It’s been a particularly long week – not really sure why, I just seem to be very tired – but I have had some good news. I seem to have had a contract through for our co-authored Cambridge Elements book on news in early modern Europe. It’s based on the EDPOP panel I gave in Utrecht some years ago, and all 5 panel members are contributing, so my co-authors are Massimo Rospocher, Joad Raymond, Alexandra Schafer, Yann Ryan and Hannu Salmi.

It’s interesting to be working on this as a co-authored book, rather than as co-authored chapters in an edited collection, as it’s not a process I’ve undertaken before – everything I’ve written has been written by me, with the possible exception of the first Out and About article that I wrote for the Historian magazine, where I did all the writing but some of the ideas came from another member of my local branch.

This project was what I spent most of my time on in the last couple of weeks before term started, and I’m looking forward to getting back to it as soon as possible. Just at the moment, though, I’m struggling to keep up with academic tutorials, while next week I will be up to my eyeballs in essay plan feedback appointments and trying to finalise the planning form for the new course I would like to run next year. Still, in the meantime I’d probably better have a look at the contract and get it signed!