To all you qualitative researchers out there: keep writing.
I don't generally get personal on this blog, but I've been overwhelmed lately by the good people in academe. Here at the end of my first year on the tenure-track seems a good time to say thank you.
Many of you know my story about trying to find a full-time tenure-track academic position, which started in 2007 when I was ABD and ended in 2011 when I got hired at ETSU. I offer my thanks, my gratitude, my heartfelt love for those of you you sent me good karma, happy vibes and thoughts, as well as prayers.
What I was most astounded by, however, wasn't the support from people that know me. No. Once I published the piece about my experience "I Know I'm Unlovable": Desperation, Dislocation, Despair, and Discourse on the Academic Job Hunt" in Qualitative Inquiry (an excellent journal in its own right) I was overwhelmed by the response.
Hundreds of people contacted me about it. Hundreds! I had no idea that was going to happen. After all, it's "merely" a personal narrative piece.
Total strangers started emailing me about how the piece spoke to them. People started Tweeting me about it to say "Thanks - this needed to be written." They tweeted about it to other people...and they too Tweeted me. People started FaceBook messaging me about how they are going to have all their graduate students read it. People told me it spoke to them, that I was brave to tell one of the stories that is often silenced and whispered in academia, but rarely spoken about out loud.
Brave? It wasn't brave. While I won't say that writing that piece saved my life, it did help preserve my sanity. For those of you who doubt my sanity, well, I guess it preserved my functional insanity. Brave? No. Necessary? Yes.
The point is that I was overcome by the response to the piece. So many people reached out to say how it touched them. A few said they cried when they read it, because it matched their own experience. For some it was the confusion and the anger that resonated with them. For some it provided a catharsis - by simply knowing there are other people out here suffering through the same things they are.
Here's the lesson, if a lesson can be taken from this. To all you qualitative researchers out there: keep writing. Keep on writing. See, your stories are important. You don't know how important your stories are unless you tell them. You don't know what an impact your story can have on someone, unless you actually write it. You don't know how big your personal community is - or your particular experience is - unless you write about it. Write your story. It is important.
I had no idea that my little piece would create the stir it did. I'm glad it did.
So I just wanted to say thank you.
Andrew
