Where do Sherlockian presentations go when the meeting is over?

As Gasogene of a scion, I'm often thinking about presentations. Watson's Tin Box meets every month, and at eleven of twelve meetings, we have a presentation. In 2025, I tried to invite some strong guest speakers to expose our members to some well-known Sherlockians and outside perspectives (Burt Wolder, Travis Schick, Ross Davies, Art Taylor, and Emily Miranker this coming February) and to give our new members time to think about what their first talks might look like. As you can see, there were lots of members speaking also:

This month, new 2025 member Michael Ravnitzky spoke, and in 2026, the speaker list already includes several new members including Liane Luini, and Johanna Draper Carlson will be visiting us from the mid-west! Getting the balance of membership and guests is not easy, visiting speakers aren't easy to solicit for a Monday evening. I have two more guests in my mind for 2026 that I need to schedule, but I don't want to 'crowd out' first-time speakers from WTB, nor those who have presented before but are ready with a new idea. The scion meetings aren't symposia - we have room for one talk of up to 20 minutes.

Every talk has been entertaining and thought-provoking. As the ideas develop, the prepared presentation text can evolve into a Sherlockian article. I remember very well that Olivia Annunzi (who spoke this year on vampirism in the Bible) spoke in 2024 on her research into The Adventure of the Yellow Face - and the response to her wonderful talk was "you need to publish this, the (Sherlockian) world needs to read it!". 

My hope is that the talks we hear at WTB are destined to evolve into articles, and that the presenters benefit from the questions and ideas offered by the WTB audience. The scion is an incubator - I can't think of a better purpose.

On the other hand, my first scion was the Red Circle of Washington, D.C. The scion is now 75 years old, and operates differently. It is in some ways a lunch club - it has a larger attendance (easily greater than 50) and meets every three or four months. Peter Blau MCs the meetings, the main event of the meeting is a presentation from a guest. Given Peter's standing in the community, there are guest presenters from near and far (several in recent memory traveled from locations including New York and California).

Again I find myself wondering, are these presentations articles that are in preparation, or a stand-alone talk? Or is it one being given for the third of fourth time?

I also wonder what the speaker agenda was 20 years ago at WTB? Or 50 years ago at Red Circle? Did those talks evolve into articles? What happened to all those words?

Every now and then, a Sherlockian will self-publish an article based on a presentation. I have two such examples from speakers at the Red Circle.

The first is 'The Sherlockian Triviality Index' by Sherdon Wesson (died 1997). The inside cover states that the article is based on a 'paper delivered to a meeting of The Red Circle, scion society the Baker Street Irregulars, in Washington, D.C., 1983.'

According to the Scuttelbutt from the Spermaceti Press newsletter, "he was for many years director of press relations for the American Iron and Steel Institute in Washington, and the 'poet laureate' of The Silver Blaze (Southern Division), and an enthusiastic printer with a basement full of hand presses and type. His scholarship and wit were a mainstay of The Red Circle, and some fine examples of both will be found in the pages of The Baker Street Journal."

There were multiple opportunities to publish Sherlockian articles in the 1980s (more than now perhaps!), so an exhaustive search is not possible, but it appears this article did not make it into the Baker Street Journal (index here), nor Baker Street Miscellania nor the Sherlock Holmes Society. Nevertheless, this was published in the booklet form shown above, and again in a miniature book form a few years later.

The second publication is from the 1950s by one of the founders of The Red Circle, Svend Petersen (1911-1992).

In 1953 Svend self-published three papers in a typescript format: "The testamentary capacity of Sherlock Holmes; Parallel case; The unwritten canon lore".  These three papers give us insight into an early BSI dinner (1950), and the two Red Circle talks are among the first held - the scion was founded in 1949.

THE TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Read, in part, at the annual dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars, New York City, January 6, 1950

PARALLEL CASES

Read at a meeting of the Red Circle, Washington, D. C., June 15, 1951.

THE UNWRITTEN CANON LORE

Read at a meeting of the Red Circle, Washington, D. C., April 19, 1952.

It appears that none of these three articles appeared (at least with this title) in the Baker Street Journal.

I must say, I'm surprised. Why? Because my approach to research is as follows:

• Idea! Is it new? (Check literature)... Is it interesting? Is there enough information available to create a narrative?
• Compile primary sources
• Create a draft paper, preferably including images that could serve as slides to support a presentation
• GIVE PRESENTATION - preferably several times. Note feedback and questions - usually pointing me to things I didn't know.
• Draft a manuscript based on the presentation - with plenty of references.

I suppose I assumed that others present papers and that they would evolve into published articles. Checking the BSJ is about the limit of digital searching available, but this explains why people may have self-published/printed their talks. 

It has only occurred to me once to think about self-publishing some of my research - because it would be unreadable as an article, but generally speaking I have this blog to 'self publish'. And the nice thing about my blog.... I can edit and update the posts over time.

I consider my blog a way to draft ideas and record events, most of which are not candidates for publication in an august journal or newsletter. Nobody will find my blog posts tucked into the back of a book, there will never be signed copies. Maybe I need to start printing them and handing them out....