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The 2026 TAA Institute for Textbook and Academic Authors will be held June 12 and 13, and is aimed at providing both new and veteran textbook and academic authors a deep dive into topics such as AI and authoring, navigating DEI issues, contracts, publishing in the modern age, and more. Get $50 off registration with code DP26.

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Florida Lawmakers Aim to Give Statewide Boards Power to Amend Gen Ed (June 2, 2026)

White House Aims to Establish Political Oversight of Federal Grants (May 29, 2026)

3 Things to Know About Trump’s Higher Education Grant Competitions (May 28, 2026)

Can Higher Ed Workers Defend Themselves Against AI? (May 20, 2026)

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We asked 2026 Textbook Award winners some questions about their authoring experience. Two respondents, Peter Copeland and Janok Bhattacharya, co-authors of

Q: Why did you decide to write your textbook?

Janok: “The idea was actually my co-author’s, Pete Copeland. Neither of us were that happy with the current textbooks on Earth History. They were mostly written for Geology majors, versus as a general elective course. We decided a narrative approach that tells the great stories of Earth History might be more appealing. Pete and I had written a paper together and we both thought we would work well with each other.”

Peter: “I decided to write this book after teaching the class a few times and realizing I was telling stories that were not in the book. So I decided to write a book that was centered around stories.”

Q: How did you decide which publishers to approach with your textbook idea? Can you share any tips for selecting a publisher?

Janok: “Pete approached Cambridge University Press (CUP) in 2016 and they seemed keen about our idea. We wrote two sample chapters, a preface, and an outline. CUP sent these to potential adopters and received positive feedback, following which we signed a formal contract in 2018.”

Peter: “Ten years ago, publishers still sent reps around to faculty offices to promote books and to encourage faculty to write books. I got a good response from Cambridge.”

Q: What strategies do you use to fit writing time into your schedule? How much time do you spend writing each day?

Janok: “Luckily I had a sabbatical leave from July 1 2019 to June 30, 2020 and given that COVID barred travel, I was able to devote a lot of time to work on the book. I typically work at home at least one day a week and spend that time writing and editing. In addition to writing, some topics in the book required research, especially in areas that I was not an expert. Rather than every day, I tended to write in blocks of time, especially days that I did not have classes to teach.”

Peter: “Writing a book was much like writing anything else. I find time between the things that have a close deadline.”

Q: Which pedagogical elements in your textbook are you most proud of?

Janok: “I was surprised at how good the figures looked. CUP insisted we pick a relatively narrow range of colors and this gives a feeling of coherence to the book. CUP also insisted we include learning objectives, Key Points, a point form summary, and review questions. We were a bit resistant to these at first, mostly because we were worried it would make the book too long. They originally told us we had to keep the words down to 130,000, but at about 180,000 in the final version we kept the book to the original target of 400 pages and at an affordable price point. In the end it really forced us to consider what we really want students to get out of each chapter.”

Peter: “I think the thing I’m most proud of is the concept behind the book. I think this is better done when the topic is explained from many angles.”

Q: What did you learn in the process of writing a textbook that you wish you had known before you started?

Janok: “I was surprised that it took 9 years from the proposal to final publication. CUP insisted that we take the time to get the book right, even though that delayed publication by three years. In retrospect, I believe taking the extra time paid off, as indicated by the awards we have already won. Although Pete and I had both taught Earth History many times, I did not appreciate the much higher and in-depth degree of knowledge required to write an authoritative textbook, versus give a 50-minute lecture. I learned a lot in the process of writing, and this forced me to read the primary literature in areas outside of my research expertise.”

Peter: “I learned more about the process of publishing, which was interesting. Because the text we wrote covers many topics, the research we did was very educational for the authors. I know all of these topics much better now than when I proposed to write the book.”

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Institutions Prepare for New Accreditation Regulations (May 18, 2026)

McMahon Tussles With House Democrats at Latest Hearing (May 15, 2026)

Will Paying Reviewers Ease the Peer Review Crisis? (May 14, 2026)

Education Department Launches Hiring Spree In Key Office, Roughly A Year After Mass Layoffs (May 8, 2026)

Arizona Proposals to Ban Diversity Statements and Training Fail to Pass (May 4, 2026)

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DP&L Episode 282: How AI Is Impacting Scholarly Publishing: An Interview with Bryan Alexander

In this episode, host Christine Tulley interviews Dr. Bryan Alexander about how AI is reshaping textbook and academic publishing. Alexander is a futurist, Georgetown senior scholar, and keynote speaker for the TAA Summer Institute for Textbook and Academic Authors (“How the AI Revolution is Impacting the Future of Textbook & Academic Publishing”). He offers a broad, forward-looking view, beginning with the larger forces already destabilizing higher education: shifting demographics, changing economics, enrollment pressures, and evolving cultural attitudes toward the academy. He then surveys the technological landscape — the maturation of ebooks, the ongoing challenge of mobile-friendly scholarship, extended reality, and open access — before zeroing in on AI’s multifaceted impact.

Topics include the spectrum of ways authors are using AI to write (from full generation to light assistance), the thorny intellectual property questions surrounding AI training data and publisher licensing deals, the flood of AI-generated or AI-assisted content entering publishing pipelines, and unresolved questions around disclosure and verification. Alexander also highlights tools like NotebookLM as a virtual colleague for writers and acknowledges the deep divide within academia between AI enthusiasts and those who want it kept out of scholarly work entirely. He closes by arguing that academia is uniquely positioned to lead society’s broader reckoning with AI by drawing on expertise across psychology, economics, computer science, and history, and that this moment represents both a challenge and an opportunity for scholarly writers and publishers.

Play

DP&L Episode 263: Interview with Brenda Ulrich, Academic Publishing Attorney

In this episode, host Christine Tulley interviews Brenda Ulrich, a publishing attorney and TAA board member.

She highlights her upcoming 2026 TAA Institute presentation on publishing contract negotiation, “Top 10 Tips for Negotiating A Publishing Contract, 2.0,” which will be an updated version covering both fundamental negotiation strategies and new considerations brought about by generative AI and changing industry practices, including how content is increasingly fragmented, bundled in subscription services, and distributed through platforms like inclusive access.

The session is designed to benefit both new authors who need to understand contract basics and veteran authors facing new amendments, contract updates, or navigating an evolving publishing landscape where books from 1992 are being moved to much longer and more complex modern contracts.

Play

DP&L Episode 276: Textbook and Academic Authoring Careers

In this episode, host Christine Tulley interviews Dr. Wendy Tietz from Kent State University and Dr. Tracie Miller from Franklin University to talk about textbook authoring careers. This is a path many academics never consider, yet one that can become a defining and decades-long creative endeavor. Both guests share how they stumbled into their first textbook deals not through deliberate planning, but through candid feedback at the right moment. Together, they explore how textbook writing differs from other scholarly genres — particularly its collaborative, audience-driven nature and the constant cycle of revision, edition-planning, and storytelling required to justify each new release to publishers. They also tackle the human side of the work: managing co-author transitions, navigating editor turnover, sustaining a brand, and balancing it all alongside full-time faculty roles. They will share their expertise on these and other topics during their Institute Veteran Textbook Author Learning Lab, “Pulling Back the Curtain: What It Really Takes to Sustain a Textbook Authoring Career”.

Play

DP&L Episode 277: Interview with Dr. Pat Goodsen author of Keep Writing

In this episode, host Christine Tulley interviews Dr. Pat Goodson, health education professor turned prolific academic writing coach, to explore practical strategies for building a sustainable writing life. Dr. Goodson shares how her journey into academic writing began not from an English background, but from listening to struggling graduate students and eventually developing a university writing support program called POWER (Promoting Outstanding Writing for Excellence in Research). Both provide encouragement to listeners approaching summer as a chance to revisit and strengthen their writing routines, and they give a preview of Dr. Goodson’s upcoming Learning Lab, “It Takes a System,” at the TAA Institute.

Play

DP&L Episode 280: Interview with Dr. Greg Lewbart about Textbook Authoring

In this episode of Defend, Publish, and Lead, host Christine Tulley interviews Dr. Greg Lewbart, a veterinarian and board-certified zoological medicine specialist at NC State, about his three-decade journey as a textbook author and editor. Lewbart traces his path from working as a corporate fish veterinarian in the 1980s to publishing his first book on fish clinical cases in 1998 — now in its third edition — and editing contributed volumes on topics like invertebrate medicine, where he coordinates roughly 40 specialist contributors.

He reflects on how the publishing landscape has changed, shares practical advice for aspiring textbook authors on crafting proposals, identifying publishers, and managing contributors (including the wisdom of preferring an upfront “no” over a missed deadline), and discusses his long involvement with the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA), which he discovered in 2005 after winning a Texty Award. The episode closes with a preview of Lewbart’s upcoming New & Aspiring Textbook Author Learning Lab at the TAA Summer Institute, “The Textbook Author’s Journey: Developing, Proposing, and Publishing Your Book,” where he’ll guide attendees through the full textbook authoring journey, along with a time management tip drawn from his experience as a marathon runner: chip away consistently in small sessions rather than waiting for large blocks of time.

Play

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Weingarden reframes our understanding of Haussmannization, the demolition and rebuilding of the city into a modern metropolis, as witnessed by nineteenth-century Parisians, while also shedding new light on writers’ responses, particularly those of Charles Baudelaire, and of visual artists like Édouard Manet, who contemplated and theorized this modernity and its impact. Using a unique word-and-image methodology, the author illustrates the development of ironic parody as a pictorial device that represents the rupture, fragmentation, and transmutation experienced by the artists and their viewers, revealing how art historians can utilize nineteenth-century neuropsychological practices and current neuroscience methods to reconstruct the lived, embodied experiences of nineteenth-century Paris. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in art history, modern art, urban studies and neuropsychology.

Purchase it in the 2026 TAA Institute for Textbook & Academic Authors Bookstore. 

Join us for the Textbook & Academic Authors Association’s first-ever TAA Institute for Textbook & Academic Authors, designed to support authors across different experience levels. Do a deep dive on topics especially important to you! Registration is now open!

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Q: It’s time for me to find a dissertation chair. I’m panicked. How?

—Chairless

A: You’re right to have at least a little trepidation. Here’s what a new “doctor” said in a study of how the choice and behavior of chairs affect doctoral students’ satisfactions:

It is impossible to overestimate the significance of the student-advisor relationship. . . .This is both a personal and professional relationship that rivals marriage and parenthood in its complexity, variety and ramifications for the rest of one’s life. (Zhao et al., 2007, p. 263)

That student echoes what many doctoral candidates learn, with ease or agony, during their dissertation years. Your relationship with your chair (sometimes called advisor or supervisor) is absolutely the most important in your entire doctoral trek. In my many years of coaching and advising doctoral candidates, I have seen too often how the “wrong” chair not only delays dissertation completion and graduation but creates much frustration.

If only there were a ChairMatch.com! But until a completely exasperated doctoral candidate, hopefully not ABD, comes up with such a site or app, you have other options. A few universities assign chairs and committees, usually dependent on their (supposedly) light roster of doctoral students.

More commonly, and more progressively, many universities let you choose your chair. But do your homework! You want to avoid musical chairs—changing chairs too often in the hope of an ever better experience (meaning faster approvals).

So, based on the unfortunate experiences of many of my graduate students, here
are some steps you might take to locate the best doctoral chair you can.

Gather Plenty of Information

Collect as much information as you can from as many sources as you can find.

1. Dig out faculty bios. Access the university/division/school/department website for faculty profiles. These should yield much: the professor’s degree-granting institutions, primary research interests, courses taught, publications, presentations, awards, grants, and journal affiliations. Photographs are often included, and you can see if the professor has kind eyes (not infallible, but it helps). Make sure too the professor isn’t on fourteen university committees (and so no time for you).
2. Stomp in the grapevines of your classmates, other peers, and recent doctors. Their insights and observations about chair reliability and consistency, especially in hindsight, can be invaluable.
3.  Talk to peers who are currently working with chairs you are considering. Over the lunch you buy, ask your peers questions. Do you feel comfortable talking with the chair? How promptly does the chair respond? Does the chair remind you about university deadlines? Are the chair’s critiques more substantial than correcting of typos? Do you feel the chair prompts you to think in greater depth about the topic? Does the chair address you at least civilly?
4. Search out enemy literature. Bruce Shore (2014), a longtime and award-winning professor and advisor to doctoral students, wrote a fine book ostensibly for chairs and advisors, The Graduate Advisor Handbook. In a colloquial, engaging style, he shares advice and cautions. You can learn a lot about what to ask for, expect, and stay away from with your chair and committee. Shore’s perspective, revealed in the subtitle, should cheer you on: A Student-Centered Approach.

More Questions About the Chair

What do you really want to know about a chair? Based on the bio you accessed and other doctoral candidates’ experiences, here are some suggestions.

• Does the professor have the time for you?Are your research interests similar?
• Are you devotees of the same methodologies?

  One chair told the student to use a mixed-method approach, a favorite of the chair. Then, after proposal defense and all the rationales for mixed method, the chair changed it to qualitative, with new rationales, methodology, and more delays.

• Will the chair be—or get to be—knowledgeable about the research in your field?
• Will the chair be responsive to your emails and calls (not that you’re going to be a pest)?
• Will the chair critique your drafts in a reasonable time? Some universities specify 2-week turnarounds; unfortunately, this “rule” is rarely followed.
• Will the chair keep track of your drafts?

  Don’t laugh; one client’s chair kept losing her current drafts, confusing unedited with later edited versions, and repeatedly emailing the client for the latest versions.

• Will the chair be available to you for meetings and generous with time—within reason? (At your meetings, you don’t need to recount your life story or history of previous chairs.)
• Will the chair be encouraging but reasonably “hard” in critiques? A chair who is rude challenges your self-esteem (even more than usual, given the entire process) and is unnecessarily thoughtless. But a chair who is too “easy” does you no favors. Later critiques by committee members and university reviewers can shock you, require massive revisions, and delay graduation. More important, “easy” chair critiques don’t elicit your best work.
• Will the chair be clear in instructions?
• Will the chair be consistent in critiques?

  The chair of one of my students required many changes and additions, which the student (and I) did dutifully. Then, in the next draft, the chair deleted some, added others, repositioned others, and required all the changes in only a few days. The student (and I) drafted a tactful, diplomatic reply requesting more time. Finally, the chair agreed.

• Will the chair be professional and friendly in your dealings?

  A student showed me his chair’s frequent snide comments about his abilities on his tracked-change drafts. To my student’s credit, he kept pushing on.

• Will the chair work well with other committee members and “fight” for you with them if necessary?

  Other committee members can have strong feelings about, for instance, a single research site vs. many, a particular theoretical foundation, or any number of other issues. They may “dictate”  extensive changes. But it’s the chair who is the final word and who should stand up for you.

• Will the chair be reasonably stable at the university?

  At a crucial time in one client’s dissertation, his chair left the university abruptly under hushed circumstances. The client had to scrounge for another chair.

• Will the chair help you later in your career?

  Not imperative but a wonderful asset. Chairs write job recommendation letters, alert students about openings, and sometimes invite them to be part of the next grant project.

Chair Characteristics

One university has a checklist of professors’ names and form for students to help them choose their chairs and committees. Some of the characteristics students are asked to specify: supportive or hands-off, highly goal directive or minimally goal directive, soft critiques or sharp. Other characteristics would seem to constitute the perfect members: Gives strong feedback, has a sense of humor, patient, collegial, calming to the candidate, committed to success, nurtures candidate’s self-sufficiency, inspires intellectual growth, enthusiastic, and understands the dissertation and IRB processes, and more. If you haven’t already, consider all of these.

More Questions for You

After all your homework, ask yourself two other crucial questions. What do I want and need in a chair? How do I feel about this faculty member?

Listen inside. You’ve often done this with other things. When you meet new people, you can tell immediately whether you like them or not. When you enter a certain place, you know whether it feels good or not.

If you think you should be reasonable and apply logic (“He’s a well-known tenured professor!”), and if your gut is telling you otherwise, it won’t work. If you stack up all kinds of rational arguments to convince yourself what should be the best choice (“She’s got stellar publications and connections!”), it won’t work. That’s why you really gravitate to the new associate professor who misplaces his glasses and stumbles over his words. But he asks stimulating questions in class and has kindly eyes.

So, gather information, ask the right questions, and suspend your intellect (the only time I’ll advise this). I can’t guarantee you’ll locate the perfect chair, but with these suggestions and your diligence and discernment, you’ll have a better chance of a good, even pleasant, relationship in which you’ll grow academically and personally. And you’ll later remember your chair with gratitude and fondness.

References

Shore, B. M. (2014). The graduate advisor handbook: A student-centered approach. University of Chicago Press.
Zhao, C. M., Golde, M., & McCormack, A. C. (2007). More than a signature: How advisor choice and advisor behaviour affect doctoral student satisfaction. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31(3), 263-281. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098770701424983

Dissertation coach, nurturer, bolsterer, handholder, and editor; scholarly and mainstream writing consultant; author of writing craft, spiritual, and academic articles; and spiritual and motivational counselor, Noelle Sterne has published many pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. Noelle’s ninth story for Chicken Soup for the Soul appears in June 2025 in the volume Self-Care Isn’t Selfish. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years helped doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion (finally). Based on her practice, her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015) addresses students’ often overlooked or ignored but crucial nonacademic difficulties that can seriously prolong their agony. See the PowerPoint teaser here. In Noelle`s Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets and reach lifelong yearnings. Following one of her own, she is currently working on her third novel. Visit Noelle at www.trustyourlifenow.com

The post Dear Dr. Noelle: Musical Chair? appeared first on Abstract.

The AI Committee carefully reviewed and considered the input of our members to this statement addressing one of the most pressing issues facing our members now and in the future. This final position statement will help shape and direct future actions and activities of the AI Committee and TAA generally.
Learn more about the AI Committee’s work.

The statement’s Preamble reads:

Generative Artificial Intelligence (“GenAI”) is a revolutionary technology with the potential to fundamentally alter human education, learning and creativity as we know it. The future impact of GenAI is uncertain and potentially massive. While GenAI presents significant challenges to creators, educators, and publishers, it also presents meaningful opportunities to enhance teaching, improve accessibility, accelerate research processes, and support student learning when implemented thoughtfully, transparently, and ethically.

The question is not whether GenAI will shape higher education, but how it will be shaped—and by whom.

Read the full statement. TAA welcomes engagement from publishers that would like to work with the committee to achieve some of its goals. Contact Brenda Ulrich, Chair, at bulrich@archstonelaw.com.

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Whatever your political point of view, I hope we can all agree libraries (of all types) and librarians are essential.

For academic authors, they’re more than just hallowed buildings or subscription portals. They’re the infrastructure behind your thinking. If you use them strategically, they can quietly elevate the quality, depth, and efficiency of your work in ways that aren’t always obvious at first.

Let’s start with the most visible aspect: access. A strong, diverse collection is still the foundation of everything. That doesn’t just mean having access to the top journals in your field. It means breadth. Interdisciplinary coverage. Back issue and historical archives. Niche monographs. Some of the most interesting insights in academic writing come from adjacent fields, and a well-curated library makes those connections possible.

When you’re working on a project, especially a book or a journal article, you’ll often hit a point where your core sources start to feel repetitive. That’s usually a signal. It means you need to widen your search. A good library collection lets you do that without friction. It gives you the ability to follow a line of inquiry sideways, not just forward. And that’s often where the essential ingredient can be found.

But access alone isn’t enough. Most academic libraries are packed with tools that go far beyond simple database searches. And many authors barely scratch the surface of what’s available.

Think about everything bundled into your institutional access: specialized databases, citation managers, digital tools, text mining platforms, data repositories, interlibrary loan systems, and (increasingly) AI-assisted research tools. These aren’t just conveniences. They can fundamentally change how you approach a project.

For example, if you’re still manually tracking citations instead of using a robust reference manager, you’re spending cognitive energy on something that should be automated. If you’re not using advanced search features or subject-specific databases, you’re likely missing key conversations in your field. And if you haven’t explored interlibrary loan recently, you might be surprised at how quickly you can access obscure or international materials.

There’s also a strategic layer here. The more proficient you are with these tools, the more efficiently you can move from idea to draft. That matters when you’re balancing writing with teaching, service, and everything else on your plate.

And this leads to the most underutilized resource in the entire system: librarians.

Many academic authors think of librarians as support staff for students. That’s a mistake. Librarians are highly trained information specialists, and in many cases, they have a deeper operational understanding of the research ecosystem than the average faculty member.

Building a relationship with a librarian, especially one in your subject area, can be a quiet game changer. They can help you refine search strategies, identify lesser-known databases, track down hard-to-find sources, and even think through how your research fits into broader information networks.

More than that, they can save you time. A good librarian can often do in 20 minutes what might take you hours of trial and error. And because they’re not embedded in your specific project, they can sometimes see angles or resources you wouldn’t think of looking for.

This doesn’t have to be formal. It can start with a single conversation. Reach out when you’re beginning a project. Ask what tools or resources you might be overlooking. Treat it as a collaboration, not a transaction.

Over time, that relationship compounds. You become more efficient. Your research becomes more comprehensive. And you spend less time wrestling with logistics and more time doing the actual intellectual work.

In the end, the library isn’t just a backdrop to your writing life; it’s an active partner in it. The authors who get the most out of it aren’t necessarily the ones with the most resources. They’re the ones who know how to use what’s already there.

John Bond is a publishing consultant at Riverwinds Consulting. His most recent book is: The Little Guide to Getting Your Book Published: Simple Steps to Success. He is also the host of the YouTube channel “Publishing Defined.” Contact him at jbond@riverwindsconsulting.com.

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