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Careers In Publishing

More than a few LITR majors are interested in a career in publishing. This page offers some advice for students thinking about going that route. Of course, most LITR courses ask students to write and revise more than the average course. That experience is going to be valuable to the student thinking of getting into the publishing world. Specific LITR courses you should consider taking if you’d like to go into publishing include LITR 202 – MAGAZINE WORKSHOP and any of our creative writing courses.
The following advice this is taken from a note from LITR alum Sean Strathy, who currently works at Pearson Publishing.
Sean writes that students should learn HTML5 and CSS3, current web languages used to create web content. Noting a familiarity with these applications on a resume or in an interview puts students ahead of the game.
He also recommends starting a blog, and suggests that since Literature students are essentially writers, they need to have an online portfolio of their writing. Your writing ability really needs to show not just academic, MLA style writing proficiency. Most job applications ask for your website or online portfolio and what better way to display a Literature student’s talents than a well-developed blog or links to other work?
Sean recommends a few blogs below, but you might want to look for blogs on subjects that are meaningful to you:

  • http://thoughtcatalog.com/ <– This is like the Modernism of blogs: segments of Streams of Consciousness, emotionally driven, and entirely immersed in the intellectualization of Generation Y.
  • http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/ or http://bleacherreport.com/ <– I write for both of these. They’re well respected sports blogs that anyone who writes well and follows sports can contribute to.
  • http://www.patch.com/ <– When I was writing for a print newspaper, this site always had the story online before mine went to print. They’ll gladly employ local college students.