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I S S N  2 5 7 7 - 7 4 3 2  ( o n l i n e )  D O I  1 0 . 5 1 9 5 / a w j . 2 0 1 9 . 4 8  a u g u s t w i l s o n . p i t t . e d u  

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Sherlock, Watson, Wilson,  
and the Adventure of the MDWs 

By David L. Anderson 
Professor of English, Butler County Community College, Retired 

              

Our goal is to make this journal a major voice in promoting 
the legacy of August Wilson 

− David Anderson 

Abstract  
A welcome to the inaugural edition of the August Wilson Journal, written by the managing editor. 

Keywords 
August Wilson Journal, University of Pittsburgh, Sandra Shannon, Constanza Romero, Michael Downing 

Congratulations to all of you pioneers whose research, judgments, and insights have 
been published in this, the one and only inaugural issue of August Wilson Journal. Feel free 
to take your share (“with advantages”) of credit for whatever success AWJ achieves. You have 
taken the chance of entrusting your work to a new journal, one unencumbered by 
reputation. We hope that when you see your work here alongside that of other members of 
the Wilson scholarly and theatrical community, you will be pleased with your choice.  

We are very proud of this issue. Our goal is to make this journal a 
major voice in promoting the legacy of August Wilson. If you have 
listened to Sandra Shannon’s interview with Constanza Romero, August's 
widow and Director of the August Wilson Estate, you already know that 
even in our inaugural issue, we are doing things that print journals 
typically do not do. The production of that interview involved four people 
in different parts of the country, two speaking and two recording, as well 
as technologies that we were both varied and new to us. Before, during, 
and after the interview Michael “Sherlock” Downing and yours truly, the 
digitally befuddled Dr. Watson, were called on by Destiny to confront and 
solve numerous MDWs (Mysteries of the Digital World). We intend to 
continue moving beyond the text-only approach to include audio, video, photos, and any 
other media that can be brought to bear regardless of the MDWs we may encounter along 
the way. 

 Especially satisfying was the variety of contributors—both literary and theatrical. 
On these screens you will meet nationally recognized writers, established and new Wilson 
scholars, directors, actors, theater critics, and people who knew Wilson intimately. In 
addition, we are devoted to coaching young scholars into publication, including 
independent scholars and young writers from underserved communities who might have 
important things to say and important new ways of saying them. 

David Anderson 



A U G U S T  W I L S O N  J O U R N A L  
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a u g u s t w i l s o n . p i t t . e d u   D O I  1 0 . 5 1 9 5 / a w j . 2 0 1 9 . 4 8  I S S N  2 5 7 7 - 7 4 3 2  ( o n l i n e )  

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Thanks to our peer reviewers for both their time and diligence in reviewing 
submissions; thanks especially for your challenging remarks and insights. Special thanks go 
to those reviewers (You know who you are!) who specialized in rapid turnaround times. As 
the editor and I quickly learned as submissions arrived, peer review would encompass more 
than just the critical genres of thesis- and question-driven original essays. We were 
occasionally dismayed that some great submissions were rejected, but we soon came to 
understand the causes. First we were glad to learn that the system was working as intended 
and material that was not yet mature had been rejected by our reviewers.  Second, as the 
variety of the critical genres represented in this issue reveals, not all submissions could be 
properly evaluated by a single evaluation form. We responded by creating new evaluation 
forms, which fortunately did not turn out to be the most difficult of the MDWs we 
investigated. This helped to accommodate the nuances of the various submissions and went 
a long way toward streamlining the evaluation process. 

Thanks to those who agreed to be section editors when we realized how much 
content the various sections would include. 

Many thanks go to the University of Pittsburgh Library System, which provided us 
with financial support; encouragement; and knowledgeable, patient, and user-friendly 
digital adventure guides: Timothy S. Deliyannides, Director of the Office of Scholarly 
Communication and Publishing and Head of Information Technology; Vanessa Gabler, 
Electronic Publications Manager; and Kari Johnson, Communications Support Specialist. 
They introduced us to the universe of online, open access, peer-reviewed journals and 
helped us to investigate and solve the MDWs we would confront along the way. 

Thanks to all of the readers of our inaugural issue. Our hope is that you register as 
readers. “Readers” are really “subscribers,” not “peer reviewers.” Subscriptions are free and 
“open access.” No salesperson will call. We were advised, in hindsight quite properly, that the 
first issue should appear in its completed form. Our plan is to use “rolling publication” for 
future issues. Subscribers will be informed whenever any new material is added prior to full 
publication of the completed versions of those issues—another service not typical of print 
journals. If you like what you find here, please tell your friends in the worlds of literature 
and theater about us. We already have submissions in our dropboxes for our second issue, 
and peer reviewers are evaluating them. You may have waited a long time to see this issue, 
but notifications regarding posted content for Issue 2 will follow hard upon the appearance 
of Issue 1. 

 Thanks most of all to Editor Michael Downing, who has been my friend for more 
than 30 years. In this, our greatest adventure together, I am honored to play the role of his 
comic sidekick. August Wilson Journal was his vision and he carried the heaviest load, 
showing his characteristic grace under pressure. 

Author Bio 

Dr. David Anderson is Professor of English (retired) at Butler County Community College.  
He is a native Pittsburgher and has studied the life and works of August Wilson for the past 
three decades. 

 
 
 

 Articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 

 This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its  
D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. 

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/�
http://www.library.pitt.edu/�
http://www.pitt.edu/�
http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections�
http://upress.pitt.edu/�
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/�

	Sherlock, Watson, Wilson,  and the Adventure of the MDWs
	Abstract
	Keywords

	Author Bio

