Riley Eike
Contributing Writer
Megan Walsh, professor of English, wrote two essays in August and September, which are now published in peer-reviewed journals.
“The Science of Discernment in Early America,” published Sept. 4 in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 55. No. 2-3, is a review on two books: “Discerning Characters” by Christopher J. Lukasik and “Citizen Spectator” by Wendy Bellion. Walsh goes further to “remind us how important it is to study pictures in this period (Early America).”
Published in August, Walsh’s essay “Wieland, Illustrated: Word and Image in the Early American Novel” in Literature in the Early American Republic reflects upon a novel written by Charles Brockden Brown.
Walsh received a grant to visit the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in order to visit Brown’s notebook for his novel. Brown originally wrote his first draft in a notebook. Along the margins, Brown had drawn illustrations that went in correspondence with the novel, according to Walsh. These illustrations were not published when the book was published in 1978.
“The images he drew helps us understand the plot of the novel a bit better. It actually changes our understanding of the novel,” Walsh said.
Aside from a larger manuscript project, Walsh is highlighting the literature of Early America. Early American authors did not publish books with pictures, forcing literary scholars to think that pictures were not important, according to Walsh. She also said her interest is in the financial environment of Early American literature.
“It actually turned out to be much cheaper to import novels from England with pictures in them than to publish one that was written by an American in America.” Pictures are constantly on the minds of those who read novels, according to Walsh, and even when an author does not have pictures in their publications it does not mean that pictures are not important.
Walsh has published 12 of her essays in journals or online, half of which are peer-review journals where she was asked by a college to write a review on their work. The other half of her published essays are short essays about topics of her choosing.
Her advice to young writers looking to get works published is to write all the time. Walsh said she believes anyone can be a good writer, but one must produce the proper mindset in order to be able to write successfully.
“Nothing is ever finished,” Walsh said. “Write and rewrite. It is just like exercise. You have to do it, and you have to do it some more, and even though it’s painful, you have to keep doing it, and you will find satisfaction.”
