As someone interested in rhetoric, new media, and in joining a digital publishing community, I’ve spent the last few years eye-balling various online journals.  I’ve anxiously watched as a number of journals released shout-outs for editorial assistants, reviewers, or editors, but never found myself getting excited enough about any particular journal to send in that familiar “Hello, I’m interested in working for your awesome journal” query.

But then I found Harlot.

I began following the journal in the summer of 2012 when one of my much-admired professors, Kristin Arola, published an award-winning video in the journal.  After watching the video and reading various other pieces, I thought “Wow, this journal is doing some cool stuff.”

My interest in Harlot continued to grow as I encountered creative multi-media pieces like Abigail Lambke’s “The Oral Aural Walter Ong,” quirky sci-fi analyses like Rita Malenczyk’s  “Scully and Me: Or, The X-Files, Revisited” and big-statement pieces like Elizabeth Kuechenmeister’s “‘I Had an Abortion’”: A Feminist Analysis of the Abortion Debate.”  These works, along with my growing admiration for the journal editors’ dedication to publishing articles that don’t fit tidily into traditional academic venues, led me from simply reading Harlot to wanting to join the staff.  At last I was ready to send in that long overdue email inquiry.

Luckily for me, the Harlot crew responded to my query with a generous “welcome aboard!” and I’m now working on cool social media projects with folks like Paul Mulhuaser and Kaitlin Dyer.  Over the next year, we hope to expand the journal’s social media presence as well as craft and curate educational materials for teachers.  Working on these projects, as well as getting to know both the Harlot editors and contributors, is an exciting process and already titillating my inner rhetor-teacher-tech-nerd.

*****

Lori Beth De Hertogh is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric and Composition program at Washington State University.

Help wanted, by Thewmatt

Harlot wants you!

Now in its third year of publication, Harlot is looking to expand its consortium — a group of reviewers who work hard to make sure all published submissions are smart, fun, provocative, and a good fit for Harlot. Harlot is open to all people who are interested in acts of persuasion, and we are currently most in need of individuals outside academia.

Reviewing is easy. Just as we ask creators to mind five particular goals in mind, we ask reviewers to answer the same questions in their responses:

1. Success: Is the piece appropriate for Harlot? Does it achieve its goals/potentials? Is the production quality high?
2. Significance: Are the ideas relevant, interesting, and provocative to broad audiences?
3. Accessibility: Is the piece welcoming and appealing to audiences’ varying reading abilities and assistive technologies?
4. Personality: Does the piece exhibit wit, charm, humor?
5. Ethics: Is the work respectful and inclusive of diverse individuals and communities? Does it abide by legal and moral codes of copyright and fair use?

If you’re interested in joining, please visit Harlot’s registration page, click the box next to “Reviewer,” and enter your interests. And then tell your friends!

Begging burro, by Gottolson

We want you.

Happy fall from your friends at Harlot. We’ve got some treats for you: A Katrina survivor delves into stories that reveal more than just memories of a New Orleans’ past; a student produces a coming out performance through her writing; a photo lover questions whether the love is for the photo or the emotion it consistently conjures; relationships of adulthood are pondered by a movie-goer through the lens of Up in the Air; and sexuality is expressed in a pair of suspenders.

Intrigued? Excellent. Don’t forget to post your thoughts in response—just hit “Add Comment” to keep the conversation going!

We’re currently accepting submissions for our spring 2011 special issue, focused around the theme of family rhetoric. The deadline isn’t until January 15th, so you’ve got plenty of time to ponder why your brother flushed your favorite toy down the toilet when you were 6… how your parents managed to convince you to sit for that sibling portrait in the 80s… or what strategies you rely on to survive the holiday onslaught of aunts. You figured out early on to ask Dad for certain things and Mom for others–how did you know to do that? What were the differences between those approaches?

For more ideas, check out the full call on the announcements page, where you can also see some highly embarrassing shots of yours truly. As always, feel free to shoot us a line to chat about your inspirations, hesitations, or just to say howdy!

And of course, don’t forget that we accept pieces for consideration throughout the year. We’ve got reviewers standing by to help you polish that rant or sharpen that observation into the next Harlot masterpiece.

Speaking of: We want to extend a hearty congrats to contributor and blogger Ben McCorkle on being awarded Computers and Composition’s Michelle Kendrick Outstanding Digital Production/Scholarship Award for his “The Annotated Obama Poster,” which appeared in Harlot‘s second issue. Honored for its intellectual and creative awesomeness, McCorkle’s piece exemplifies the smart, accessible rhetorical criticism Harlot was designed to share.

In other news, we’re delighted to announce our shiny new ISSN: 2156-924X. Yup, that means the Library of Congress now has a listing for a journal named Harlot. And so does the Modern Language Association (MLA) Directory of Periodicals! Sa-weet.

And finally, we’re partnering with some design peeps to develop a new, more inviting look for Harlot. Of course, we’d like you to have a say in that re-vision… so let us know what you’d like to see!