It is a moment of collective memory work. The three of us--Claudia, Jacqui and Jackie--try to remember when and where the idea for a Girlhood Studies journal came from in the first place. We think that probably the precise moment (or event) was the "A New Girl Order: Young Women and the Future of Feminist Inquiry" Conference convened by Anita Harris and colleagues at Monash University and held at King's College, London, from November 14 to 16 2001. Although we had individually attended conferences related to girls and girlhood, it was for the three of us the first time that we had been to an event that focused on girlhood in ways that went beyond disciplinary boundaries of, say, girls in science or girls in development. There was something quite different emerging--a new area that combined advocacy, interdisciplinarity, and of course the voices of girls themselves--and it somehow gave a new imperative to exploring girlhood in all its possible manifestations. That was 2001 and now it is 2008. It has taken us seven years to make Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal a reality with this inaugural issue. Now we try to remember why it took us so long, or what it was that gave us the kickstart to finally do it!

CLAUDIA: For me it was the day Jacqui and I signed on to edit a two-volume Girl Culture encyclopedia. Somehow, being in touch with so many girlhood scholars out there was very exciting. We can't stop with the encyclopedia, I thought. I think I always thought someone else might come along and do it--and then we could just contribute articles. And then when I was contacted about the Journal of Boyhood Studies, I realized that if we were ever going to start a journal on girlhood studies (as opposed to gender and childhood studies, for example) this was the moment to do it.

JACQUI: The young feminisms conference was indeed a milestone in our study of girls and girlhood but our interest in girls culture and girlhood studies as feminists stretches back even further to the 1990s when we gave conference papers and published articles on Nancy Drew, Barbie, Seventeen magazine, catalogues and so on. The move from studying specific aspects of girls and girls' popular culture to being interested in girlhood occurred in 1998 when we organized a panel session called "Who cares about girls? Mapping Girlhood as a Cultural Space" with Marilyn Blaeser and Ann Smith at the International Institute of the Canadian Association for the Study ofWomen and Education in Ottawa, Ontario, at the end of May 1998. While we continued to study specific aspects of girls and girls' culture it was not until the 2001 conference where we met and heard speak leading girlhood scholars that we started to think about girlhood studies as a diverse and multidisciplinary field needing its own research apparatus such as a journal. Sharing a small London hotel room the three of us brainstormed ideas for this initiative--something which has...