by Rebecca on 2009-01-14
Doesnʼt that sound fancy? Iʼm almost hesitant to tell you the story, because Iʼd like to leave an aura of mystery around myself. But Iʼll just tell you, and youʼll have to think about other things that you think are mysterious about me. (And if you want to know more about something, leave me a comment. I think this blog is kind of boring sometimes, so Iʼm always looking for things to write about.)
I was a graduate student once, five years ago or so. I worked as a research assistant for a professor in the sociology department, who happened to be the assistant dean or some other administrative type and needed help with cleaning some data for a research project. So, for a few weeks in the semester, I read through interview transcripts of some interviews that one of her other students had done with low-income fathers in Utah County who were no longer living with their children or their childrenʼs mother(s). I had to edit and classify the interviews somehow, but I donʼt remember exactly. Just helping a scholar get her data classified.
And then I graduated, and the good professor and I parted our ways. She emailed me once in a while saying that she was working on the fathering article and needed me to keep my address updated in case it were ever to be accepted for publication.
Well. After hearing from her once a year for five years, I got this email from her, which she had received from her publisher.
I am happy to inform you of the final acceptance of your article, “‘Just Be There For Them’: Perceptions of Fathering Among Single, Low-income Men.” for publication in Fathering. Your article should appear in Vol. 7, #1 (2009).
Iʼm listed as the third author on this article (I donʼt know who the second author is). “Author” is definitely a generous term, and Iʼm surprised that she considered my data cleanup efforts worthy of co-authorship.
So, there you go. Published. Legitimate. But probably not famous. And thatʼs fine with me.