Sting in AmeriGrove, or I'm an expert!

Several years ago, I was asked to be a contributor to the second edition of the Grove Dictionary of American Music (or AmeriGrove for short). AmeriGrove is a scholarly dictionary of music and musicians, but focuses on American music specifically. The topic about which I was asked to write was Sting. "Wait," you say, "Isn't Sting a British musician? What's he doing in a dictionary about American music?" I asked the same question, actually, and the editors felt that Sting has had an important enough impact on American music to be included. I was happy to oblige.

Of course, with the huge scope of the project (more than 9000 entries), publication moved slowly, but the final print version was released earlier this year. A downside to the slow pace: I wrote the article in 2011, and it is already out of date.

Get out the magnifying glass—that's my name. In print.

What did I get for my 250-word article? $25 and 50% off the $1200 sticker price for the full 8-volume AmeriGrove set. Needless to say, I didn't take advantage of the discount, but my real reward was that I get to say 1) I'm published and 2) I'm an expert.

My article hasn't quite made it to the online version of Grove, Oxford Music Online (they're adding them a few at a time), but soon those of you who have access to that database will be able to read the article at your leisure. My guess is this is the last time that Oxford does a print version of a large reference work—the next one will be entirely online.

Vocab: Well....musician? I guess there doesn't always have to be new vocab