Publishing Major Enjoys Blend of Arts and Business
Jillian Mannarino ’18 had never considered a career in publishing before coming to Susquehanna, but has found her niche in this blend of the arts and business.
Our Publishing & Editing Major
Top Tier Career Preparation, Small School Vibe
Do you dream of working at a publishing house, indie magazine or scholarly journal? Then our publishing and editing major is for you.
You won't find this kind of program at any other liberal arts colleges—or at many far larger colleges either. We offer one of the only publishing majors in the nation.
Publishing is all about connecting. Writers and readers. Art and business. Traditional and new technologies. Gain the knowledge and skills to navigate these interconnections, and reflect on the:
- Cultural role of publishing
- History of the book
- Implications of the shift to digital publishing
Our publishing and editing program is big enough that you'll have access to a high-tech, dedicated lab and eight department student publications, and small enough that you'll get hands-on, personalized attention from faculty. Our students have even helped produce a professional publication, which saw two pieces nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Nab Prime Internships & Post-Grad Opportunities
Our track record for internships at top magazines, newspapers and presses and placements at the three most prestigious summer certificate programs is exceptional. Internships include:
- The Overlook Press
- San Diego Magazine
- Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents
- Odyssey Online
Each year we successfully place graduates in the Columbia Publishing Course and NYU's Summer Publishing Institute. All five students from the Class of 2019 who applied to Columbia's program, the most prestigious program in the country, were accepted.
Flexible Skills for Any Field
You'll be ready to succeed in publishing and editing when you graduate, and the skills you'll gain translate to many industries including media management, marketing, library and information science, communications, and more.
Our interdisciplinary minors, like museum studies and arts administration, help you gain a better understanding of important topics in today’s world.
Recent graduates are employed at:
Leshne Agency
Penguin Random House (Publicity)
KAMA, IOS App
Pearson Education
Free Spirit Publishing
Harper Collins (HarperTeen)
Cengage Learning
Berkley Books/Penguin Random House
Penn Foster Education
Workman Publishing
The Pottsville Republican-Herald
Palgrave Macmillan
Highlights for Children
Business 2 Community
MacMillan Learning
So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art
Ingram Content Group
Print: A Bookstore (Portland, ME)
Crayola
Touchstone Books
U.S. Pharmacopeia
The Vanguard Group
Stanford University
Recent internship placements:
Help the Rural Child Charity Bookstore, Maubray, South Africa
NEPA Scene
Harvey Klinger, Inc.
Logbuch KG, Bremen, Germany
Odyssey Online
Sunbury Press
Elsewhere Magazine
Lost & Found Fiction
Atticus Books
Judson Press
Llewellyn Worldwide (publisher)
San Diego Magazine
The Star Ledger
Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Sacramento Book Review
The Hopkins Review
Business 2 Community
The Arabian Sport Horse Magazine
Susquehanna Life Magazine
Bull Magazine
Adventum Magazine
Smith Magazine
Pink and Black Online Magazine
Happenings Magazine
W.W. Norton
Writ Large Management
Pretty Pictures Entertainment
Top 10 school for Publishing & Editing
-Universities.com
"Rarely do creative writing and literature students (either undergrad or grad) get any exposure to the mechanics much less the conceptual frameworks of publishing, and your students in the Publishing and Editing program — and the English and Writing majors I encountered — seemed well-informed, exceedingly thoughtful and above all, magnificently curious. Their questions revealed how much thinking they’ve already done which means they’ve considered what publishing is and can be, how it work (and sometimes doesn’t). From the examples of chapbooks and literary journals I saw, it also seems as if they're putting ideas into practice. Kudos to you and the Susquehanna faculty for creating a unique and thriving community of future publishers!"
-Lisa Pearson, publisher of Siglio Press
"Fortunately, some institutions have found ways to innovate within traditional liberal arts disciplines to provide greater career development opportunities to meet student, parent, and law maker demand while safeguarding their liberal arts core….The new [Publishing & Editing] major has been extremely successful, helping to increase English enrollments by 80% in just two years. By aligning the program with alumni career outcomes Susquehanna has been able to ensure that their students gain more specialized skill sets and knowledge within the English program without sacrificing the critical breadth the major supplies."
-Ashley Delamater, EAB, "Redesign academic programs to meet student demand: How Susquehanna University repackaged their English program"
The English - Publishing and Editing major prepares students for careers in a digitally mediated publishing industry and for related careers in marketing, public relations, arts journalism, library and information science, and media management. Courses focus on both the intellectual and practical uses of literary study, especially the technologies of writing and reading, the businesses of literature, and craft.
Students in the English - Publishing and Editing major complete the following 42 - 46 semester hours with grades of C- or better.
| Semester Hours | View Full Course Catalog >> |
|---|---|
| 4 ENGL-190 Introduction to Modern Publishing | |
| 4 WRIT-270 Small Press Publishing and Editing | |
| 4 COMM-331 Editing | |
| 2-4 ENGL-540 Internship | |
| 4 MGMT-280 Marketing | |
| or ENGL-375 History of the Book | |
| 4 ENGL-388 Publishing: Ethics, Entertainment, Art, Politics | |
2-4 One course from among COMM-182 Writing for New Media, COMM-211 Public Relations, ENGL-298 Book Reviewing, and ENGL-299 Professional Writing. 8 ENGL-265 Surveys in Forms of Writing (students may not repeat the same form) |
|
| 2 ENGL-269 English Grammar and the Writing Process | |
| 4 ENGL-290 Aesthetics and Interpretation | |
4 One ENGL course at the 300 level other than ENGL-375 and ENGL-388 |
|
Major GPA Calculation. For the purposes of calculating the required 2.00 minimum GPA in any of the four majors offered by the department, the English and Creative Writing Department uses all of the major courses with the ENGL and WRIT prefixes. |
Minor in Publishing and Editing. Students earning the minor in publishing and editing must complete five courses (a total of 18 semester hours) with a grade of C- or above. The required courses are ENGL-190 Introduction to Modern Publishing, WRIT-270 Small Press Publishing and Editing, COMM-331 Editing, ENGL-540 Internship, and ENGL-388 Publishing: Ethics, Entertainment, Art, Politics.
Laurence D. Roth, Ph.D.
Department: English & Creative Writing
Professor of English
roth@susqu.edu
570-372-4202
Karla Anne Kelsey, Ph.D.
Department: English & Creative Writing
Professor of English & Creative Writing
kelseykarla@susqu.edu
570-372-4525
Catherine Zobal Dent, Ph.D.
Department: English & Creative Writing
Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing
dent@susqu.edu
570-372-4518
Randy Robertson, Ph.D.
Department: English & Creative Writing
Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing
robertson@susqu.edu
570-372-4630
Betsy Verhoeven, Ph.D.
Department: School of Arts and Sciences
Associate Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences
verhoeven@susqu.edu
570-372-4192
Heather Lang, Ph.D.
Department: English & Creative Writing
Assistant Professor of English
langh@susqu.edu
570-372-4658
Hasanthika Sirisena
Department: English & Creative Writing
Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing
sirisena@susqu.edu
570-372-4755
Lisa Pearson
On the Small and the Contrary
Isaacs Auditorium
Sept. 12, 7:30 p.m.
Lisa Pearson is the founder of Siglio Press, an independent publishing house driven by its feminist ethos and committed to publishing uncommon books that live at the intersection of art and literature. In the 11 years since Pearson started Siglio in a garage in Los Angeles, Siglio titles have garnered high praise from The New York Times, London Review of Books, The New Yorker and New York Review of Books, among dozens of other media. She has a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Oregon and a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Siglio is now located in a barn in New York’s Hudson River Valley.
Past lectures
- Cheryl Ball, director of the Digital Publishing Collaborative at the Wayne State University Library and editor of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy—Nov. 2, 2018
- Jennifer Weis, executive editor and manager of content development at St. Martin's Press—Feb. 6, 2018
- Christina Harrington '12, assistant editor at Marvel comics—March 20, 2017
7 faculty members
9 state-of-the-art iMacs in publishing lab
40 students majoring in English- publishing & editing
8 department student-run publications
Profiles
Publishing Major Landed Spot at Prestigious Columbia Course
Megan Rudloff ’17 attended Columbia’s Summer Publishing Course—the most prestigious of its kind in the nation.
Student-run publications
Red, Inc.
Susquehanna's Blog of Book Reviews, Literary Criticism, and the Like.
Modern Language Studies
The scholarly journal of the Northeast Modern Language Association is edited and produced in its entirety here.
Transformations
Scholarly student work from across the university comes together in one dazzling place.
Flagship
A magazine of travel writing that publishes stories from students' cross-cultural experiences.
The Squirrel
Susquehanna's student-run satirical news source
Sanctuary
An online genre/speculative literatures magazine focusing on the odd, experimental, unusual and weird.
Contact Us
Phone & Email
570-372-4196
englishdept@susqu.edu