 Alright, hi everybody. I want to get started. My name is Sonya Hooper. I'm the director of the MFA program and I've also had the distinct pleasure of working with all of these wonderful human beings who I'll introduce in a second. I just wanted to take a few minutes first to thank you all for coming and to let you know that not only is creative writing a fun class to take here whether you're taking poetry fiction or nonfiction but contrary to many people's first assumption it actually gives you skills that are directly helpful in getting jobs and publishing. So that's one of the things that some of our panelists are going to talk about tonight. On your way out you can grab some of these little cards. They just have email addresses for myself and my colleague Caroline Davis who teaches the poetry workshops among many other classes. And these are great opportunities where you bring in your own writing into a setting, a small supportive setting and in looking at the work of others you're actually gaining an amazing amount of skill in learning how to edit and critique. So in addition to that these folks are going to talk about other things that they did while they were here at Fairfield and then afterwards to prepare themselves to transition into various roles in the publishing industry. Wanted to also mention out there on the table as you're leaving there's a brochure for the Fairfield MFA program which is a master's of fine arts and creative writing. Actually two of our folks are alums of that program and it's the next level up in creative writing. The program is low residency which means that you can work full-time while you're in the program and it allows you to both hone your own writing skill and figure out how you want to orient yourself towards next steps. So basically the way we're going to work is we're just going to go down and folks are each going to tell their story. So we have Danielle Tullo and they're each going to sort of say more about what when they graduated and so on and we have Lone Lee, we have Molly Gregory, Sam Filazzi and Colin Hostin. So at this point I'm going to turn it over to them. After they've done speaking we'll take questions from all of you and then once we've sort of had a good period of that then we'll have more informal chatting and you can kind of approach panelists individually. So with that we are so thrilled that you came tonight to share your experience with current Fairfield students. Thank you so much. Danielle. Hi guys, I'm Danielle Tullo. I graduated in 2015. I was an English major with a concentration in creative writing. When I was at Fairfield I co-founded Her Campus Fairfield, which exists today. We have some Her Campus Girls up here and it's a website, a digital media experience. It gave me everything I need to know about starting a website. Google Analytics, traffic, what's trending, using social media to get traffic, all of that. And I realized I definitely wanted to go with the digital media route. So that really kind of fast tracked me. I devoted all of my time into it while I was at Fairfield. I worked with so many amazing people and getting really cool stories up. And then I started at Cosmopolitan. I interned there going into my senior year and then I was obsessed with it. I was like, this is where I need to work. I need to work in a women's magazine. I love digital media. This is so great. So senior year I really focused on impressing them while, you know, on campus. I think something so great about Fairfield is that you're so close to New York City. So I didn't want them to forget me. I would take the train in and I would say, like, I had a meeting in New York today, like, I'd love to stop by, but really, like, I was just stalking them. Like, I just, I did not want them to forget me and I'd just show up and like bring some new clips, have some things to talk to them about, be like, I saw you publish the story, I loved it, blah, blah, blah, slip them some of my latest things, you know, keep the network and the relationship going. And it worked. I ended up becoming their social media editor February of my senior year here. So I was doing, taking all my classes. I think it was the craziest semester. I was taking, like, six classes doing her campus, working for Cosmo. And I like, it was the best semester ever. I was like, Dean's List, like, great, great. It's like, I don't know how, but it was amazing. And so I was able to start working there ahead of graduation. And then I write right literally like the day before I graduated, I got offered the editorial assistant role there. So I was able to phase out of the social media editor role. A common question I get about that is, you know, I went from being a social media editor to an editorial assistant. That doesn't sound as fancy. You know, I went from being an editor to an editorial assistant, which is like, you know, an assistant, it's entry level. But being an EI is the best thing in the entire world. Don't shy away from it. I got to be the right hand to the editor who is Amy O'Dell at the time. And she taught me everything about the industry. And you really get access to, you know, the most important people at the company, being an assistant and kind of learning everything that you need to know to then make your move your way up. So I was an EI for a year and a half. And then I got promoted to associate lifestyle editor, where I started the magazine's food section, which is Cosmobytes. And then I got promoted to Snapchat editor. So I ran their Snapchat to discover, which is still there today, which was really cool and really, really weird, explaining to your parents and your grandparents that you are the editor of a Snapchat Discover channel. It's quite interesting. So very, very heavy in digital media. I love digital media. I love the analytics. I love seeing what people are responding to. And so I was really able to do that with her campus Fairfield, because that's what it was. And so did all of that. And then I was at House Beautiful, which is within Hearst for about six months. I spent four years at Hearst total. I was the senior lifestyle editor there. And then I started at her campus back in January as our deputy editor. So I spent four years at Hearst. It was amazing. Learned so many things. And then I kind of like went full circle back home to her campus. Media, which is based in Boston, but I'm in New York City. I have a team there that I'm building, which is really exciting. And kind of getting just everything that I learned working for a big corporation, applying it into a small women's media company. And it's it's really exciting. So that's my like five minute summary of my life. I don't know how to do. Hi guys, my name is Lonely and I'm an associate editor at Atria Books, which is an imprint at Simon and Schuster. So I graduated in 2014. And on campus, I was a part of the mirror, right from the start, from freshman year to senior year. I started as a contributing editor and then Vine director and then worked my way up to the EIC or editor in chief. And I think half of my career at Fairfield, I had this belief that I was going to go into journalism. That was my actually my concentration. So I was English and concentrating in journalism. And I think of my first four years, I really did believe it. I would spend all my time on the mirror. And I would just write and edit and I mean the mirror is if you are looking for a hands on experience of editing and pressure and just just everything that you would expect in a later on in a digital media setting or publishing setting, I highly recommend the mirror. Nothing gets you more prepared to work on your feet than having computers crash at like 1am and then losing everything in an issue. I don't know if there's any mirror people here, but okay, yeah, because you laughed so you understood. So you definitely build the skills there of also copy editing, design, just the actual knowledge of knowing that you had put yourself into this physical copy of something. I think that's what I take with me to Simon & Schuster where the books that you get from manuscript, you now see it as a book. So that's a really great feeling to see. And then I was also I mean the second half of my career here I got more serious about writing I took fiction, fiction classes all of them and then I took publishing which is that was a really great experience as well. And then I was part of Dogwood as well as managing editor. Oh Dogwood? Yeah Dogwood was the it was a type of practicum. So we would we would take editorial ship positions there and we would read submissions. We were we had a hand in designing the the cover as well. But that definitely prepared me for reading. Obviously in book publishing you have to read and you have to read really quickly. And I think that experience during that time when I was working in Dogwood, we had a submitable contest where people would submit submissions fiction nonfiction. So you read a variety of that and that really you know just just being able to to judge and also verbalize you know why this piece works or why it doesn't. I definitely took that to Simon & Schuster as well. And Dogwood I think I heard that the literary magazine issue just came out or something so. Oh great. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really beautiful. I mean this is another thing of you know the Fairfee Mirror had a mirror copy that can hold the Dogwood copy has something the Dogwood journal has me can hold as well. So my first yeah so my first two years was about journalism but then I wanted to go into an internship. I wasn't sure about newspaper or publishing because I always love to read. But then I forgot which department but they forwarded like a link to Simon & Schuster and I applied and I you know had the sense of like okay people who are applying will have the same the same skills that I'm mentioning on my resume so there's no point. But did it anyways. I got an interview because this is a great fact because the HR person was a stag. So it was brilliant like literally the email that she sent me was the first one was saying go stag. So I was like okay. Wow. Yeah so that was the summer after my sophomore year. So summer before junior year. And I was lucky enough to because of Fairfield because of the major scholarship that they gave me I was able to they were able to support me as I was living in New York and working as an editorial assistant at Touchstone which no longer exists now but some of the editors who I worked with in 2012 they're still I work with them now not directly but they're my colleagues. So that experience was life changing and it definitely shifted my attention from journalism to book publishing because just that direct energy of being in an editorial meeting of listening to these editors who have years of experience talking about the submissions that they got. Why is this so exciting. Like they would talk about hot submissions. They would talk about celebrities and writing their memoirs. And I think that just really when I sat in that board meeting I was like this is where I belong. And they definitely trained me. You would think as an intern they would you know send me out for coffee or have me copy stuff but they were really having me read submissions manuscripts writing readers reports and telling them you should buy this because it was XXX and then so that that experience was totally life changing and I kept in touch with some editorial system so I helped out at the time and I think I didn't I didn't really like pay attention to how important networking was until I was in my senior year I was I was still editor-in-chief at Mirabai was also in turning out a literary agency called Folio and that was also an experience itself of reading reading manuscripts right before they're even touched by someone and getting into the action of like of actually pitching of pitching books to agents and authors or agents and editors so that was great but during that time because of the connection I had with Simon and Shuster when I was in my senior year I had an editor assistant who is now an assistant editor so she moved up and stuff and she actually said oh there's an opening I want to bring you in for an interview with one of the directors and that was my big my first big girl interview I think and it was actually too early it was it happened in April instead of you know typically May or June so I went in knowing that if they did perhaps offer me a job and we would take it because if that if that happened like editorial assistant jobs get snatched up really quickly so they would have to have you work like within two weeks and stuff but because of my Simon and Shuster connection I was able to get this first experience of interviewing but then luckily right before graduation my interview I think I was taking Carol Anne's class the portfolio class where we had to we we basically submitted pages and pages of our own work or fiction work and I had my binder I think and I was I was dropping it off at your door and I was running because I had to catch the train to New York for my interview for Jen Bergstrom at gallery books she was the publisher she is the publisher and yeah I got the job the next day I think and I started right after graduation like a week after that was not the best choice but I'll talk about that later but yeah working for Jen Bergstrom and and working in this position as my title was an editorial assistant and I think I really echo your what you said about editorial assistant jobs like this is so important you learn how the company operates you get to observe people who have been at their craft for years and years so you get kind of like a better understanding of the larger picture I think so I spent two years as an editorial assistant more of you know work in the business side and the company side of arranging meetings with authors and Asians and then I made a latter move three years ago to Atria Books where I am now as an editorial assistant and I worked for two senior editors who acquired a very diverse list both fiction and nonfiction and then I recently was you know promoted to I grew up in Atria basically I grew up there you know editorial assistant and then assistant editor and now I was recently promoted to associate editor so but yeah I think you know I think it's really important to get involved now like the experience is one where you kind of you're able to like make mistakes I think in a safe environment like hopefully you don't make a big mistake but like you're able to make mistakes safely and learn from it and then also you get to connect to people and and you never know they're going to show up in your life later on so yeah let's see if this one works is this yes hello I'm Molly I graduated in 2016 and I always felt like I was born to be in publishing I came into Fairfield an English major already declared and I concentrated in creative writing and later I tacked on another major in American Studies and a minor in digital journalism but I knew that I wanted to do book publishing and so happily I'm not sure how it works now but there was like a creative writing track and that was what I decided to do and I decided right off the bat that I was going to take publishing 101 so I took publishing 101 with Carol Ann over here and then publishing two with Sonia over here and I got to work on Dogwood kind of from the earliest of stages just like loaned it with reading submissions and talking about writing and what makes a good piece of writing and what doesn't to later down the line actually editing and if any of you are interested in getting into book publishing I think it's an invaluable experience because editing isn't just reading something and saying oh this is great or oh this is bad but it's learning how to work with an author and to talk to them and to have a conversation about their writing and what about their writing can they improve what parts of the book really need to come out what things can you get rid of when you get down to the nitty gritty which is grammar it was actually very helpful we did real proof reading at Dogwood so doing the actual markings up of a manuscript which you might have done in elementary school and haven't done since but it's really helpful you will use it in the industry and it was also great too because we got to use in design and going off of loan actually design the journal so that was an invaluable experience and I think it really helped me a lot and the other thing that Fairfield really prepared me for I worked in the writing center which Colin is involved with and that's just another great experience to learn about how to work with somebody on writing I think it's really really easy to look at something and say that you don't like it but it's another thing to actually work with somebody on developing a piece I always feel like writing is a team effort and you and an author are on the same team and you have to learn to work together so teamwork is key take some team building classes it will really help but yeah so I did that my sophomore through end of junior year I took there were three publishing course offer at the time to the publishing practicum as well and then my senior year I did an internship with Carol Anne at Cathedral Academy I ran eight weeks of poetry workshops teaching elementary students and middle school students about writing which is really really fun but I knew that I wanted to be in New York after senior year didn't know how I was going to get there so I was like going to go for a big internship so I applied to a bunch of places and I applied to Cosmo actually and I think I messaged Danielle on LinkedIn and I was like hey I don't know you but I want to be at Cosmo and she was on the digital side but I eventually got into Cosmo the second half of senior year which was very very exciting so I was going into the city three days a week full days on top of a full workload so I'd get up at like 5am I would take the train down and it was a real challenge I did not sleep very much senior year but it really really paid off because I was really fortunate enough to not just be getting coffees I was pitching story ideas I was finding friends to interview for articles every day I put together I had half an hour me and two other interns to put together a newsletter that went out to the entire Cosmo staff about what was going on that was really hot right now from politics to pop culture to random fun facts and that actually was super helpful for where I ended up next so the pieces kind of fell into place in this very magical way I did a couple of interviews with a couple of publishing houses nothing was really hitting but then it was about two weeks before I was supposed to graduate and I think both Carol Ann and Sonya emailed me they're like hey an alum just reached out and there's an opening at gallery books at Simon and Schuster and that alum was loan actually the power of alumni so I emailed loan right away and I applied through HR I had an interview I got a job like within a week they loved her they really loved her so I had eight days to move to New York between like graduating it was wild but I ended up having a friend who had an open room in his apartment and it all worked out really it was really serendipitous so now I've been at gallery books for three years still an editorial assistant but I think something that's important to know about being an editorial assistant is that it's a very flexible title and even though you are assisting two editors you're doing everything from helping them read books to actually buying books and acquiring them to doing your own work so I was very lucky and in kind of the first six months after I started an editor left and there were a bunch of romance ebooks that needed attention and so I very eager said that's what I want to do so I edited everything from cowboy military romances to historical romances and it's it's a blast of a time and it was a great way to get started but I knew that I really wanted to go into nonfiction which was actually my favorite thing that I worked on a dog would I always wanted to edit nonfiction and what's really great about gallery is that they really want assistance to be proactive so a lot of times we're going after celebrities are people who are trending to get books with them and before they really hit so what's still the biggest highlight of my career is last May or last March excuse me rather we had a meeting and we were talking about what was trending in the world and I mentioned Queer Eye and so yeah so an executive editor gallery Jeremy Ruby Strauss who's notorious for taking assistance under his wing and helping them to grow said okay if you want to book with Queer Eye then let's make a book so I went to Barnes and Noble that day and I looked at all the different pop culture kind of nonfiction books that are coming out right now and I was taking notes and I was coming up with an idea so in 24 hours I turned around a 10 page proposal for the Queer Eye book I did their work which goes to show we brought it to their agent the agent took it out wide which means instead of just dealing with us they sent it to all of the publishers in New York and we ended up not getting it yeah WME so but from there I said well let's still make something happen so we looked at the team and I thought you know what would be great Karamo Brown has had an amazing story so let's go let's go after Karamo so we approached Karamo Brown's agent which was at a different agency and we said we would love to do a memoir with him and that ended up working out so that was really really an exciting process because I worked very closely with him and a ghost writer which is often times if you're working with a celebrity or somebody who has a really busy schedule you'll work with another writer who's kind of the go between and they're the ones doing the actual writing but it ended up being a wild production schedule where we decided to shift dates around and I had one weekend to edit that book it was a roller coaster from start to finish but the book came out in March of this year and it was so cool to see that an idea that I had had became an actual tangible thing and I think that that's something to sort of take with you even if you're not going to be going after celebrities and developing books if you are proactive and excited about something I think what's really great about the publishing industry is that they really care what editorial assistants think they really want to hear your ideas because you're often going to know about things before the senior editors are going to and if you are eager and invested you can really go far and you can do anything from romance to celebrity books so yeah yeah yeah I was really frustrated and it just happened so I think yeah don't lose faith and just keep working hard and reach out to alums because I think that's really you know what's going to get you in in Fairfield people love Fairfield so don't hesitate to ever reach out I think that's super important yeah hello everyone can you hear me so I'm Sam Pilawzi I work at Scholastic as an editor for two imprints one is Chicken House and one is David Fickling Books so these are two UK imprints Chicken House is run by Barry Cunningham who is the person who discovered JK Rawling so Scholastic partnered with him and now I'm the one who directly acquires anything that he has and same with David Fickling who's the editor of the Curious Incident of the Dog of the Nighttime or the Boy in the Striped Pajamas so it's really fun they are two very eccentric and bizarre and hilarious and brilliant men and yeah so it didn't happen as seamlessly for me as I think it was it was tough to get into this industry so I started here with no idea what I wanted to do like none at all I knew that I could draw so I became a studio art minor and I figured I'd fill in the dots from there and then I took your nonfiction class and I was like oh I could I could write things so and I remember one thing that you said was that it's good to make lists so I started making lists and I got a journal and I started making lists and then I from there just signed up for every creative writing class because that was just fun for me and I realized like aside from art I could this is a place where you can mix your passions which is really really incredible and actually for my senior projects I put together a group of short stories and I for my studio art class I took a I did an internship at the Center for Book Arts and I learned how to bind my own books so then I just bound my own short stories and presented it to my class and it was like really something that you could only do here you can really just invent your own major to to a large degree but yeah that was really a big moment for me where I realized that I wanted to work with words I wanted to work with books whether I'm binding them or writing them or editing someone else's I just want to work with books somehow and then I graduated and became a lifeguard so it was not as easy for me but then I went to the dentist and the dentist said Sam's six months after graduating what are you doing and I was like I'm on the lifeguard and they're like well what do you want to do and I was like their fingers are in my mouth too so it was very hard to talk and he actually knew someone who worked at Scholastic and he was like I can put you in touch so you can find connections anywhere just keep telling people what you want to do so I actually the first job that I got at Scholastic was more on the marketing side of things but it was still working with writing and working with kids and working for kids and that was such a great feeling and the good thing about that was I was able to keep writing and I was able to keep taking classes and the reason I knew I wanted to keep writing and I think one of the like the key like most influential thing that I did here at Fairfield was intern at the MFA program at Enders Island and it was 10 days, it was a 10 day retreat where all you're doing is talking with people about writing, having them edit your own stories, editing other people's stories and just one full circle moment is one of the mentors there was Da Chen who wrote Colors of the Mountains and you're kind of his best seller and now Scholastic is publishing his book so he walked through the halls one day and I was like Da, do you remember me? So really it's like connections wherever you can find them so anyway back to the dentist I had my interview with this woman I got my foot in the door and I realized I still wanted to work with the manuscripts I wanted to work with authors so I just kept applying I applied to absolutely everything I just any connection I could find I went and just made those and eventually I got this job and it's an unconventional route and it is hard and I will echo the like it is good to be an assistant and to have that really like hands-on experience from the ground up because you're learning all of those little things whether it's like an internship or an assistant role or something like it was hard for me to jump in at that point and really just get your bearings for all of the minutiae and all of the programs and all of the ways to deal with an author and the amount of submissions that you get and how much you're supposed to read of each submission and there's so much so it was it was a huge learning curve but it was incredibly rewarding and now I work with authors like Cornelia Funke who was the author of The Thief Lord and Kevin Brooks and Lucy Christopher and Lucy Strange and they're absolutely incredible but I will say that like none of it could have happened without Fairfield it was it was one of those places where you can decide what exactly you want to be and make the connections that you want from this place and just let yourself grow into whatever it is you decide you want but you don't have to decide right away if you just decide I want to work with books I want to work with authors I want to work with manuscripts just like just make those connections in any way you can and I will say one piece of advice that I have that I didn't do myself is get on Twitter and really just you don't have to you don't have to actually get so involved but if you start following places like if you want to be in publishing like publishers weekly publishers marketplace and just seeing like what's being acquired every week there's a there's a right support that comes out every week and it says what editors like you look you can see what loan acquired you can see what I acquired like and and that's what agents do they really scour those those I mean it's such a community of people that look at the same stuff constantly and if you really get yourself familiar with those trends and what's going on you can really be that much more equipped in a conversation in an interview or even just more familiar with the people who are who are being written about and who are writing those things so yeah that is that is what I have to say and here's Colin okay so my name is Colin Hauston and as Sonia said I graduated from the MFA program here at Fairfield in 2014 and my path into publishing started before that because I came here for grad school although I think one of the takeaways that I'm taking from just the panel and certainly my experience with the industry is that there are so many paths into it you know it's it's sometimes a difficult industry to break into but as you've heard today there's a lot of different ways to break into it for me yeah I absolutely the advice about seeking internships and seeking experience invaluable as an undergraduate after sophomore year I had my first internship at a law firm in Atlanta because at the time as an English major my intention was to go to law school and become a lawyer it was very unoriginal and it was extremely helpful because I hated it so much and that was useful feedback certainly there were a lot of variables and perhaps that was just one particularly miserable firm but nobody seemed happy who worked there and I wasn't I didn't enjoy it and so I decided that was not going to be my future and so was lucky enough the following summer after junior year to get an internship at a small publishing firm in New York it's called the New Press it's a not-for-profit relatively small although they're pretty well known and growing and it was a wonderful experience as an intern as has been said before I did get a chance to just really get my hands onto projects learn as much as I wanted to it's not a huge team so I had access to pretty much anybody you know the publisher the executive editors you know they were very willing to to share their expertise very generous with their experience and that solidified for me that I wanted to work in book publishing and so after senior year of getting towards the end of it I started to apply I knew I wanted to I was living in Atlanta at the time and I wanted to move to New York where at the time I think still today it really is the capital of book publishing there's certainly opportunities to work in publishing outside of New York City especially on the East Coast but I wanted to you know I was starched rock I wanted to go live in New York for a little bit and to echo the theme of networking and making connections in my senior year I got to go to a forum much like this where one of the speakers was at the time the chairman of the board of a company called John Wiley & Sons known mostly for textbooks although they have a pretty large trade book industry meaning they sell books that you would see at any regular bookstore and this guy Peter Wiley was just a nice dude you know he stayed afterwards and talked to people and I said to him hey I want to work in publishing and he said here's my email email me when you're when you're close to being ready and I did and so I got he and he was responsive and I got in contact with some folks at the company spoke with had my first interview like a phone interview with somebody at HR and then I applied for an actual position had another another interview for that had a third interview for which I flew myself up to Hoboken where they were located and everything was going fantastic so I graduated and decided I was going to get a job at John Wiley & Sons because it was just they were just waiting for me to graduate and make me an offer I moved to New York to Brooklyn and found out that they did offer the job to someone else so I was in the city and I didn't have a job and it was they were moments of anxiety but like people have said you know I just I sent my resume everywhere applied to everything I could and you know I and I also had some luck and some serendipity because a friend of mine knew somebody who was working in HR at a place called Hyperion Books for Children and he put me in contact with her and she said have you considered working in children's books and I lied and told her I had but you know one thing led to another and I got the job it was one of the best experiences of my life I was working as an editorial assistant everything that they have said is true it's one part editorial one part assistant and you can make it you can kind of make the balance you know something that works for you at most companies and so yeah I just it was a great learning experience I worked with children's books I worked with some very smart editors made some friendships that I still cherish today and at the time Hyperion was it still is owned by the Walt Disney Company Disney and several other companies were really trying to make inroads into the digital book market the e-book market this was around 2007 when that was that phrase still meant nothing really and but you know Disney like a lot of other companies decided they wanted to try and they created a digital book digital media department and I transferred into it and so my role kind of changed I was doing a little less editorial actually more operations and marketing but again great experience great learning experience for me and for the company I mean I think Disney would admit that a lot of their first forays into digital books failed because they really didn't I mean you know the iPhone came out in 2008 just think about that right there was a world before the iPhone and so for many of those early years most publishers were really just figuring it out throwing spaghetti and seeing what stuck and a lot of it didn't and a lot of it still isn't we can talk about the e-book market but anyway things changed for me when Disney relocated most of its publishing operations to the west coast where they were like yeah that's where our company is why do we need to be in New York and I think more and more companies are finding it something to think about in terms of relocating outside of New York City where it's a little more expensive obviously to have an office anyway I did not move out with them but I was lucky to stay on in a sort of freelance role in multiple capacities I freelance as an editor at Disney a Disney press when one of the editors when I'm attorney to leave I currently freelance as a writer because a lot of the work that they do is basically license publishing it's not quite the same trade operation that may be done at other companies so in a lot of ways it's them selling products a little less glamorous but it's still a lot of fun for me to get to work with properties that I grew up with like the Avengers and a lot of the Pixar properties and of course they just bought Star Wars they're just buying everything so and so I continue to do that after they relocated to L.A. I shifted gears a little bit I came back to school I did my MFA in creative writing here at Fairfield and I continued to teach here at Fairfield since graduating I teach in the first year writing program I've also taught the world of publishing course that I see some of my former students here and through the MFA I met a couple of friends who together with me formed a small writing group and it was from that experience that I got into something that I'm still working on today which is a what I call a publishing publishing cooperative basically we formed a small press that's based right here in Connecticut and it's been a really cool experience because I think at this point now I've seen and worked in publishing from almost every angle and you know my impression is that it is an industry that is facing many many challenges it is not immune to some of the economic factors the global economic factors that are affecting every single industry but that because of advances in technology and advances in ways to reach different markets there are probably more opportunities now in publishing than existed when I got into it in 2004 so I think that it is something if you're here if you're interested if you're curious it's something that I would certainly recommend as a really fun rewarding enriching career path so yeah. I'll say a few things and then I'll take questions just wanted to for those of you that are wondering how to get into things here at Fairfield if you're not connected with creative writing yet you know as you're leaving you can take one of those cards and then just email professor Davis or I and and tell us as soon as you can this is what I'm interested in because once we know then we can keep an eye out for job opportunities like the one that we sent loan and you know we can steer you into the right into the right classes and paths and the other thing I think is so interesting is you know we here sometimes think about journalism English lit and publishing creative writing being all very separate right but I know in my own career and probably for a lot of you they are all they meld really well together and you can it is used to not even be the case but I think now you can definitely transfer among all those fields if you like to write if you like writing and editing you can end up doing a whole lot of different things so with that I'll take questions if anybody has questions how did you move because you all said that you were able to just jump into the career world right after graduating so how did you move out so fast it depends on I guess where you're moving and how much time you have I spent senior week going to New York to look at random apartments with random people that owned them it was a weird time for me but I think in terms of moving if you have to move really quickly it's it's again the power of networking I was posting on my Facebook status I was like emailing people to be like do you have anyone I can live with there are you know networking things that you can do on like Facebook I used to site called gypsy housing which is for like actors but I still got on there and that's like where you can find open rooms because typically you will be in New York but also just keep kind of in touch with people around you because a lot of Fairfield people if you end up moving to New York there's going to be a lot of stags who are also moving to New York so I think just kind of keeping in touch with people and if there's like a class group posting in there there's going to be a lot of people who are moving to the same city whether or not it's New York so yeah I don't know if you well so I mean I moved right after college well first I want to say like if you your parents are willing if they are they don't hate you by then you can there's a lot of people who live at home first for a few months maybe to save money there's nothing wrong with saving money because I swear you'll have to do that in publishing in journalism so don't be ashamed if your parents are okay with it etc but there's also the Craig's List is one of those you never know so you can consider that but there's a Rumi.com that is very safe I think that I mean I didn't use it after college but when I was looking for a roommate recently I used Rumi and it's very affordable I think too because they're very realistic about prices so there's a ton of apps I think out there that you can use. So I don't know if I misunderstood the question but I'm going to talk about like how to actually get a job right when you graduate or maybe like the process of yeah moving and figuring it all out but I both okay cool so I think that a lot of it is honestly timing like I wish that I could like I was amazing I worked really really hard and that's why the universe gave me a job the day after I graduated that's not how it worked like I worked very very hard but timing was on my side I spoke to everyone kind of like everyone had said talking to anyone who would listen about what I wanted to do but also about making sure that I was listening about them knowing their career following editors on Twitter keeping in touch cold emailing you know using your network is amazing using you know alumni is incredible but there's also a lot of people out there who would be willing to help you even if you didn't go to the same college if you take the time to send them a cold email or if you send them a tweet message or anything like that and so I think that's super super important to do is just like make people know you're interested and make sure that you when you reach out be like I want to hear about you and what you're doing because it's really interesting to me you know don't speak I'm messaging you because I'm graduating next week and I would like a job you know like start building that relationship early if you're graduating this year like and even if you're not start reaching out to people start those conversations really early you have you know you're right by New York City take the train in ask someone to take them to coffee like especially editorial assistants because I networked so much with the editorial assistants at Cosmo and then one of them got promoted and was like I'm throwing your name in like you are the person that needs this job and that seems the same for you and so editorial assistants are working so hard if you email them and say like I would love to get coffee with you I loved getting those messages I was like me you you want to get coffee with yes let's get coffee and like I made so many relationships I ended up you know getting meeting girls that way and getting them fellowships at Hearst and so on so just you know timing is weird and so it doesn't always work out that way don't be hard on yourself if it doesn't but talk to anyone you possibly can who might be like hey there's a job opening when the time comes when the time comes yes go I know so many people who went for informational interviews and left with jobs one of my really really close friends who is the senior beauty editor at Cosmopolitan was living in Texas went for an infrom she flew from Texas went to an informational interview left with a job offer she had to get a New York apartment on Monday so do it and just to clarify what that is if you don't know so if you basically if you think you might want to do this career path you would talk to Carol Ann and I you would talk to folks in our new college of arts and sciences career and internship office they're amazing and then once you start to get a list of say internships that sound interesting to you using sites like bookjobs.com then you start to get a sense of companies who actually sound cool or they kind of sound like they pop your alley right you say that in a notebook right then you find those people on Twitter if one of those people seems really cool on Twitter then all you do is find their email and say can I take you out to coffee and ask you about your job that's an informational interview where you ask for it and it's amazing how that's really it's a chance to learn stuff about the industry this person's job but it's also a chance for you to ask really smart questions and I remember talking with each of you at different points except Colin because Colin's already he knows all this stuff but thinking about our the interview is being a chance even if it's information interview where you start the process being a chance for you to ask the smartest possible questions based on everything you learn working at Dogwood working at the mirror work learning and world of publishing so that they know that you can hit the ground running because you know what the job is about I mean yeah like informational interviews while we do we get a lot of those and a lot of them get jobs yeah yeah I think it's just the so you know when you apply you put your stuff in cover letters and resumes and it all blurs together but information interviews it's a time to show your personality for sure it's a time to ask the right questions like showing that interest like there's there's one question that I had from this girl who later didn't get a job at Simon's you serve at Harper Collins but one of the questions that she asked was first what's your impression of the imprint that you work at the division that you work at what your boss's opinion and then what's the vision that you're told to to kind of contribute and that was just a smart question because it was thinking big it was thinking like little but also big at the same time if you are like struggling with the questions that you should ask for information interviews I think Fairfield there's an internship program is still active and career center and I think the questions that you form there could really could really leave an impression with the person you're interviewing and again like it's there's nothing if you can find the contact information you can you can literally that's that's your point you know you can go for it there's no judging I think in publishing or journalism okay so it is I hired people at my old job I hired people now I have a team of ten it is so hard to find talented amazing people all of you are here I'm you're all at Fairfield you're all here right now I already know that you you know wanted to go the next step you already want to go above and beyond show that to the people who matter show that to the person who's hiring because it is I would go through dozens and dozens and dozens of cover letters resumes everyone was saying the same thing typos this that and it was it was like I don't understand like how are we how are we not finding these people like where are the unicorns where the you know magical people who who can do everything and they're rare and finding them is hard and so when you do you're like I don't know if I can hire you but I'm I know someone who's looking for someone amazing so give me your information I'm passing it on because it and know it sounds crazy because you're everyone's like it's such a competitive industry it is you know so hard it is but if you're good and if you want to be good you can do it and so I can't trust that enough that it is so surprising and it was something that I'm still like how is it so hard to find talented people it is because people just will apply to apply and so yeah just remember that I think that's really important that's awesome that's a great you have five people here already that you can literally and we have a bunch of other people that in the network so network so we'll take a couple more questions and then we'll let you chat individually hi so I'm actually just graduated from the MFA program this summer so coming from someone who unfortunately had to work full-time raised children couldn't do these side programs like working on magazines newspapers to get that experience but loves books loves to write would love to be in the industry what kind of advice would you give when your resume is completely backwards to what you want to do I work in finance that's what I do right now and that's my background but I want to leave that industry and work in publishing so I would say first make a list of your favorite authors and then look to see if there are so many events in the publishing world that are constant so if you make a list of your favorite authors you go to their actual like launch events you see their agents you meet their fans all of a sudden you notice that like there's not a lot of people that go to those there's like a 20 people and if you can make those connections then that's one event where like if you get one person's card and reach out to them they can connect you to five other people and if you keep going to those types of things if you keep going to those types of things if you keep you know again like looking at publishers weekly and publishers marketplace and seeing like what's going on who are the key industry people that if I know it can make all the difference and reach out to them it really does make a world of difference and again it's about informational interviews if you then reach out to them and say like I just want to pick your brain like where did you start like personally like I didn't go exactly the conventional route I know my boss Barry Cunningham he started like somewhere completely different he was on the marketing side of things in music and he was just like I want to write a book and I wear a fedora so it should be easy so it you know it it totally can happen if you just show your eagerness and and yeah I don't know about anyone else I just add that yes I think there are very what we would call unconventional approaches into I mean yes a lot of us worked on our school newspapers and ended this and that but you know one thing I always remind people is that publishing is kind of its own little ecosystem right my my first graduate degree was actually in a program called publishing and NYU I wouldn't do it again I'm still paying for it but it did help in some ways because you know I think it helped me understand that publishing is not just starting as an editorial assistant and moving your way up for example publishers large and small need to figure out their finances and maybe that's you know sometimes a lot of the things that we're talking about is just finding a way in and having a financial background makes you very valuable to a publishing company because you can work in finance at a publishing company and then be closer to maybe what what you want to do in fact when I was at Disney one of the things that you know we you have to work as in the editorial department you have to work very closely with the finance department because you know they're behind you not to lose too much money and you know one of the women who was a financial analyst there said that you know she she's a numbers person that's what she did in college and everything but she loved working at a book publishing company because she also got to read books for her job she had to she didn't have to but she I mean she ended up reading a lot of the manuscripts that that needed her approval for you know for acquisition so you know there there's a way in and sometimes I would say that especially if you don't have the conventional background you may find yourself perhaps more desirable you know there's a lot of us who majored in English and you know did the school paper and you know like and there are ways to obviously stand out as with that background you know meeting somebody face to face goes a long long way we're just human right so you know there's a stack of resumes but I met this person last week and they seem fine so you know so it's actually that simple so I also had a friend a classmate in college who was a math major and he did the kind of math that I can't even describe it's like theoretical math right and went into I think yeah he was working at a credit card company for a while and you know did that and kind of I think was feeling a similar way he ended up becoming a book editor of math textbooks you know he worked for I know you kind of but by the way like he worked for Pearson which is a very good company to work for he still does it he adores his job and you know based on my own experience as somebody who is not at all thinking about working in children's books I have to one of the pieces of advice I would share is that you should be open to something unexpected you know I loved working in children's books it's one of the best decisions I ever made I did not graduate from college thinking I wanted to do it I you know I never thought about it so you know yes you know it may not be something that's obvious but be open to the unexpected because you know who knows okay we'll take one more question and then we can chat individually one okay I'll ask one question so often the first step for a lot of folks is an internship so how do you actually get in the door when it when you're at that stage of the process any advice there especially because they're so competitive and what you have is a piece of paper right to offer really apply if you can with internships because it is everyone is competing for it it's really competitive I guess this isn't this isn't really answer the question but I would say you know do something to learn what you want to do with your life so my first internship I hated so much similar to what Colin was saying about realizing he didn't want to be you know a lawyer didn't want to go that path do something that you think you can learn valuable skills at and if you hate it great now you know you never want to do that again and you won't waste your time applying to a bunch of jobs so I think that on the way to finding what you love you have to find what you hate and so great do it so I think apply everywhere see what you can get and you know see what ends up offering new skills that you can at least take with you the internship I hated was in fashion I learned a lot of amazing people skills I learned a lot of really great you know techniques and other random things there that I brought with me but I knew it wasn't that so I would say again I don't know if I'm totally answering the question but apply to all of the things and yeah I don't know I think also like most publishers have summer internships so whether or not you like just dry like cold apply to those things but also see if like okay I'm interested in working at Abrams over the summer go on LinkedIn see who you even know I've gone through third degree connections on LinkedIn to say like alright so I'm not directly related to Dave but I'm directly related to John and I'll have him reach out to Dave for me like just get there anyway you possibly can and I actually did get an internship at a textbook company hated it you could still have an internship that you hated or that you hate but it could still lead you to something that you you really really like and it still is something that like together with my combined experience just with creative writing that's what eventually did stick out on my resume and got me the job. I also would really say don't limit yourself so one mistake that I made junior and senior was I was only looking for publishing internships I really wasn't looking anywhere else because all I wanted to do was book publishing. But look at industries or just think about things that you like doing or that get you excited or even that you're just curious about and really just apply anywhere and everywhere apply for internships that you might think I don't think I would ever want to do that but I'm kind of curious about it so let me just go for it. So that's kind of my first recommendation and the other thing too is I think a cover letter is really important and very powerful. So when I applied for my internship at Cosmo I didn't have really any direct connections there and it's such a big company that I thought I had no shot of getting an internship there. But I spent an entire day working on my cover letter like really looking at the language that they use on their website like looking at the different things that they were publishing about. And after that I really took the time to craft a cover letter to show a I know what you're talking about be I'm excited about what you're doing and see I want to help you grow with my skills and even now I think that's probably one of the best cover letters I've ever written. I still refer to it sometimes but I think if there's like an organization or something that you're super passionate about don't be afraid to let that passion shine I think it really can go a long way. Yeah I mean you also have to remember that on the other side of the cover letter there's a human out there. Closely human depending on what they do but like it's just they like to be I feel like their efforts they like to be recognized for what they do. So in your cover letter like this is like for a book publishing about like don't just say I've always wanted to edit I've always loved reading but there's this one it was kind of funny but there was this one letter that that talked about girl on the train and when it came out. There was this neat thing that marketing did I'm not Simon Schuster but there was this neat thing where they had taken the books out and then had people girls like sitting on a subway seat reading the actual cover. I'm reading the actual book as a marketing scheme and this person actually mentioned in the cover letter and said I loved what you did with this book it was wrong but just the fact that it was like the recognizing what they did that you spotted this like it just goes a long way because you're paying attention. You're you're recognizing that they said they did something that impacted you so yeah cover letter is important. Alright so I just want to thank you all so much. I'm so proud of all of you that it makes me want to cry. Yay. Thank you all for coming. I'll close this part and you can feel free to mob these fine humans for more individual advice and business cards. Thank you all so much.