Book Review
“Publish & Flourish:  Become a Prolific Scholar” by Tara Gray
Review by Kelli Corner

The book “Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar” by Tara Gray is an extension of the book by Robert Boice entitled “Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide To Productive Writing.” The main points from Grays’ perspective are to immediately start writing and to be systematically organized.

From the first page to the last (page 119) this book is packed with practical ways and means to write more, write better and write to be published. Publish & Flourish is composed of 6 units with a total of 12 chapters. It is simply a 12-step program to follow for want-to-be writers.

The six units are entitled; Managing Time, Writing, Revising, Getting Help, and Polishing and Letting Go. Several portions are self-explanatory and reiterate the Professors as Writers book. There are, however, two areas that Gray really does a better job of expressing and encouraging writers in their quest. 

In the unit on revising, Gray explains that good writing is organized around key sentences.  As she states, “it orients the reader and helps them navigate”. This concept keeps the writer from writing run-on sentences and trying to pack too many thoughts into one paragraph, and helps focus the idea the writer really means to express. As she explained it at her seminar at CMU last year, it requires only one point per paragraph and reduces editing later on.

The second area I found very helpful was the way she presses writers to develop reading circles. All of us have accountability issues. Telling others what we are working on and at what stage in the process we are can be very demoralizing. I have had intentions to write for many years, but all those good ideas haven’t come to fruition. Have family, friends and acquaintances read outlines, abstracts and rough drafts. Gray’s comment about making changes really hit home; 89% of the time your reviewers disagree with you but agree with each other. Make the changes that others suggest - it will make the writing better and thus more likely to be published.

Being published is the goal. Learn the steps that others have used and been successful with. As an Adjunct Professor for CMU for 10 years it’s about time I put words on paper and had them printed. Thank you for the opportunity to review these books and write this review.

Title:  Publish & Flourish:  Become a Prolific Scholar
Authors:  Gray, Tara
Price:  ?
Publisher:  Teaching Academy, NMSU
Year:  2005
Pages:  132