Genie Nicole Giaimo, Outgoing Professional Editor
As I finish my tenure as Professional Editor for TPR, I did some historical digging, going back to the beginning and re-reading the founding documents of TPR, like my predecessor Nikki Caswell did before me. Now that the journal is on solid footing–it is nearly 11 years old and has been regularly producing multiple issues each year–I thought it fitting not only to look back on my time as Professional Editor but also to where TPR was in the beginning and where I will leave it, many years on.
TPR was started by Becky Hallman Martini and Sherry Wynn Perdue, alongside many other collaborators who are known folks in our field. The journal’s introduction, in its first issue, back in 2015 details the process of coming together to start a new journal: the excitement, the aggravation, the disappointments, the triumphs. Toddlers of writing center practitioners who were part of TPR’s founding editorial board are now teenagers, those of us who were in graduate school are now, inexplicably, mid-career. Those who were mid-career are now senior in our field. Time marches on…
Some things about TPR remain the same, such as its mission, as Hallman Martini noted: “While we gave significant attention to what would fill the pages of TPR, the journal was conceived to engage, to prepare, and to promote the next generation of writing center scholars and researchers” (2015, n.p.). Others, like the title–The Peer Review: A Journal for Writing Center Practitioners–the two-part review system, and the scholar spotlight, seem to have fallen by the wayside.
And while we do not necessarily publish many high school tutors, we certainly have lived up to the mentorship focus of the journal and, in my tenure but also in my predecessors’, have seen many graduate students publish in TPR, complete their programs and become reviewers for our journal. Many have also co-published with their own students, a kind of full circle moment. For an in-depth content analysis of our journal’s recent published articles, please read Rabail Qayyum’s piece in this issue.
Like other things in writing center work, I came late to TPR. Impressed with the articles published during Nikki Caswell’s tenure as Professional Editor and Yanar Hashlamon’s tenure as graduate editor, I submitted my first article (co-written with a student researcher) to TPR in 2021 for review. I had no idea that this article would be published in the first (non-special) issue I headed as the professional editor, as I never intended on becoming part of TPR’s editorial team.
But, as with all things I do with and for this field, I am thankful for the opportunity to help shape the journal’s mission and scope. In the time that I have been an editor, we have worked to make our publication and review processes smoother, clearer, and supported. We created resources on how to work through reviewer feedback and, for reviewers, how to give feedback in a mentorship journal. We created an AI-use statement for the journal. We published several special issues–many headed by graduate students and non-faculty writing center practitioners–including the first two issues on AI and writing centers. And we tried a few new things like the summer reading supplement and running a special issue (on AI) in-house which became a double issue because we had so many excellent submissions.
What I have learned from this work is that structures and systems might come and go. What worked for one editorial team might be overhauled when the new team comes in. Some editors might be more OK with a messy email inbox than I was. Some might need to slow down publication as the founding editors did–the first issue of TPR was published in 2015 and the second in 2017. Some editors might need to publish more, as my predecessor did during COVID-19 as they were flooded with submissions. Each editorial team is responding to the current moment. Our time as editors was a kind of bridge between the COVID-19 pandemic and the second Trump administration. In the time that we took over, AI came on the scene and fundamentally shifted how we teach (and do) writing, for better and for worse. Looking forward, the incoming editorial team–headed by Elisabeth Buck–will have their own cultural and historical moment to contend with. And I am sure that she and her team will meet the moment, as we did and as did the editors before me and the ones before that.
As I write this retrospective, TPR has published 21 issues. By the time we conclude our tenure as editors, that number will be either 23 (including our editorial team’s coda and the winter issue) or 24 (including a special issue on professional tutors). It seems fitting somehow though that in this moment of reflection, TPR is in its 10th year and has published 21 issues–the journal has reached a maturity milestone.
In our tenure as editors, the journal has published special issues on Artificial Intelligence (Volumes 1 and 2), Enacting Linguistic Justice in/through Writing Centers, and (Re)Investigating Writing Center Commonplaces. As Qayyum (2026) notes in her content analysis in this coda, we have also published on Tutor professional development; Online tutoring (including asynchronous tutoring); Graduate writing; Disability studies (writers with ADHD and universal design); International WCs (Brazil and Japan); Anti-racist practices; Multilingual tutoring; Institutional assessment; Tutoring in the discipline; Oral histories; Tutoring practices; Tutor safety and workplace ethics; African American writers; Writing genres; and workplace conflict (Qayyum, 2026).
There is always more work to be done in publishing inclusive, empirical, current scholarship from up-and-coming scholars in our field (including undergraduates, graduates, professional tutors, and those not on the tenure track) and we hope that the journal continues doing this necessary cutting-edge work.
At the same time, the journal is no longer a scrappy upstart; it has published extensive and thoughtful scholarship through the special issues noted above and in articles such as “Editing in the Writing Center: Exploring a Graduate Editing Service and the Role of Instructional Editing in Graduate Student Support that has had a deep impact in our field” (Driscoll and Farag, 2024), “Honor Consultant Safety: A Community Contract for Better Writing Center Ethics” (Thomae and Jacob, 2024) or in the widely read, excellent, and multi-generic, “Dear Writing Centers: Black Women Speaking Silence into Language and Action” (Morrison and Nanton, 2019). So now, with the transition to the fourth full editorial team, I am excited to see where TPR goes. I know the work will be cutting edge and, likely, pushing the boundaries of scholarship we are comfortable publishing. I also know that the mentorship focus will continue. Some things might fall by the wayside while others–like our conversation shapers which seemed to come on the scene around 2021–will hopefully remain.
When we became editors, there was no note of the transition in the journal. I guess in the changeover, there was no guidance on writing an editor’s introduction (or goodbye). In 2015, there was a kind of “hello world!” introduction for TPR and the journal’s founding editors. 2020 announced the editorial transition to our predecessors. But, a lot was disrupted in winter 2020 and when we took over, in winter 2023, we were still disrupted.
So, in winter 2026, let this stand as our “hello world!” and our goodbye. Within this brief coda issue, you will hear from others on our editorial team who are transitioning out of the work. Some, like Wenqi Cui, have held several different editorial positions and as a special issue editor for TPR. Others, like Rabail Qayyum and Andrew Yim, came aboard before me and Joseph and helped us transition into our roles. Some bridged the transition, like Randall Monty (former web editor), which we appreciated as we got our legs under us running the journal.
I want to note another group who have held constant in times of transition at TPR–to our reviewers, many of whom have been reviewing since TPR was founded–thank you so much for supporting the work of the journal and offering your time and feedback generously and frequently. Without you, we would be unable to do this work.
And to our authors, thank you for bringing your writing to TPR. For many, this is the last place of refuge–a place where your hard work, scholarship, controversial topics, and more will be held in the highest regard and treated with the utmost respect and care. Thank you for publishing with us and elevating our journal in producing cutting edge scholarship for our field.
I have learned a lot as the Professional Editor for TPR and I will leave you with some guidance for incoming and aspiring editors, as well as for authors. For editors: get an organizational system up and running that works for you, be kind to yourself and others, get input from the team but don’t be afraid to make decisions after doing research, look at every issue as a learning opportunity and every opportunity as a chance to create something amazing, and try not to burn yourself out–that fourth issue in the year can wait until next year. To authors, ask for feedback, know your revision limits, work with mentors when they are provided, be persistent and insistent in the publication process, have fun and celebrate your publication wins.
Thank you to everyone who helped TPR succeed over the last decade. Thank you to my editorial team for always having my back and stepping into work despite your busy schedules. Thank you to the field for reading TPR’s work and contributing to it as authors and reviewers. Thank you to the incoming editorial team for stepping into this meaningful and important work. I do what I do because of all of you.