Our research team collaborating in Summer 2019 at the Elon University Seminar for Writing Beyond the University. From left: Yogesh Sinha, Alexis Hart, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Íde O’Sullivan, Anna Knutson, and Ashley Holmes
Kathi’s sense of fun and playfulness are present throughout her interview and particularly when talking about collaboration . A glimpse of this playfulness is evident in comments such as “These are little jokes. You should enjoy them.”
Indeed, a sense of fun and playfulness appears to be a key ingredient for successful collaborative writing, which is evident in Kathi’s characterizing of some of her collaborative writing experiences.
“ [...] in that case, we didn’t even use track changes. We just came in and wrote over each other and it was really really satisfying because I look so much smarter for having written with her and you couldn’t see that I wasn’t any smarter. It was really great. I just love that and then I’ve done other projects where the voices were discreet like with Michael Spooner where the voices are discreet but you don’t really know who knew who wrote what but, and that was fun because people would they wrote him much more that they wrote me. They would write him and say ‘you really wrote this part, didn’t you?’ and we had sort of committed to the idea that we would not reveal that uh …” (C for Collaboration, 3.47-4.20)
While the concept of collaborative writing is one of those concepts “with blurred edges” (Day and Eodice, 2001, p. 26), and it is difficult to identify features that are pertinent in all co-authoring situations, playfulness and fun are concepts that were certainly not unfamiliar to this group. Indeed, playfulness was another of those “ineffable” qualities present in our collaboration from the outset. Even if playfulness and fun are not always evident or present in academic settings, our experience is reflective of Day and Eodice’ exploration of collaborative writing relationships: “almost every team brought up the dreaded ‘F word’—fun—an element sorely missing in most conversations about scholarly work" (116).
During our first meeting, when establishing our collaboration, this sense of fun was immediately present. We quickly came up with a fun name for our group, formed from an anagram of each of our names to form KOSHY [Knutson, O’Sullivan, Sinha, Hart/Holmes, and Yancey], which refers to happiness in Hindi; a song quickly ensued to introduce ourselves to the other groups present at the Elon Research Seminar. This certainly set the tone for our future collaborations as a group.
This playfulness came through in all of our interactions and, indeed, in our planning around these interactions. Scheduling meetings too early in the morning was quickly frowned upon as Kathi always warned that it was best to wait until she was “perky.” This, again, was a source of much humor and fun; nonetheless, we did not schedule meetings until after that important first cup of coffee to ensure Kathi was feeling perky.
We also came up with fun names and attributed certain roles to team members in jest. One which was often a source of laughter was “bossy boots” which quickly became “bossy pants” to allow for cultural adaptations; the “bossy boots” moniker was used for different team members at different moments. We enjoyed face-to-face gatherings at conferences or online, and we all looked forward to those meetings. While we worked hard, we all thoroughly appreciated our time together, so much so that we have continued our collaborations well beyond the lifecycle of the Elon seminar. 🙂
Picture taken at dinner during the International Writing Across the Curriculum (IWAC) Conference, June 2023. From left: Kathleen Blake Yancey, Alexis Hart, Ashley Holmes, Manisha Rajhansh Sinha, and Yogesh Sinha
Picture taken during our team’s International Writing Across the Curriculum (IWAC) Conference presentation, June 2023. From left: Yogesh Sinha, Alexis Hart, Ashley Holmes, Kathleen Blake Yancey, and (visible online in the upper-right corner of the screen) Íde O’Sullivan