[Commlist] Call for book proposals -- Queer Film Classics

QUEER FILM CLASSICS: THE SEQUEL! CALL FOR BOOK PROPOSALS

You can't keep a good book series down.

We, Thomas Waugh and Matthew Hays, invite you to propose a book for 
“Queer Film Classics: the Sequel,” which we are undertaking with McGill 
Queen’s University Press, Montreal. We launched our Queer Film Classics 
series of small one-film monographs on individual films with Arsenal 
Pulp Press (Vancouver) in 2008, and completed its 19-edition run in 2019.

Our new publisher, McGill-Queen’s University Press, we expect to produce 
a diverse set of approximately ten new titles to appear between 2020 and 
2025. Waugh has brought out several books with this well-established 
academic publisher, innovative and queer-friendly. Please visit their 
site at https://www.mqup.ca/  for further information.

We hope you have a queer classic film that you’ve always wanted to write 
a slim volume on and will send us an expression of interest by January 1 
2020. This should take the shape of:  a 500-word proposal; a brief 
timeline (e.g. “I want to write on Christopher Strong for the 2022 
round, with my submission deadline on May 1 2021); and a brief bio or 
c.v. We will respond to your proposal within a month of receiving it.

We're looking for passionate writers (both those with established track 
records and relative newbies are welcome to apply) with their choice of 
an LGBTQ2IA film and their rationale for according it book-length 
analysis/attention.

The QFC series has championed writing that is rigorous and 
accessible. Each book is normally comprised of three sections, focusing 
respectively on i) historical, authorial and production context, ii) 
textual analysis, and iii) an open ended essay developing the author’s 
personal interests, perhaps a subjective reading of the work’s sexual 
identity discourses or reception. We emphasize good writing, 
personal but scholarly.

Past volumes have included older classics like Strangers on a 
Train and Scorpio Rising, landmark documentaries like Paris is Burning, 
plus more recent popular fare from underrecognized national 
traditions like C.R.A.Z.Y. We have had a strong representation from 
cinematic canons of both Canada, given our publishing and funding 
context, and the global south, and have explored most of the letters in 
the day’s current alphabet acronym LGBTQ2IA, in terms of both our 
authors and our focused film titles.

We were originally imitating three BFI Film Classics series, but 
developed our own identity and impact, of which we are very proud along 
with our 21 fabulous authors. We are excluding the possibility 
of overlapping any films that are covered by the BFI or the similar 
“Cultographies” and “Devil’s Advocates” series. Please see below a list 
of “queer-ish” titles covered by six existing single-film 
monograph series, for which we will not accept submissions.

Your “expression of interest” can address one of the films on our long 
database of suggested titles (see below), or something we have 
overlooked. Our criteria for selection are indicated in the 
attached proposal, and we will evaluate each proposal on its own merits 
as well as on the significance of the selected film, and on the overall 
composition of the series in relation to national origin and 
cultural representation (i.e. we don’t want a series on ten Randal 
Kleiser films). The series emphasizes feature fiction films, but we hope 
to include some documentary and experimental work and perhaps porn 
(The 2009-2019 roster included one book on pornography and we continue 
to be open to this genre). Please note that while Italian and Spanish 
films are well represented in our initial roster, other European 
films are not. Given our embrace of “classic,” we will likely continue 
our practice of not prioritizing films made within the last decade, 
except on an exceptional basis. Otherwise we leave the definition of 
“classic” to be defined and negotiated by our individual authors. We 
will also likely continue our practice of including only films that are 
available to prospective readers in some way, whether by DVD or 
streaming, etc

We envisage each volume as being between 30,000 and 50,000 words in 
length, plus endmatter. The books will be peer reviewed as they are 
published with a university press and publication will be subject to 
approval on scholarly grounds based on peer review.  But as with earlier 
Queer Film Classics books, they will equally distinctive for their 
accessibility, avoidance of jargon, and openness to a crossover trade 
readership of buffs and non-specialists. We expect each volume to 
include approximately thirty production stills or frame enlargements 
from the film or other relevant illustrations, normally in black and white.

If we invite submission of your manuscript, the book will be placed 
under contract by McGill-Queen’s and an advance contract for the book 
will be issued.  You can expect the book to benefit from our role 
as series editors and you will work directly with an acquisitions editor 
at McGill-Queen’s once the manuscript is complete and ready to submit.

Kindly send us your “expression of interest” by January 1 2020 
at (thomas.waugh /at/ concordia.ca) and (matthew.hays /at/ sympatico.ca) as well as to 
MQUP Editor in Chief Jonathan Crago at (jonathan.crago /at/ mcgill.ca). We hope 
you will seriously consider joining us on this renewed pleasurable and 
momentous publishing adventure
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