Call for Chapters: Edited Collection on the writing of Richard Yates
Richard Yates, author of the cult classic Revolutionary Road, has been described as America’s least-known great writer. Spoken of in revered terms by other writers such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Ford, Yates has a reputation as a writer’s writer. However, during his lifetime his books went in and out of print with alarming regularity, and he never experienced sustained success. The recent reissue of all of his books by Vintage and the release of a major movie adaptation of Revolutionary Road has sparked a resurgence of interest in Yates’s work both with the general public and within academia. With the approach of the 90th anniversary of his birth in 2016 the need for a new volume of essays on this particular writer is pressing. Proposals for chapters to be included in this collection are requested. Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:
• The American dream
• The role of place in Yates’s writing; suburbs and cities
• Houses and homes; material culture and objects
• Autobiography in fiction
• Yates as a realist
• Gender; masculinity; attitudes to feminism; representations of women
• Marriage in Yates’s fiction
• Mental illness and addiction
• The nature of work
• Yates’s short stories
• Literary influences on Yates
• Yates as teacher; his work on creative writing courses
• Legacy; the influence of Yates on other writers
Submission guidelines:
Proposals of no more than 350 words should be submitted by 1st March 2016. Please also include a short biography (maximum of 300 words). Notification of acceptance will be made by 31st March 2016. Full chapters will be due by 1st August 2016. This collection has attracted firm interest from a publisher and it is expected that the full manuscript will be submitted in late 2016. All chapters will be subject to a blind peer review process. Contributors may also be asked to act as reviewers for this collection.
Please submit proposals as word documents to dalyj5@tcd.ie using the subject line ‘Richard Yates Collection’. Full details and submission guidelines will be provided to contributors on acceptance of proposals.
Any queries can be sent to the editor, Jennifer Daly: dalyj5@tcd.ie