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:
- UrbanEdge Publishing
- Penguin Random House
- Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents
- Ingram Content Group
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.
Coming Soon
Susquehanna University will be restarting the SU Press as an entirely student-run operation. The press will provide hands-on experience in publishing and is a collaborative project with the Sigmund Weis School of Business. With this project our undergrad publishing program will be the only one in the country affiliated with a business school. More details about the SU Press will be coming this fall.
A Susquehanna education provides students with flexibility in coursework so they can conduct research, intern and study abroad. When it comes to your major, you’ll begin taking classes in your chosen program of study in your first year.
Here are some of the courses that publishing & editing majors take in their first few semesters at Susquehanna.
- Introduction to Modern Publishing
- Small Press Publishing and Editing
- Writing and Editing Podcasts
- Marketing
Download the current course catalog on this page to see the full list of classes and course descriptions for Susquehanna’s majors.
Recent graduates are employed at:
Simon & Schuster
The Ross Yoon Agency
AfterShock Comics
Holiday House
Labyrinth Books
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:
Dzanc Books
Citizen's Climate Lobbby
Her Campus Media
Penguin Random House
UrbanEdge Publishing
Overlook Press
Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents
Help the Rural Child Charity Bookstore, Maubray, South Africa
NEPA Scene
Harvey Klinger, Inc.
Logbuch KG, Bremen, Germany
Odyssey Online
Sunbury Press
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
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"
Laurence D. Roth, Ph.D.
Department: English & Creative Writing
Professor of English
roth@susqu.edu
570-372-4202
Bradley Carpenter
Department: English & Creative Writing
Adjunct Faculty in English and Creative Writing
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
Jennifer Baker
Book Publishing Here & Now and Ready for Change
Cunningham Center for Music and Art - Stretansky Concert Hall
March 1, 2021, 7:30 p.m.
Jennifer Baker is Managing Editor at Random House Children’s Books, a contributing editor to Electric Literature, editor of Everyday People: The Color of Life—A Short Story Anthology, and the creator and host of the podcast Minorities in Publishing, a finalist for the 2018 and 2019 Digital Book World Best Use of Podcasting in Book Marketing. Baker was named the 2019 Publishers Weekly Star Watch “SuperStar” because her “varied work championing diversity in publishing has made her an indispensable fixture in the book business.”
Baker will provide insight into a publishing industry in flux due to the economics of a pandemic and the consistent (public) calls for equity and inclusion, among other factors. Her lecture will also shed light on the many discussions happening in- and out-of-house, the myriad pathways to publication, and the communities bringing BIPOC (and other marginalized groups) together to promote enduring, not temporary, change to the industry.
Past lectures
- Lisa Pearson, founder of Siglio Press—Sept. 12, 2020
- 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
9 state-of-the-art iMacs in publishing lab
40 students majoring in English- publishing & editing
7 faculty members
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.
FUSE
We started this national group of student editors and writers and it now has an annual conference hosted by member institutions and a caucus that meets at AWP each year.
Flagship
A magazine of travel writing that publishes stories from students' cross-cultural experiences.
Sanctuary
An online genre/speculative literatures magazine focusing on the odd, experimental, unusual and weird.
The Squirrel
Susquehanna's student-run satirical news source
Transformations
Scholarly student work from across the university comes together in one dazzling place.
Modern Language Studies
The scholarly journal of the Northeast Modern Language Association is edited and produced in its entirety here.
Red, Inc.
Susquehanna's Blog of Book Reviews, Literary Criticism, and the Like.
The Quill
Read the latest issue of our student-run weekly newspaper.
Contact Us
Phone & Email
570-372-4196
englishdept@susqu.edu