Circulating Communities The Tactics and Strategies of Community Publishing

Circulating Communities: The Tactics and Strategies of Community Publishing, edited by Paula Mathieu, Steve Parks, and Tiffany Rousculp, represents the first attempt to gather the myriad of community and college publishing projects, providing not only history and analysis but extended samples of the community writing produced. Rather than feature only the voices of academic scholars, this collection features also the words of writing group participants, community organizers, literacy instructors, librarians, and stay-at-home parents as well. In libraries, community centers, prisons, and homeless shelters across the US and around the world, people not traditionally understood as writers regularly come together to write, offer feedback, revise, publish-and most importantly circulate-their words. The vast amount of literature that these community-publishing projects create has historically been overlooked by scholars of literature, journalism, and literacy. Over the past decade, however, higher education has moved outward, off campus and into the streets. Many of these efforts build from writing and publication projects that extend back over decades, are grassroots in nature, and are independent of college efforts. Circulating Communities offers a unique glimpse into how neighbor and scholar, teacher and activist, are using writing and publishing to improve the daily lives on the streets they call home.

Paula Mathieu is associate professor of English at Boston College where she teaches courses in composition pedagogy, nonfiction writing, rhetoric, and homeless literature, while also directing the First-Year Writing Program and the Writing Fellows Program. Steve Parks is associate professor of writing and rhetoric at Syracuse University where he teaches entry-level and advanced courses in composition theory and practice. He also leads seminars on community publishing and community organization. Tiffany Rousculp is associate professor in the English Department at Salt Lake Community College in Utah where she teaches composition, linguistics, and sociolinguistics courses. She was founding director of the SLCC Community Writing Center.