Submission guidelines

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Please read the guidelines in full before submitting your manuscript.
Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

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This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

The Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the author responsibilities section on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

We also encourage you to familiarize yourself with our Editorial Policies and our Publication Ethics Policies.

Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions and peer review from a diverse range of authors and reviewers from across all countries and backgrounds. Read our diversity, equity, and inclusion pledge.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. Open access options are available – see below.

Please read the guidelines below then submit your manuscript here.

Access: Subscription
Accepts preprints? Yes
Identity transparency: Single anonymized

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.

Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sage Choice program, and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. Open Access agreement eligibility is determined by the corresponding author’s affiliation matching an agreement at acceptance. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access.

For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

Your article must be within the scope of the journal and be of sufficient quality. If not, it will not be reviewed. Please read the journal’s Aims and Scope to see if your article is appropriate.

The manuscript must be your original work, you must have the rights to the work, and you must have obtained and be able to supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, including figures, illustrations, tables, lengthy quotations, or other material previously published elsewhere.

Guidance on use of artificial intelligence

Please note that authors should fully read and comply with Sage’s artificial intelligence policy which provides information on disclosure and prohibited uses.

Article types

View our topical sections currently accepting submissions:

/page/wem/calls-for-papers

Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstracts.

Original Research: Original studies of basic or clinical research in areas relevant to wilderness medicine. Preferred 3500 word maximum (not including abstract, tables, figures, or references).

Brief Reports: Preliminary findings or small sample-sized studies that generate new hypotheses for further research. Reports should follow the guidelines under Preparation of Manuscripts. Preferred 1500-2000 words (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references), with no more than approximately 10 references.

Case Reports: The journal will consider case reports that discuss:

- A novel case or rare presentation of a wilderness medicine phenomenon

- An unreported significant treatment outcome or complication

- A unique treatment of a known pathology in a wilderness environment

- A medical case describing an overall narrative or unique environment that better informs care.

Authors must include a narrative abstract, introduction, comprehensive case presentation, and discussion of greater implications. Appropriate images and figures are encouraged when available. The journal endorses the CARE Case Report Guidelines (care-statement.org) for the submission of care reports. Preferred 2000-word maximum (not including abstract, tables, figures, or references). As a general rule, the journal discourages case reports of injuries by domesticated wild animals. 

Wilderness Medicine Clinical Case Discussion: Written in a round table format. The first author should provide initial and ongoing narrative details of the case. After an initial narrative introduction, the dialogue should continue in a question-and-answer style. Questions should function as prompts to provide a brief literature review of the topic relevant to the case. Preferred 2000-word maximum. Please see https://wms.org/wemclinical for further instructions.

Review Articles: Extensive, well-referenced reviews of the literature on a narrow relevant topic. Preferred 4000-word maximum (not including abstract, tables, figures, or references); no more than 100 references. Systematic reviews are preferred over narrative reviews.

Concepts: Descriptions of clinical and non-clinical wilderness medical problems and solutions. Articles may focus on practical "how-to" management techniques and/or new approaches to the planning, management, provision of wilderness medical services, or research. Preferred 3500-word maximum (not including abstract, tables, figures, or references).

Letters to the Editor: Observations, opinions, current topics and/or corrections on topics appearing in WEM, generally not to exceed 1000 words, with a maximum of 10 references, one of which should be to the recent WEM article, if applicable. Original scientific work is usually not considered appropriate for Letters.

Letters in Reply: Replies by authors should not exceed 1000 words of text and 11 references inclusive of the article at issue and the inciting letter.

Editorials: Commentaries on major current issues or controversies with significant implications for wilderness and environmental medicine. Preferred 1500-word maximum, excluding references.

Lessons from History: The history section welcomes manuscripts that delve into past research and clinical aspects of wilderness and environmental medicine that have had a significant impact on the field, have an interesting story, or have importance but have yet to receive recognition. We welcome articles revealing the previously unknown history of this field from countries where language barriers may have prevented the work from being reported to a global audience. Preferred 3000-word maximum, not including figures or references.

Clinical Images: Pictures that teach something about wilderness medicine, as well as tell an engaging story. The focus will be on clinical images, each accompanied by text explaining the photograph and briefly reviewing the diagnosis and treatment of the condition it illustrates. If appropriate for the topic, an image and case report should be presented as a mystery, with the diagnosis and discussion appearing after a page break. 1000-1500 words (not including figures and references), with generally no more than 5 references.

Wilderness Images: High-quality, high-resolution (300 dpi) digital images of wilderness subjects. Include photo title and informative description (<300 words) and the appropriate photographer's credit line. Where relevant, include geographical coordinates of where the image was taken.

Wilderness Essays: Personal essays or anecdotes relating to the wilderness and medicine. Preferred 3000-word maximum.

Book Reviews: Please contact the Editorial Office ([email protected]) for more information.

Clinical trial registration

The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

Reporting guidelines

It is recommended that your manuscript follow the relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines, depending on the type of study. The EQUATOR wizard can help identify the appropriate guideline. You will need to upload the appropriate checklist with your submission.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

Formatting your manuscript

Accepted file types

Please format the manuscript in a Word document in 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with continuous line numbering (that is, numbering that does not restart at 1 on each page). Upload tables and figures as separate individual files.

The LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTeX template is available on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Your article title, keywords, and abstract all contribute to its position in search engine results, directly affecting the number of people who see your work. For details of what you can do to influence this, visit How to help readers find your article online.

Title

Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services.

Abstract

All manuscripts that are reports of original data from scientific investigations (original research and brief report categories) must be submitted with a structured abstract of no more than 250 words with the following headings: Introduction, Methods (include information on design, setting, participants, interventions, and main outcomes measured), Results, and Conclusions.

Case reports, review articles, and concept articles should include a narrative abstract of 250 words or fewer and outline the purpose of the article, major findings, and recommendations. Abstracts for review articles should include the literature search and selection strategy. If your research includes clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract. Submissions that do not meet this requirement will not be considered.

For clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

This journal includes video abstracts. For more information on how to prepare a plain language summary, please see this page.

Keywords

Please include a minimum of 4 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.Use terms from the medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus where relevant. Non-MeSH terms can be included where appropriate. Words in the title of the article should not be included in the keyword list since these will already be captured.

Artwork, figures, and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format, please read Sage’s artwork guidelines.

Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Acknowledgments

If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your manuscript.

Writing assistance and third party submissions: if you have received any writing or editing assistance from a third-party, for example a specialist communications company, this must be clearly stated in the Acknowledgements section and in the covering letter. Please see the Sage Author Gateway for what information to include in your Acknowledgements section. If your submission is being made on your behalf by someone who is not listed as an author, for example the third-party who provided writing/editing assistance, you must state this in the Acknowledgements and also in your covering letter. Please note that the journal editor reserves the right to not consider submissions made by a third party rather than by the author/s themselves.

Author contributions

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, this journal has adopted CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each author’s individual contributions to the work.

You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.

Statements and declarations

Please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ at the end of your submitted article, after the Acknowledgements section [and Author Contributions section if applicable] including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office.

Ethical considerations

Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. You can find information on what to say in your ethical statements as well as example statements on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.

All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript.

Please include any participant consent information under this heading and state whether informed consent to participate was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. More information and example statements can be found on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.

Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

Declaration of conflicting interest

The journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, see our policy on conflicting interest declarations and the ICMJE recommendations.

If no conflict exists, your statement should read: ‘The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.

Funding statement

All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding. You’ll find guidance and examples on our Funding page.

Data availability

The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

  • Share your research data in a relevant public data repository
  • Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
  • Cite this data in your research

Reference style and citations

The journal follows the AMA Manual of Style. View the AMA Manual of Style to ensure your manuscript conforms.

Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year.

Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.

EndNote

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the https://endnote.com/style_download/jama-journal-of-the-american-medical-association.

Supplemental material

This Journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Author Services. Visit Sage Author Services for further information.

As part of the submission process you will need to confirm that this is your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that this is for first publication in this Journal, that it is not being considered for/has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that the journal may accept submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.

Preprints

The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.

Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission.

Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed.

Learn more about our preprint policy.

Submission site

Submit your manuscript online via Sage Track.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in Sage Track before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

Manuscripts should only be submitted with the consent of all contributing authors. The individual responsible for submitting the manuscript should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the manuscript are listed as authors.

Ensure you upload all relevant manuscript files, including any additional supplemental files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

Authorship

Please view our authorship policies, which includes information on criteria for authorship, who should be the corresponding author and more.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

Files

  • Cover letter addressed to Editor-in-Chief Dr William D. Binder providing corresponding author's information (name, address, telephone number, and email address) and stating the category of article the manuscript represents.
  • The Title Page should contain (1) a concise and informative title; (2) an identified short running head (short title) of no more than 40 characters, including spaces; (3) the first name (spelled out), middle initial (if applicable), and last name of each author with highest academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation (do not include professional designations such as FACMT, FAWM, etc.; these are not published in the journal); (4) contact information for the corresponding author; (5) summary tallies (word count of abstract, word count of the manuscript including references, word count of the manuscript excluding references, reference count, figure count, table count); and (6) details of formal presentation of the work at a scientific meeting (meeting name, date, and location), if applicable.
  • Your manuscript, properly formatted with double-spaced text in Times New Roman 12-point font with continuous line numbers. Include the abstract and references in the main manuscript file.
  • Figures and images.
    • All figures must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text – they will appear in the published article in the order they are numbered.
    • Figure resolution is 300dpi. More information on figure/image preparation can be found here.
    • Upload tables and figures as separate individual files.
    • Include figure legends on a separate page of the manuscript immediately following the references.
    • Supply captions as a separate section of the text; do not attach to the figures. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration.
    • Cite each figure in the text in consecutive order as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.
  • Tables
    • Tables should not be included in the manuscript document but uploaded as separate individual documents as directed in the submission system.
    • Cite each table in the text in consecutive order as Table 1, Table 2, etc. (Note: number even if only one.)
  • Supplemental material. This journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images, etc) alongside the full-text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
  • Revisions After receiving a decision from the Editor-in-Chief and revising the manuscript as instructed, the revision should be submitted with a point-by-point response letter explaining revisions based on editors' and reviewers' comments. The explanations can be brief, often simply an acknowledgment that appropriate changes were made in the manuscript. This letter must be presented in text form, with the original comment followed by the response. Comment bubbles embedded in the revision are not adequate as a response to reviewers. All material changes should be made in the manuscript so future readers can benefit. Submit two versions of the revised manuscript: one version with changes tracked that should appear first, and one "clean" version without changes tracked.

Other information required for submission

  • ORCID ID of the submitting author.
    • It is strongly encouraged that all co-authors ensure their ORCID IDs are linked to their accounts in the submission system prior to article acceptance, as this is the only way to have their ORCID ID present on the published article. ORCID IDs cannot be added to manuscripts after acceptance/publication. Please note that each co-author must log in to the submission system to add their own ORCID ID to their account. To add an ORCID ID, edit your account, click the link when prompted, and sign into your ORCID account to validate your ID. You will then be redirected back to the submission system and your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata.
    • Please create an ORCID ID if you do not already have one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
  • Complete list of authors, with their institutional affiliations.
    • The author information you enter at submission must exactly match what is included on your manuscript and/or title page, including full names, academic affiliations, and corresponding author contact details.
    • The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript.
    • All listed authors must meet the criteria for authorship (above).
    • All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission.
    • All authors must have given consent for the manuscript to be submitted in its current form.
  • Keywords: During submission, you may be asked to select or enter keywords for your manuscript. These keywords are used to match appropriate reviewers to your manuscript.
  • The number of figures, tables, and words in your manuscript.
  • Funder information: Name, grant/award number.
  • You may be required to enter your declaration of conflicting interest as part of the submission process, in addition to listing it on your manuscript and/or title page. Please have it on hand.
  • If you have posted your manuscript to a preprint server, you will be asked to supply the DOI (this does not prohibit submission, but no changes should be made to the preprint version while your manuscript is under evaluation in this journal). Please see our guidelines on prior publication. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your manuscript is accepted, you must include a link in your preprint to the final version of your published article.

The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal:
Identity transparency: Single-anonymized
Reviewer interacts with: Editor
Review information published: None

Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejected without peer review at this point if they are out of scope for the journal or otherwise unsuitable.

After passing the initial evaluation, your manuscript will then be peer reviewed. You can log in at any time to check the status of your manuscript. We will notify you when a decision has been reached.

Wilderness & Environmental Medicine Journal operates a conventional single-anonymized reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author. Two independent reviews are required for a manuscript to reach a Revise or Accept decision. The manuscript will be referred to acknowledged expert peer reviewers and, if appropriate, an Associate or Section Editor, prior to the Editor's decision regarding publication. If necessary, the manuscript will be returned to the author(s) for revision(s) prior to a final decision. All attempts are made to obtain prompt reviews and a decision regarding need for revision, acceptance, or rejection.

Author-suggested (recommended) reviewers are rarely used by Wilderness & Environmental Medicine Journal. In certain circumstances, it may be decided by the Editors to be appropriate. In such cases, it is Wilderness & Environmental Medicine Journal's policy to use only one recommended reviewer per paper. If a recommended reviewer is used, they must have an institutional email address. At least one independently sourced reviewer for everyone recommended reviewer will be used.

Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if: The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors. The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper. The reviewer has provided a personal (eg, Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).

To ensure the integrity of the peer review process we assign reviewers and cannot accept author recommendations.

All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Associate or Section Editor and Editor-in-Chief, who then makes the final decision on all manuscripts, including those appearing in a special issue or special collection. The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

Read Sage's complete peer review policy.

Peer Review and AI

Reviewers may not use AI or LLM tools to develop their review for any manuscript. These types of tools must not be used to generate, structure, or draft a review. Reviewers remain solely responsible for forming their own independent scholarly evaluations.

The use of AI and LLM tools in peer review raises concerns about confidentiality, fairness, and the protection of intellectual property.

Reviewers should not upload, paste, quote, or describe identifiable manuscript content in any open or external AI, chatbot, summarizer, translation, or similar tool or service. Doing so may breach author confidentiality, copyright law, and institutional, organizational, and/or journal ethics policies.

To maintain the integrity of the peer-review process, reviewers are expected to adhere to these principles. If uncertainty arises about appropriate AI use, reviewers should contact the editorial office rather than proceed in a way that might risk confidentiality or fairness.

Reviewers using ChatGPT or other GenAI tools to generate review reports inappropriately will not be invited to review for the journal and their review will not be included in the final decision.  

Plagiarism

The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.

Contributor’s Publishing Agreement

Before publication, we require the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal, Sage Edit, or by email, and should be returned promptly to avoid delaying publication. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence, and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. This is the final opportunity to make changes to your manuscript. Further corrections will not be possible after publication. Changes to the author list are not permitted at this stage.

Publication

OnlineFirst publication: This enables us to publish final articles online immediately, without waiting for assignment to a future issue of the Journal. This usually significantly reduces publication lead time. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite OnlineFirst articles.

Access to your published article: We provide you with online access to your published article. The online access link is provided to the corresponding author for sharing with their co-authors.

Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process. Between us, we can ensure that your article is found, read, downloaded and cited as widely as possible. Many of the most effective tactics are those you can do quickly and easily to your network of contacts and peers. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway for numerous resources to help you promote your work.

The Sage Journal Author Gateway has some general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journals Solutions Portal.

You can view our complaints and appeals procedure.

Contact us

You can direct any questions to the journal’s editorial office:

Alicia Byrne, WEM Managing Editor

abyrne@wms.org.

Adam Etkin, WMS Director of Publications

adam@wms.org.