By Sierra Pawlak Fifty-six textbooks were awarded 2024 Textbook Awards by TAA, representing more than 100 authors. We recently reached out to these award-winning authors asking several questions, including how they fit writing time into their schedule, what pedagogical elements in their textbook they are most proud of, and what they wish they had known before they started writing their textbook. We hope their answers provide insight and inspiration for your writing projects. Why did you decide to write your textbook? Brian Wardyga, author of The Video Games Textbook and winner of a T ..read more

Dissertation coach Noelle Sterne, the author of Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles, has contributed more than 30 articles to the TAA Blog over the past 10 years. We’ve curated all of these articles into a new TAA Blog category, Noelle Sterne’s Dissertation Posts, and have included 12 of them here. Enjoy! Cultivate Your Dissertation Flow June 16, 2024 In your dissertation writing, you’ve probably experienced the all-too-common range of emotions from initial elation to paralyzing fear to plunging despair, and between many starts, sto ..read more

Cengage, the leading provider of higher education materials, is currently seeking new textbook authors across all disciplines to join its creative team. “While we’re eager to collaborate on full-length narratives, we’re equally interested in working with writers on smaller, focused projects as well,” said Erika Longstreth, Cengage’s Author Relations Manager. “If you’re a writer looking to contribute your unique viewpoint, whether through a comprehensive narrative or more targeted endeavor, we’d love to hear from you.” Longstreth, and Catherine Schnurr, Director of Product Strategy & Operat ..read more

TAA members can download this new sample from TAA’s Templates & Samples Resource Library, “Anatomy of An Author’s Email or Letter to Adopting Faculty or Committee,” developed by Jamie Pope, co-author of Nutrition for a Changing World. It walks authors through the essential elements of what to include in the letter to potential adopting faculty or a committee, with concrete examples based on what she does when she is reaching out to these groups for her own book. Access to TAA’s Templates & Samples Resource Library is included with TAA membership. Not a member? Join ..read more

In a recent survey of TAA members about what month works best for them for the association’s annual conference, 61 percent said June. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said May and only 10 percent said April. TAA’s conferences have been held in the first or third month in June since the first one, held in Las Vegas in 1988. The one-question poll was sent to 2,300 TAA members and 109 responded. As a result, the TAA annual conference will continue to be held in June each year at this time, said TAA Executive Director Kim Pawlak. The post TAA Members Prefer the Annual Conference Be Held in June ..read more

Susan Winslow, CEO of Macmillan Learning, delivered the Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook & Academic Authoring Keynote Presentation, “The Very Human Experience of Learning,” at TAA’s 2024 Annual Conference in Nashville June 20. Macmillan Learning’s Senior Director of Communications Marisa Bluestone posted an article in the publisher’s online Macmillan Community about CEO Susan Winslow’s Keynote presentation at the 2024 TAA Conference, “The Very Human Experience of Learning.” The article, “How Authors & Educators Can Shape AI’s Future in Education,” shared how Winslow’s discussion wi ..read more

By John Bond We are living in a Golden Age of technology for authors. But sometimes these new or improved tools can be intimidating. Here are some simple steps for getting started on considering these tools that might improve your writing output and quality. Before we start, take an inventory: Currently am I making the best use of my time? Will new tools make me more productive? What’s wrong with your current tools? What is available to you now through your institution? What’s your motivation for a change? Let’s take a look at some popular or important tools for authors. The most popular or ..read more

By Sierra Pawlak The 2024 TAA Conference in Nashville was my first conference as a new TAA staff member, and I was not alone. There were another 37 textbook and/or academic authors who attended for the first time. The Thursday night TAA Council of Fellows networking reception felt so welcoming. You could walk up to any table, and you would be included into the conversation. I hope everyone else shared that experience. There was an overwhelming agreement that the food was delicious, and that the rooftop Pool Club Restaurant in which it was held was a beautiful space with expansive views of Nash ..read more

By Angelica Ribeiro, PhD In her book The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky points out that about 40 percent of our happiness comes from intentional activities. She writes, “Our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are, over and above the effects of our set points and the circumstances in which we find ourselves” (Lyubomirsky, 2008, p. 64). That means we can create happiness by being mindful of our actions. Regarding our professional lives, one action we can take is to attend conferences related to our fields, such as the TAA conference. After attending the ..read more

The following takeaways and “aha” moments were shared at the end of the Saturday Author Talk session at the 2024 TAA Conference in Nashville June 22: “Writing is thinking. Remember that one small step can change your life.” – Qian Ji “I learned two things that were somehow in opposition to one another. The first one is: The journal article is not ‘about’ the data, it is about the story, and the data is there to give support to the story. The second one is: Don’t impose a theme on the evidence, let the theme emerge from the evidence.” – Serena De Stefani “I learned strategies to simplify and or ..read more