The Watsonian

The Watsonian: The Journal of the John H Watson Society

The journal of the Society, The Watsonian, is published semi-annually in May and November. The Watsonian features scholarly articles concerning John H Watson, M.D., as well as puzzles, toasts, poetry, fiction, and art.

Members receive a subscription as part of their membership dues. Individual issues may be purchased in the Society Shop.

Editorial Policy

The editorial policy of The Watsonian is to have few editorial policies.  As always, By-Laws 1 and 2 must be honoured and good taste must be, at all times, in evidence.

Submissions

The Society welcomes a variety of submissions for consideration. In addition to essays, readers will find cartoons, puzzles, reflections on personal collections of memorabilia, quizzes, reviews of television or movie treatments of Watson’s records, Canonical toasts, and fictional flights of fancy. This broad collection is meant to attract a wide readership sharing ideas. If you are a “new” or “recent” writer, please be encouraged to submit your written work to the journal. We are inclusive, welcoming, and exist to offer new writers a place to be read. We also are dedicated to having fun. We are not “scholars,” rather we are “tongue-in-cheek” enthusiasts who enjoy playing The Game. Do join in the fun. We will help you in every way we can.

The Watsonian embraces British and World English, as as American English. Readers will see both Baker Street and “Baker-street”, a convention familiar to Strand readers. Some writers use “for ever” or for-ever, spellings favored across the pond, while Americans favor their forever. But we are not obsessive. Write as you are comfortable writing; the Editors are kind. Here are our few guidelines:

1. If possible, use British conventions avoiding periods after common abbreviated titles such as Dr, Mrs, Mme, and so forth, but do use the period after abbreviated military of religious titles like Rev. or Capt.
2. Use either British or American spelling, but please try to be consistent.
3. Quote accurately when citing text from the Canon.
4. Submissions should be Word or Google documents, single-spaced, left justified (ragged right), in 12 point Arno Pro font. Baskerville Old Face is also acceptable if you do not have Arno Pro. Please avoid underlining, using special effects, full left and right justifying, or any other artistic treatment of text that will require its undoing. We use proper 66/99 quote marks and not smart quotes.
5. Use a simple, consistent means for identifying quotes, other sources, or Canonical material. You may use formal endnotes (Chicago style) and/or parenthetical citations to indicate the source, author, date and page numbers after a quote or reference. A bibliography, if used, should appear at the end of the work without special formatting.
6. Canonical citations use four letters from the story’s title, which may include a cardinal number. We use the system for identifying titles devised by Jay Finley Christ.
7. For art submissions, we prefer grayscale with an image resolution of 300 dpi or more. CMYK can be accommodated, if discussed. Full bleed size is 5.375 inches x 8.25 inches, and also a smaller size of 4 inches x 7 inches or less can fit within the borders.

The deadline for the Fall (November) issue is August 1 and the deadline for the Spring (May) issue is February 15. Late submissions will be considered if possible. Please send submissions as email attachments to publisher@johnhwatsonsociety.com.