Risman's Writing Retreats

About the CEO and writing coach:

This Retreat business is
independent and totally
distinct from Gender & Society and from UIC. Neither UIC nor SWS endorse this business.

Any paid writing, editing, consulting, or similar workshops offered by a member of the Gender & Society editorial team (including the editorial board) are not affiliated with Gender & Society and participation and/or payment for said services does not guarantee peer review or publication of a paper. Members of the editorial team (including the editorial board) who offer these services will recuse themselves from any decisions on a paper that was the subject of such work. In connection with our conflict-of-interest policy, we also expect reviewers to similarly recuse themselves from reviewing a paper they consulted on or edited.

Barbara J. Risman is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is an award winning sociologist who has been honored for her scholarship, her public engagement, and her mentorship of students and junior faculty. She has won the national award for mentorship from the Sociologists for Women in Society and the university-wide mentorship award from the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Risman's former students are now published authors and faculty at universities across the United States and Canada. She is currrently serving as Editor at Gender & Society.

Professor Risman has taught writing classes to graduate students at her home institution, UIC. She has also taught or lectured about writing at Trento University in Italy, the Free University in Amsterdam, and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. She has decades of experience as an editor. She co-edited the American Sociological Association’s journal Contemporary Sociologyfrom 1998-2000, and is Editor Emerita of the book series The Gender Lens, for which she edited nearly a dozen books. She has also edited several textbooks, and the new Handbook on the Sociology of Gender (with Carissa Froyum and William Scarborough) She is the Editor of the highly ranked journal Gender & Society.

Professor Risman has been Executive Officer, Co-Chair, and President of the Board of the Council on Contemporary Families, an organization designed to translate new research for public conversation. She recently ended a term as Co-Chair of Chicagoland Scholars Strategy Network. Dr. Risman has won an award for advancing public sociology from the American Sociological Association. She is expert at writing for a popular audience and has a column Gender Matters at Psychology Today.com. She has published op-eds in the Seattle Times, CNN, Raleigh New & Observer, and the Chicago Tribune. She is frequently cited in the New York Times and theEconomist. For more information about her public scholarship see the “In the News” tab on this website.

Professor Risman has also served as the Head of the Sociology Department at UIC for a decade. Before that she was Director of Graduate Studies in sociology at North Carolina State University, where she was a Distinguished Research Scholar and Founding Director of Women and Gender Studies. She is an expert on mentoring and faculty development.

Risman’s Writing Retreats is an independent entity and has no relationship with any of Professor Risman’s work as a Professor or an Editor of Gender & Society. To insure full integrity of the Gender & Society editorial process, Dr. Risman will recuse herself from any editorial decisions on articles where has worked as a writing coach. A Deputy Editor will be assigned to make decisions on any paper that could be perceived as a conflict of interest.

Retreat Experience

STARTING POST PANDEMIC!

The retreat is designed for academic writers whose audience is either their colleagues or the public. The accountability group process will be useful for graduate students struggling to finish dissertations, junior faculty feeling pressure to get a product “out of the door,” professors trying to jump start new projects, and administrators who can simply never find time to focus on their own writing. Any effort that is part of the writing process is appropriate for this retreat, from reading the literature, to finding the right target journal. Participants may be conceptualizing a new project, or doing final edits on a manuscript nearly finished. The retreat is also useful for academics trying to write for popular audiences. The retreat will help writers ask themselves the big questions: why are we writing, for whom? What are the barriers we face? Does writing increase our life satisfaction? How can we create a work life that is fulfilling?

Risman’s Writing Retreats is a unique experience, blending daily “tips of the trade” that integrate technical writing skills with strategic plans for professional development. Tips of the trade involve everything from how to best organize an academic article to structural editing. But writing isn’t just a technical skill, reflection on why we write, and for whom are also central to the process and this retreat. Each cohort will become a writing community and will be provided aid in remaining so after their week together.

This writing retreat is for you if you'd like the chance both to get away to write, and to have the time and encouragement to think about the role of writing in your career, and your life. This experience is about thinking about your relationship to your work as a writer, as well as simply producing more words.