Client: Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR)
Women’s Health and the World’s Cities, edited by Afaf Meleis, Eugenie Birch, and Susan Wachter and published by the University of Pennsylvania Press
A peer-reviewed book exploring the research and practice of creating cities supportive of women’s health
My Role
I managed all stages of development of this multi-author, peer-reviewed volume. I also provided developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading; drafted interstitial material and book jacket text; and selected photographs and managed image licensing.
The Challenge
With three co-editors and 28 contributing authors, this was an ambitious and sprawling project. A primary objective was to present the perspectives of practitioners as well as researchers, to deliver a truly useful resource for those working to improve conditions for women in cities around the world. While this approach promised to deliver an impactful book, it brought numerous challenges: some of the contributors had never written an academic paper, and some did not write fluently in English. Even the researchers who contributed to the book — all of whom were generally familiar with academic publishing — came from different disciplines that hewed to different conventions (such as different citation styles, formatting, tones of voice, and even structure).
The Solution
This project’s challenges were also its strengths: so many perspectives resulted in an especially useful, nuanced resource. But making the book cohesive required having one point of continuity — that was my role. By having me manage the various threads and loose ends at every stage — from substantially revising draft papers, to formatting files, to compiling all the citations into a single file with consistent style and without duplicates — Penn IUR was able to create a practical book that conveyed both big ideas as well as on-the-ground steps to make urban development more supportive of women’s health.