Writing, Editing, Publishing: A Memoir

I. LETTERS FROM CARLO COPPOLA

Carlo Coppola, a distinguished scholar of South Asia and Professor Emeritus at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, is a man of wide-ranging intellectual and artistic interests. Editor of the prestigious Journal of South Asian Literature published from Oakland University, USA, he has translated numerous poems and short stories from Urdu and worked on Ahmed Ali.

JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE

430 Wilson Hall; Oakland University

Rochester, MI 48063 U.S.A.

5 March 1984

Dear Dr. Singh:

My panel of readers has responded to your paper “The Vision of Death in O.P. Bhatnagar’s Poetry,” and they are unanimous that JSAL should not publish the piece.

Their reason is primarily because the poet has not himself achieved the distinction as a writer that merits your essay. This is not to say that the poet is not a good poet, nor that your essay is not a good essay. For Bhatnagar is a good poet, and your paper is a good essay. However, with the large number of other papers and submissions we have been receiving from critics of other poets—both in English and in the vernacular—the committee recommends that we use JSAL pages for these, and suggest that perhaps you try to place your article in another publication. One which immediately comes to mind is WORLD LITERATURE WRITTEN IN ENGLISH, c/o Department of English, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontarion, CANADA. This journal specializes only in English literature, whereas JSAL deals with all South Asian literatures.

We shall be sending you reprints of your review MODERN TRENDS IN INDO-ENGLISH POETRY after Volume 19, No.1 in which it appears is published in June 1984.

We do want to thank you for your interest in JSAL.

Sincerest best wishes,

Carlo Coppola

Editor

25 June 1984

Dear Dr. Singh:

I wish to acknowledge with gratitude receipt of your review of INDO-AUSTRALIAN FLOWERS, ed. V.S. Skanda Prasad for JSAL.

I shall be pleased to use the review in the 1985 issues of the journal. I am pleased that you have sent this review, for there is a considerable time lapse between the publication of books in India and their notice in the U.S. Hence, I would appreciate receiving from you from time to time reviews of this nature.

Your review of H.S. Bhatia’s MODERN TRENDS IN INDO-ENGLISH POETRY appears in JSAL, Vol. 19, No.1, which appeared only last week. You shall be receiving your offprints sometime during the summer.

I would appreciate receiving from you a short biographical statement which I might edit and use in our “NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS.”

Many thanks for your kind interest in JSAL.

Sincerely yours,

Carlo Coppola

Editor

II. A LETTER FROM WILLIAM RIGGAN

William Riggan is Editor of World Literature Today, a literary quarterly, which appears from the University of Oklahoma, USA.

23 May 1984

Dear Dr. Singh:

I am pleased to inform you that we accept your short article on the poetry of O.P. Bhatnagar, “Average is Large,” for publication in WLT. We had known of Mr. Bhatnagar only by name but found our interested genuinely piqued by your article. Corroboration of your assessments and characterizations of his work by several of our specialists confirmed our initial reaction and persuaded us to publish the piece. It will most likely appear in our Winter 1985 number, scheduled for mid-February release.

I enclose several information sheets and request forms for you in connection with acceptance of the essay. Please return the appropriate sheets at your earliest convenience. Thank you for thinking of us in regard to the essay.

Cordially yours,

William Riggan

Associate Editor

III. A LETTER FROM GRACE STOVALL MANCILL

Grace Stovall Mancill of the American University in Washington started in 1980 the now prestigious The ESP Journal, which was a major milestone in English for Specific Purposes teaching practices in the 80s. The journal’s publication was “a gamble” and great struggle to fill the pages of two issues a year.

The ESP Journal

English Language Institute

The American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

April 8, 1982

Dear Dr. Singh,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript, “ESP: Communication Constraints”. I regret to say that in its present form it is not in line with the sort of papers we accept for The ESP Journal.

If you will permit me, I would like to suggest an alternative approach which could have great value. It appears that you have devoted much thought to an analysis of what ESP is and should be in Indian educational institutions. You may be able to provide a counterbalance to some of the common assumptions of writers of ESP textbooks.

As an example of the assumptions which I myself have had reason to question, such textbooks as Nucleus: General Science (Bates and Dudley-Evans) and English in Physical Science (Allen and Widdowson) work on the principle that students who will use these materials already have (1) a dormant competence in English, and (2) a basic acquaintance with general science. Taken together, these assumptions seem to me to imply an expectation either that the students are in England (or the United States) or that the English (or American) educational system can be exported whole to other countries. Thus ESP textbooks may be just as culture bound in their own way as are general English textbooks centering on life in Britain or the United States.

For this reason, an insider’s view of the teaching of ESP in India, particularly as it may serve to correct some mistaken assumptions held by those who are not familiar with conditions there, could be quite instructive. For example, could you summarize the information one might gather as a result of considering the factors which you mention in the last paragraph of page one, continuing to page 2, second paragraph? Also, your comments on the typical course syllabus in India (pages 2-3) are interesting. Could you give illustrative details?

There is already much material in your manuscript which could be reoriented toward this alternative view. If you feel that you would like to undertake a revision of your manuscript along the lines suggested, we would be happy to consider it for publication. For your guidance, I am enclosing a copy of Instructions to Authors. Thank you for your interest in the Journal.

Sincerely yours,

Grace Stovall Mancill

Editor

IV. A LETTER FROM NORMAN F. DAVIES

Norman F. Davies of the Department of Language and Literature, University of Linköping, Sweden was editor of System, the international journal of educational technology and language learning systems, published in association with the Pergamon Institute of Engllish (Oxford) and Pergamon Press. He also authored Language Acquisition , Language Learning and the School Curriculum (1980).

Linköping 22 April 1982

Dear Dr Singh,

Thank you for your article, “ESP: Communication Constraints”. This has now been refereed and we are pleased to tell you that it is suitable for publication in System.

Our earlier possible date of printing is late 1983 or early 1984. If this is acceptable to you, please fill in and return the enclosed transfer of copyright.

Thank you for contacting us.

Yours sincerely,

Norman F. Davies

V. A LETTER FROM W.R. LEE

W.R. Lee (1911-1996) is one of the respected names in English Language Teaching practices. He was appointed as OBE in 1979 for his selfless efforts to promote ELT. For many years he ran the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), and edited the ELT Journal, published by Oxford University Press, and World Language English, published by the Pergamon Institute of English (Oxford).

13 November 1984

Dear Dr Singh,

Thank you for your letter of 23 October, which I find awaiting me on my return from abroad.

Yes, I am very sorry to have to tell you that World Language English will cease to exist in its present form after the October issue, in which there is an announcement to this effect. According to the publishers, the journal will be transformed into ‘a research journal of the more conventional Pergamon type’, concentrating on ‘the upper end of the educational scale’. I realise that this is disappointing news, but unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it.

I understand that the journal will be edited, from the States, by Professor Kachru and Professor L. Selinker.

I am not retiring from the profession but will remain fully active in various ways, and will be able to return to writing. Perhaps – who knows?—I may even come to edit another journal. But I have plenty to do already, what with examining, school inspections, contributions to conferences etc.

I do not know why you have not heard from Harley Stratton. Your review of Kachru’s book was sent in with the copy for the October issue, which should be out almost immediately.

Thank you for your very kind remarks and your good wishes, which I reciprocate. We must remain in touch.

Yours sincerely,

W.R. Lee

VI. LETTERS FROM ELT JOURNAL

Catherine Robinson, Assistant Editor (Journals) of the ELT Department, Oxford University Press, Oxford, corresponded with me about my submissions to the prestigious The ELT Journal.

31 August 1984

Dear Dr Singh

ELT Journal Vol. 38 No. 3

Thank you for your letter of 20 July concerning your review of Working with English Idioms, which was published in the July issue.

Two complimentary copies of this issue were posted to you by surface mail in the third week of June. I hope that they will have reached you by now. At the same time, a cheque for £20.00 was despatched to you by air mail.

Your letter suggests that you were expecting to receive offprints of your review, and a year’s free subscription to the journal. I am sorry that we omitted to inform you that the Board of Management decided six months ago to change their policy with regard to payment of contributors, and to make a cash payment instead of a payment in kind.

I hope that this arrangement will be acceptable to you.

Yours sincerely

C.M. Robinson

Catherine Robinson

Assistant Editor (Journals)

ELT Department

English Language Teaching Division OXFORD ENGLISH

27 November 1985

Dear Dr Singh

ELT Journal Vol. 39 No. 4

With reference to your review of Grammar in Context, published in the October 1985 issue of ELT Journal, I write to confirm that early last month I arranged for part of your fee -- £8.85 – to be transferred to IATEFL in lieu of your membership fees. On receipt of your query dated 8.11.85, I telephoned IATEFL, and received confirmation that this sum had been received. It was pointed out to me, however, that if your wish your IATEFL literature to be sent by airmail, you should send them the sum of £3.50.

I have pleasure in enclosing a copy of the October issue containing your review.

Yours sincerely

C.M. Robinson

Catherine Robinson

Assistant Editor (Journals)

ELT Division

English Language Teaching Division OXFORD ENGLISH

3 March 1986

Dear Dr Singh

ELT Journal

Thank you very much for sending us your photograph for display on our Fortieth Anniversary exhibition stand. We are most grateful for your cooperation.

Yours sincerely

C.M. Robinson

VII. LETTERS FROM JALT

James Swan, an ELT expert, used to coedit JALT Newsletter, published by The Japan Association of Language Teachers, Tokyo.

24 Sep 1983

Dear Dr. Singh,

Thank you for your letter of September 14^th and the two book reviews, Authentic Reading and Writing Skills. We were very gratified to receive a response from such a distance. Yesterday I spoke with our general editor, Ms LoCastro, at the JALT 83 National Convention and showed her your two reviews. She also was gratified and pleased.

So, I am happy to inform you that your review of Authentic Reading will be accepted for publication in the JALT Newsletter. Unfortunately, the same book is currently in the process of being reviewed by a domestic JALT member, Mr. David Dinsmore, who requested our official review copy early in September. Under our customary practice, he is requested to actually use the text with his classes for several months before reporting on it, so we don’t expect a review from him until at least Feb 1984—which would mean a publication date of no earlier than April 1984. In consultation with Ms LoCastro we have decided to withhold your review from publication until we receive Mr Dinsmore’s, then publish both reviews in tandem. This seems to us the fairest procedure to follow, since we did more or less assure him of reviewing priority by assigning him the official review copy. We hope that both you and he will find no objection to this unusual arrangement.

Regarding Writing Skills: no domestic JALT member has yet requested the official review copy, so we will offer you the publishing priority on the basis of the review you have submitted. As it stands, however, the review seems to us to be a little thin. Not only is it quite brief, but the second and third paragraphs in particular seem to be little more than lists. If you would please expand it according to the enclosed guidelines and resubmit, we will receive it gladly.

Our backlog of reviews is currently sufficient to fill the November and December issues. If you can return a revised book review to us quickly, perhaps it could be published in the January issue.

Sincerely,

James Swan

4 May 1984

Dear Dr Singh,

I must apologize for the long delay in responding to your March 1 letter, and also for most of the news the letter will contain. Please do not kill the messenger for bearing the message!

The review of Authentic Reading should be appearing in this month’s issue (May) rather than in last month’s, due to the delay in getting Mr Dismore’s review to press. As you recall, I had offered to publish both of your reviews at the same time since we had given him our JALT review copy and had, ineffect, “appointed” him to write the Newsletter’s review of that book. Although the magazine is always dated the 1^st of the month, in reality it almost never arrives until the 6^th or 7^th, so I am still waiting to be sure that your two reviews do in fact appear. If all has gone as planned, I will request our central office to send you a complimentary copy, as before.

You may be dismayed to note the vast disparity of opinions on the book between yourself and Mr Dinsmore. In your March 1 letter you wonder if the fact that you have found audience in Japan might not also indicate that the India/Japan EFL experiences do not differ so significantly. I have no experience in India, but from what I gather, I would expect the teaching there to be a different world. In Japan, no pretense of English being anything but a foreign language is made; English study is mostly one of the obstacles used on college entrance exams to weed out the unfortunate ones who will never enter top-class universities and whose careers are therefore to be similarly stunted. Fluency is never expected, only grammatical mastery for translation purposes. Entrance examination questions are commonly of the “which-preposition-fits-best-in-this-space” type. Classes are generally conducted along the lines of rote memorization translation exercises. It is a deplorable situation which has been much deplored for the entire 10 years that I have been in Japan—but with little effect, although the Ministry of Education has long recognized the problems.

Needless to say, the concept of “different but equally valid Englishes” is a concept whose time has not yet come in Japan. Even Australians have difficulty in being accepted; basically the question in Japan is whether to study American English or British English. Racially, blacks and Japanese-Americans have more difficulty in finding a decent job than blue-eyed blonds (of which I am one) do, although this problem seems to be easing somewhat—I have no data to back up this feeling, it’s just a feeling.

Most foreigners in Japan are in the “conversation school” teaching situation—perhaps a uniquely Japanese institution. After concentrating on reading and translation for so many years in secondary and tertiary schooling, many business people find themselves lacking even the most rudimentary communicative skills in English, and pay outrageously high tuition to commercial language schools for the dubious privilege of spending 90 minutes at a time in a class with an American or British native speaker, who may or may not have any kind of education beyond high school, let alone teacher training or linguistic awareness. (After the collapse of the Shah of Iran and the rise of the Khoumeni government there, however, many Westerners left the Middle East and began drifting into Japan with their MA degrees in TESOL or Applied Linguistics, so perhaps that particular abuse has been somewhat alleviated these days, too.)

Be all of this as it may, college/university/junior college teaching jobs are all hotly contested and avidly sought after here in Japan. Full-time TESOL jobs for foreigners are very rare—most schools have one or two token foreigners on their staff, and many times they are not full-time or tenured positions. (So far, my own position isn’t a full-time one, either.) Japanese universities generally have a ratio of full-time (tenured) teachers to part-time teachers on the order of 1:5. This, too, is a deplorable situation which is not likely to change in the near future. I would say that the chances of anyone getting even a part-time college job by merely submitting a resume or vitae are almost infinitesimal. Most hiring in Japan is not done openly, but through personal connection—after which the connector is held quasi-responsible for the connectee’s conduct, which keeps Japan’s social system in the condition that it is in, for good or ill. Without having lived in Japan for several years and having met many people in the right places, it is almost impossible to be considered for such a position, despite a strong academic history.

After having said all of this, however, I will tell you that one man trying to make a dent on the existing system is Mr. Joseph Liberman of Ashiya University in Kobe, a city about 1 ½ hours from here. He has organized (or tried to organize) a job referral system for college teaching. You might write to him and find out how he is doing (my prediction is: not very well, but it can’t hurt you to ask him, anyway).

I hope all this doesn’t depress you unduly. I’ll certainly have a copy of the issue containing Authentic Reading sent to you as soon as it appears.

Yours,

Jim Swan

VIII. A LETTER FROM TEAM

TEAM used to appear from the English Language Center of the University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Stan Gentry was the Book Reviews Editor.

October 9, 1984

Dear Dr. Singh:

By now you will have received my letter of 29 September and the extra copies of TEAM sent to you by our Circulation Manager, Mr Tesdell. I hope the matter is settled to your satisfaction.

Mr. Adams, our Editor, has asked me to reply to your letter of 21 September in which you generously offer to review Hugh Gethin’s Grammar in Context.

Of course we should be delighted to receive yet another review from you. As a matter of fact, your review of Meyer’s Engineering: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is scheduled to appear in our Winter ’84 issue (#49).

It is our present policy not to publish reviews by the same contributor in consecutive issues. This is the reason that your review of the Atkins and McKean book appeared in our Summer ’84 (#47) issue and the Meyers review is scheduled for Winter ’84 (#49).

Nevertheless, we shall be most appreciative to consider a further review. It is simply that we cannot guarantee its publication for quite some time—perhaps Summer ’85 or Autumn ’85. By that time, the book will have been on the market for two years or more.

Should you wish to have the review published prior to that time, it would perhaps be in your best interest to submit it to another publication. That is quite understandable. If, on the other hand, you still wish to send it to TEAM, I can assure you it will be most kindly considered.

Once again, let me take this opportunity to thank you for all your contributions and for your interest in TEAM.

Most sincerely,

Stan Gentry

TEAM Book Reviews Editor

IX. LETTERS FROM BRAJ B. KACHRU

Braj B. Kachru (b. 1932), well known for his pioneering studies on socio-cultural and pedagogical dimensions of cross-cultural diffusion of English, is Jubilee Profesor Emeritus of Linguistics, in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA. Founder and co-editor of World Englishes, his contribution to linguistics has been legendary. He is internationally respected for his numerous research articles, lectures, and books which include The Other Tongue (1982), The Indianization of English (1983), The Alchemy of English (1990), Asian Englishes: Beyond the Canon (2005), etc.

Letters: 1-2

July 9, 1987

Dear Dr. Singh:

I just received your letter of June 29^th and the review of Alchemy published in The Language Teacher. Thank you for writing the review and for your positive reaction to the book. In recent years I have read several of your reviews in ELT, WLE, RELC Journal, and so on. I am impressed with the thoroughness, precision, and over all quality of your reviews.

I would encourage you to send us reviews for WE. But before you actually write a review please check with our review editors (Professors Sridhar and Lowenberg) if the book you select has been assigned to another reviewer. Normally, all the reviews in WE are written by invitation. We would be interested in the reviews of books published in South Asia.

No, Bahri has not given the book to Yamuna Kachru. It seems that he called her up in Delhi and expressed an intention of doing so. It is good that he has mailed a copy to us now. We will certainly review it in WE.

Your second review of Alchemy (in Focus on English) is obviously held in mail somewhere. I have not received it as yet.

In my next visit to India for field work, I am planning to visit Bihar: It will be at the end of 1987. Perhaps I will get a chance to get together with you then.

Again, thank you and with best wishes, I remain,

Yours sincerely,

B.B.Kachru

Braj B. Kachru

Professor of Linguistics

Director

October 12, 1991

Dear Dr. Singh,

It was very nice to get your recent letter and to learn about your proposal for a book on Indian English poetry.

I appreciate your kind invitation to me to submit an article for the volume. As you know, I have not published any articles in this area though I very much enjoy reading (and listening to) Indian English poetry. Only last week we had A.K. Ramanujan here and his poetry reading session was a delightful experience.

I can think of two persons who might be interested in your project as possible contributors: Professor Giridhari L. Tikku, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Professor S.N. Sridhar, 273 Hallock Road, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA. I am sure that in India you have already contacted Makrand Paranjape and Rukmini Bhaya Nair. I have not been to Dhanbad for several years although I did go to India several times. My indifferent health makes it rather difficult to get to Dhanbad.

Do keep in touch. My best wishes for the success of your latest project and other academic endeavors.

Yours sincerely,

B.B.Kachru

Writing, Editing, Publishing: A Memoir

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

MEMOIR Published

Sunday, August 14, 2016

WRITING EDITING PUBLISHINGH: A MEMOIR

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Friday, July 22, 2016

LETTERS FROM CARLO COPPOLA, WILLIAM RIGGAN, GRACE S. MANCILL, NORMAN F. DAVIES, W.R.LEE, BRAJ B. KACHRU & OTHERS