Editor Interview: The London Journal

London history, geography

We are a truly interdisciplinary journal, drawing on history, geography, literary studies, planning, archaeology, art history and many others. We aim to bring academic research and discussion into the public realm so that everyone interested in London can find something to engage with.

Read articles published in the last few years to get a flavour for what we publish (we have some permanently open access articles). If you are not sure whether your work is of interest, ask me!
If you are a Phd student or early career researcher, consider entering our annual Curriers' Company prize to win £1000 and priority publication.

The ideal submission is around 8000 words, has a strong and clear argument which can be followed by readers who are not experts in the field, is lively and fluent, opens up discussion, is based on primary research or a strong analysis of secondary literature, pays attention to recent literature in the field, includes attractive images or well set-out tables and has a captivating title!

They don't read our guidelines!

We don't have cover letters, all submissions are made electronically. An article lives or dies by its own merits; we're as happy to publish someone's first article as their hundredth.

Every piece is read to the end as there might be some fantastic arguments buried within an otherwise plodding narrative which we can help to tease out.

Double blind peer review with, sometimes, ongoing dialogue between the editor in charge, reviewers and the author

All submissions come into our electronic management system. I scan through the piece quickly to see that it fits our aims and scope and to work out which editorial committee member is best placed to be in charge of it. I then assign the submission to that person and they find two reviewers who review it blind. The process does require a lot of chasing and sometimes new reviewers need to be found as the original choices don't in the end file a review. I spend a while with each paper towards the end, making sure they are polished enough to merit publication.