one topic among so many, today, into which I am privileged to have a glimpse.