Interview with an Author: Dr. Jackie Grutsch McKinney

Our April guest author is Dr. Jackie Grutsch McKinney.

Jackie Grutsch McKinney is a Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at Ball State University. She is the author of three academic books, Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers, Strategies for Writing Center Research, and The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors, all of which have won the International Writing Center Association's Outstanding Book Award. 

The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors

Tell us a little about what your specialty studies.

I work within Writing Studies, a scholarly area that is concerned with both how writing works and how writers work. I’m more interested in the latter. Most of my scholarship has been concerned with writing centers, including questions about leadership, administration, aims, and pedagogy.

Tell us about your writing journey. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Maybe? I remember creating a library with my friend when I was about 8 or 9. We wrote and illustrated little books from construction paper and then organized them for our “patrons.” I thought I was a genius poet in high school, but really I was just morose. LOL.

I learned that creative writing isn’t my arena, but I love the challenge of scholarly writing.

I have always loved reading and found insight and power from the written word. I learned that creative writing isn’t my arena, but I love the challenge of scholarly writing. Writing is part of my profession now.

Where did the idea for your study, The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors, develop from?

The Working Lives is a case study of nine new writing center directors over the course of their first or second year on the job, written with my brilliant colleagues, Becky Jackson and Nikki Caswell. A lot of advice about how to be a writing center director circulates, but we noticed that the advice wasn’t tethered to reality.

That is, there wasn’t any research about what the job of being a writing center director was really like. So, we set out to study that—and to document the labor that various directors told us about in monthly interviews.

Are there other books you’ve authored or collaborated on? If so, can you tell us a little about them?

My first book was Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers and there I made the argument that writing center professionals operate as if what I call the grand narrative of writing centers is completely and always true, when it is both true and not true.

My second book, Strategies for Writing Center Research, outlined methods for doing empirical (mostly qualitative) research in and on writing centers.

How does the process of collaboration work between multiple writers? How does it differ from working on a piece of your own?

For The Working Lives, we wrote the whole book together. One of us took lead on a chapter, but then we “passed” drafts to one another in Google docs. We added and revised to the chapters when they came to us.

It is sometimes harder than writing by yourself because it is less under your control, but it always leads to better writing.

It is sometimes harder than writing by yourself because it is less under your control, but it always leads to better writing. Collaboration is particularly helpful in a qualitative study like ours because we could check our interpretations of the data with one another.

Describe your biggest writing obstacle and how you overcame it.

Like many people, I struggle to stay on task, especially when I get to a hard part in the writing, and I’d rather, say, Google “berry bushes that grow in full shade” or go to the kitchen for yet another iced coffee. So, two things help.

One, I set a timer and use the pomodoro method. I do not let myself get off task while the timer is running. The second is related. I keep a notepad next to me and if a worry or another task comes to me while I'm writing, I just jot it down and know that I can let it go until my timer is up.

How do you balance teaching and writing?

Well, I'm also an administrator of a writing center, on the board of my professional organization, and not to mention a mom—so there’s a lot to balance. I guess my main strategy is that I’m a planner and I respect deadlines.

My main strategy is that I’m a planner and I respect deadlines.

Each week I write out my to do list and then I plot those items into my calendar based on when they need to be done. This helps me know that I have a plan for when the work is going to get done and reduces the feeling of panic that I’m forgetting something.

What is the part of the book (or process) you are most proud of?

For Working Lives, I’m most proud of study and findings. We set out to study something that there wasn’t any good data on and we were able to chart the territory of writing center director labor. We’re one of the first to document the emotional labor of writing center directors and many others have now picked up where we left off.

Do you have plans for another book or additional published writing in the future?

Yep. I’ve got an edited collection on autoethnography in Writing Studies in production with Utah State University Press, and I’m working on two new studies. One with Becky and Nikki—a five-year survey study on writing center directors and one by myself on what I’m calling “proximal writing.”

Do you, or would you ever consider, doing creative writing? If so, how do you think that differs from your academic writing?

I have thought about writing nonfiction; however, even with that it would probably resemble my scholarly writing. I love nothing more than reading big, fat novels, but I could never do the world-making that fiction writing requires.

I love nothing more than reading big, fat novels, but I could never do the world-making that fiction writing requires.

What do you want the world to know about you as an author?

I really don’t like attention, so this question is giving me hives! But seriously, within my scholarly area, I hope that my work is respected by colleagues and that it might make meaningful interventions into how we think about writing center work and writers.

What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to aspiring writers?

I don’t know if this is my biggest piece of advice, but my work on understanding proximal writing (when people opt to write in the presence of other writers) has pointed to how helpful it is for some people to seek out others to write with.

Perhaps, think about making regular writing dates with others.

It isn’t helpful for all people and it isn’t always a successful arrangement, but for the folks in my study, they find writing around other writers helps with their focus, confidence, and endurance. So, perhaps, think about making regular writing dates with others.

If you would like to purchase Dr. Grutsch McKinney's latest book The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors you can find a copy here.

If you would like to purchase Dr. Grutsch McKinney's first book, Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers, you can find a copy here.

If you would like to purchase Dr. Grutsch McKinney's second book, Strategies for Writing Center Research, you can find a copy here.

If you know an author (or of an author) you would love to read an interview with, email me at rachel@capturingyourconfidence.com!