GIVEAWAY: Win Book Gift Bundle From Upcycled Library

We are thrilled to partner with Upcycled Library on an amazing giveaway! Featuring unique items created from old books, Upcycled Library is filled with one-of-a-kind handmade items by Kelly Liberona. 

One lucky winner of our giveaway will win three original items (pictured below), including:

1. Frankenstein Curled Book Page Ornament
2. Framed Anatomical Heart Print (Printed on a page from Poe's The Colloquy of Monos and Una, 5'' x 7'' print comes framed in 8'' x 10'' frame.)
3. Sewn Paper Heart Greeting Card (Includes envelope and address labels; features pages from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Humans of New York (the hearts), and Dickens' Christmas Stories (the envelope))

Entering is easy:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms & Conditions

• Entries must be received by Sunday, June 5, 2016 at midnight PST.
• One winner will be chosen at random on Sunday, June 5, 2016 at midnight PST.
• If we do not hear back from the winner by Sunday, June 12, 2016 at midnight PST, another winner will be chosen at random.
• One winner will receive one Frankenstein Curled Book Page Ornament, one Anatomical Heart (Printed on a page from Poe's The Colloquy of Monos and Una), and one Sewn Paper Heart Greeting Card (Includes envelope and address labels; features pages from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Humans of New York (the hearts), and Dickens' Christmas Stories (the envelope)).
• All entrants agree that by entering the contest, they are giving permission to have their email address added to the Dear English Major mailing list.

A Word from Kelly Liberona of Upcycled Library

Upcycled Library was born out of a love for books and library nostalgia. I was an English major myself and I looooooved all of my literature classes, reading great works and talking about their meaning. From there I went on to graduate school and received a masters in Library and Information Science, so technically I really am a librarian—I don't just play one on Etsy! 

Upcycled Library has provided me this awesome creative outlet where I can give old books new life. Who wouldn't want to rock their favorite book in a necklace or on their living room wall?

I seek to incorporate the traditional paper book into everyday life in this day and age of digital. I make bookish items that I think other book nerds would like as much as I do. 

I call it a "library" because I use library due date cards and Dewey decimal numbers throughout my work and regard my customer's orders as permanent "check outs" of titles. No need to worry about fines here! 

I also have a strong sense of environmental responsibility which is why I love upcycling so much. All books used in my products have been previously read and loved and then I upcycle them into something new. I try as much as I can to use recycled materials for all aspects of my business and products and I try to create minimal waste.

Dear English Majors: know that you can do anything you want! No dream is too big or out of reach. Live that bookish life! 

You can follow Upcycled Library on Facebook and Instagram.

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Rebecca J. Griffith: Social Media Customer Support Leader @ Safeway, Inc.

Name: Rebecca J. Griffith

Age: 30

College & Majors/Minors: Northern Arizona University, Bachelors of Arts, English 2012

Current location: Phoenix

Current form of employment: Social Media Customer Support Leader, Safeway, Inc.

A few months after graduating with my English degree, my husband and our two dogs and I moved from Northern Arizona down to Phoenix. We knew that there was a larger, if not more lucrative, job market here in the city compared to the relatively limited one in Flagstaff, where I finished my schooling. (Flagstaff is a small city, with a relatively high cost of living. It’s not ideal for the post-grad to find something that can stand up to student loan repayment.) Down to the hot, sprawling city we came, and my first step was to check online and at job fairs for anything that might get me in the door to something where I could use my degree.

After some searching, I started to realize that my qualifications landed somewhere in between the requirements of the job postings I was circling in my search. I found many entry level jobs, and many jobs requiring some kind of business admin, library science, or other specified degree criteria. I had already worked for several years in assorted customer service positions, some of which were more inclusive of writing and grammar skills, but none of which had fit the bill of something I wanted to stay with, long-term. I got frustrated, and wondered where I fit in this transitioning, digitally-driven job market that I emerged into after college.

While I was in college, I imagined that graduation day would be the end of one thing and the start of another. "Time to end the schooling phase and enter the working phase of my career," I thought. However, very few things in life are black and white like that. I didn't exit one door with my degree, and enter the next with a set career trajectory and contract in hand. For me, it didn't work that way. And that is okay. With my degree in hand, so to speak, I at least had the confidence to seek out something that sounded somewhat satisfying. 

““About a week in, I found out there was a writing team at the company that dealt with written correspondence, and I could try to get into it if I wanted to. Well, of course I wanted to!””

I decided to take what I could get and (hopefully) work my way into something where I could utilize my training and education. After all, I couldn’t expect to leave college, become an acclaimed nonfiction writer, and begin drawing the blueprints to my Tuscan villa just yet! That’s when I started my journey at Safeway, Inc. I was hired as a Customer Support Agent, and started by taking calls all day, every day, to assist with the myriad issues that arise in the grocery industry. About a week in, I found out there was a writing team at the company that dealt with written correspondence, and I could try to get into it if I wanted to. Well, of course I wanted to! After expressing interest and taking a simple writing exam, I was accepted onto the team. It certainly didn’t hurt that I came in with a swanky English degree! ;)

Fast forward three years to today: I am among the leadership in the Social Media Department for a Fortune 100 grocery chain that spans the United States. I write to customers and executives all day, every day, via email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and blogs. I am a part of the corporate side of the company who deals with both customer support and marketing, and I get to work closely with customer support agents, marketing directors, digital marketing specialists, and other company support networks.

Goodbye, phone calls, and hello, digital! I have learned tremendously valuable computer skills, and even honed my personal writing skills as a result of the demands of this position. Part of my passion is writing for an intended audience, and the challenge of determining that audience’s voice via the written word keeps me fascinated. 

It isn’t where I though my first post-grad job would land me, and I have plenty more goals and room to grow in my career. But it is certainly one way to make ends meet while making that degree work for me.

““And herein lies the beauty: we are needed just about everywhere.””

Take it from me, it’s easy to get discouraged. But don’t fall prey to this, fellow English lovers! The English degree, unlike some others, does not automatically route you into a field that is conducive to the work we want to do or are passionate about doing. If you pursued an English degree, chances are you have an appreciation for things that a typical 9-5 job may not satisfy: arts, poetry, literature, prose, history… unless you dedicate yourself to teaching a similar subject, many industries just don’t require or feed such an appreciation. But reach out anyway—take a chance somewhere, and see where your amazing skill set can help the company! You never know who may end up needing your help to edit correspondence that goes to an executive, or hears that you are strong in the written word and turns to you for proofreading help (which can pay quite well, in fact.) The doors that open for us may not be the big, grand, obvious ones that say “Doctors and Nurses, enter here,” or “Automotive Mechanics, right this way.” They are more hidden, a little more mysterious, and take some digging to find. And herein lies the beauty: we are needed just about everywhere. 

The best advice I can provide is to use your time at school to take in everything you possibly can to begin networking with people. Go to poetry readings at the university or college, or perhaps local poetry slams. Stay abreast of writers who are publishing in your areas of interest, and read everything there is to get your hands on. Engage in what inspires you, and make writing a habit as well as a hobby. Spend time researching what is required to enter the field that interests you, and go for it! The momentum involved in your years of higher education is the catalyst you will need to come out strong and with opportunities behind those numerous (if slightly obscured) doors that are waiting to receive us. 

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Abigail Fleming: Production Editor

Name: Abigail Fleming

Age: 23

College: College of Charleston 

Major: English Language & Literature

Minor: Linguistics

Current Location: Charleston, South Carolina

Current Form of Employment: Full-time Production Editor

Where do you work and what is your current position?

The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition

$38.73

University Of Chicago Press

Buy on Amazon

I work for Arcadia Publishing, under The History Press imprint, as a production editor. Arcadia Publishing is the largest publisher of local history books in the country, so I get to travel vicariously through the books I edit and proofread. My projects range from true crime, culinary trails, and ghost stories to transportation history (people really love trains), and it is my job to see manuscripts through the various stages of production, up until they are ready to go to print. I spend my days elbow-deep in the Chicago Manual of Style, discussing the finer points of our house style with authors, and spiraling down fact-checking wormholes. I love it. Reading has always been my hobby, and now I get paid to do it, albeit not always about topics of my choosing (trains, anyone?).

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

After I graduated, I was still unsure of what I really wanted to do. I knew teaching wasn’t for me, yet I found myself working as the administrative assistant for a department of the local school district. I was getting restless after about six months, only doing the occasional freelance copy job (paid and volunteered), so I started looking at all of the publishing-related companies and positions in the area, only to find out that there were (and are) actually quite a few of them. After about a month or so of furious resume writing and innumerable cover letters, I landed interviews with Arcadia and the in-house publication for a local teaching hospital. Honestly, I had applied for administrative positions in addition to the jobs I actually wanted, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they wanted me for my degree. 

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

My godfather is a historian and has a website that focuses on esoteric American history. I have always copyedited his articles, so when he told me he was writing a book, I was excited. When he told me that he wasn’t going to hire a professional editor, I almost panicked. With my impending graduation, and a publication date, I had a hectic last few undergraduate months, but together we created a product that I know helped get me my current position, because I really wasn’t that experienced outside of the classroom, with the exception of an editorial internship that consisted of blogging, tweeting, and occasional copyediting.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

My school’s English department had an internship course that helped students find internships with various local businesses and receive credit hours for the work completed. I knew I needed experience in my field, not only because I needed to improve my professional people skills, but also because I wasn’t precisely sure what I wanted to do with my degree. I ended up working in the editorial department of a then-new food magazine, and it was a rewarding experience (free cake and recipes from fantastic chefs) in that I learned what I did and did not like (like: cake, dislike: deadlines) in that particular industry.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

I would advise every English major to read and write for fun. Academic writing is like riding a bicycle; once you know how, you can always whip up an annotated bibliography, but creativity has to be cultivated constantly. And volunteer! Internships are imminently useful, but sometimes finding meaningful ones can be tough. Whatever your interests are, there’s likely a number of websites, publications, and organizations devoted toward them.  

You can connect with Abigail on LinkedIn here; also, check out her work on StrangeHistory.org and AmericanKillers.org! 

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5 Ways Blogging Can Help Your Career

When I graduated college, “blogger” was not a job title. Not really. People blogged, sure, but very few were making money from it. I couldn’t name a single blogger celebrity or someone who got a book deal by being a successful and well-known blogger. Now I can name dozens. I’ve read many of their books. It’s a whole new world.

Still, for most English majors or people who want to have a career in writing, blogger celebrity status and having bills paid by blog ads or paid product reviews might still not be an option. The internet is really, really big and finding dedicated readership is increasingly challenging with so many competing voices.

Having realistic expectations about readership and book deals, however, does not mean that blogging is pointless. In fact, there’s tons of ways that blogging can help you grow your skills and ultimately help you further your career.

1. First and foremost, writing as a job is different than writing papers for a class in college.

Blogging will help you exercise the same kind of writing skills you’d utilize at work. Plus, if you're serious about it, blogging puts you on a regular writing schedule with deadlines, which is something even very talented or paid professional writers struggle with but is important for just about any job.

2. Blogging teaches you how to write for an audience and create more polished, proofread pieces.

Social media has changed the face of publishing forever; we are encouraged to live in the moment and simultaneously document and broadcast news, events, and thoughts as they are happening. This is not a negative. In a lot of ways, it’s forced people to be more aware and more creative when publishing content. But there is still a time and a place to slow down, do some research (or just some soul searching), and have another pair of eyes on your writing before hitting publish. This practice is crucial to lots of writing-centric jobs, including everything from working on a corporate marketing blog to working on a lesson plan to drafting a grant proposal for a nonprofit.

““If you have a dynamic, well-maintained, updated blog, you never have to worry about scrambling for clips if someone asks for a writing sample.””

3. Blogging is an instant portfolio.

If you have a dynamic, well-maintained, updated blog, you never have to worry about scrambling for clips if someone asks for a writing sample. When a company wants to know if you’re qualified to do something – stick to a timeline, complete a project, communicate effectively, craft a story – you can show them how you’ve already done it.

4. Starting a blog means learning to write concisely and narrowly.

You usually have to pick a theme and build posts around your blog’s "voice" or topic like marketing, cooking, fashion, or book reviews. Successful writing—whether it's articles or regular ol’ emails—often has to be succinct, direct, and on topic with minimal meandering.

5. As I said before, the internet is big. Which, yes, might make you think, “Who will even be reading this?”

But it also should be encouraging, because it means you DO have a huge pool of potential readers. Anyone could find you! Maybe not book publishers (but also, maybe!), but people who dig your subject or style or your voice. And you can easily reach out to other bloggers, which is helpful in growing your audience and your knowledge. Blogging can put you in touch with other writers, creatives, and readers who you can potentially network with for work and projects or simply learn from in life. Plus, having a personal blogging website means you’ll show up in recruiter and employee online searches and that professional step might just put you ahead of other candidates. If you attend writing conferences and conventions, you could even consider having a business card made up with your blog URL to pass out to new contacts!

* * *

Really, it comes down to “the more you write, the better writer you’ll be.” If you want to be a successful communicator in your chosen career (especially if that career is “paid writer”), you’ll benefit immensely from committing to regular writing and having people read it. If college gave you an excellent start and the tools you need to write well, then don’t stop after graduation! It can be challenging to commit to a blog schedule with other obligations, like work, class, internships, or trying to find a job, but even finding the time to update once a week or every other week is definitely a worthwhile commitment that can grow your career and showcase your creativity.

Plus, it’s never been easier to start and setup a blog. Gone are the days of hand-coding HTML or having to shell out major money on design or a domain name. Investing as little as a weekend and $10 bucks a year, you can set up your own personal website that you’ll be proud to share professionally. If you’ve started a blog in the past but fell out of the habit, now is the perfect time to get started again!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marianne has an MA in Writing and Publishing from DePaul University and currently works as a Content Developer. After getting her master’s degree, she decided to dedicate her life to being a huge nerd and semi-professional animal rescuer. She spends most of her time reading and watching science fiction, eating Greek food, listening to music that was popular in 2003, and thinking fondly about the time that she hugged John Barrowman. If the writing gig hadn’t worked out, she probably would have taken up race car driving or roller derby.

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Becca Wallace: Content Manager

Name: Becca Wallace

Age: 23

College & Majors/Minors: San Diego State University – Bachelor Degree in English

Current Location: San Diego, CA

Current Form of Employment: Full-time Content Manager

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I currently work as a Content Manager (or Content Queen as my coworkers like to call me) for an Internet Marketing Company. We have a few different names for our company depending on our client’s category of business; Dental Affiliate and San Diego Business Media are the two main ones. We create websites and manage marketing for dental offices, plastic surgeons, auto shops and a large variety of other businesses, but our primary focus is dental offices. 

My job is to manage all of the content that goes onto our clients' websites, including blogs and content on all of the pages. This includes lots of copywriting and copyediting and some SEO! I know way more than I ever wanted to know about dental procedures now that I am constantly reading and editing about them.  We usually send our content off to writers (I occasionally write it), and I am the one who edits and posts it on their websites. I also manage social media for our clients and our company. This will include posting links to their blogs and posting occasional fun things. One of my other duties includes writing for our corporate blog and whitepapers. This means I need to stay on top of what’s happening in the internet marketing world!

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different). 

The first job I got after college was as a Marketing Assistant for a manufacturing company. I found that one on Craigslist after applying like crazy one month before graduation. I went in for two interviews, and even though I had a degree in English, I had the skills and attitude they were looking for so they hired me. I stayed at this job for about six months and went in search of a job more relating to reading and writing.

I also found my current job on Craigslist (apparently it’s the place to go!). I sent in some writing samples and came in for an interview and was hired! 

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

The only writing experience I had outside of my current job and the endless amount of essays from my college career were these two groups I was involved with while I was in school. (See next question for more info).

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

For my first three years of college, I really wasn’t doing anything to prepare for post-grad life other than working at my part-time job at the school’s dining hall. Although all I was doing was cooking and serving food, it really helped me break out of my shell and develop a more lively personality, which is something I think is important for people to have when they go to job interviews.

During college, I got involved with my school’s literary review (Aztec Literary Review). This is where students submitted poems and short stories for our semester PDF of student work. We had a team of about seven people who all worked together to spread the word to students asking for submissions, read the submissions, and create the PDF that contained the winners. I also helped manage our website and created the artwork for one of the semesters.

Another group I had in college was through my Publishing and Editing class. In this class, we formed groups based on our interests in books and made a website on WordPress where we would feature book reviews, interviews with authors and more. This was by far one of the most important parts of my college career because I learned how to use WordPress and Adobe InDesign which came in handy with both of my post college jobs.

On top of my work experience, I tried to read and write as much as possible, as well as learn anything that would help my resume stand out. I taught myself about HTML, CSS, and Photoshop. The more skills you have, the better your resume will look!

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Don’t give up hope and don’t listen to people who tell you that you won’t find a job. My advice is to be open-minded about careers. Before I graduated, my heart was set on working in publishing, but that’s a whole lot harder to get into than you might think. Sit down and make a list of jobs you think you might enjoy, and apply to all of them. Your first job will most likely not be your dream job, so just think of it as a stepping stone and resume builder towards your career goals. If you can, get an internship or join the school newspaper while you’re in school! Any experience and extra skills you have will make your resume stand out more. There are two parts to getting a job: 1. Have a resume that stands out and 2. Impress your interviewers with your outfit, confidence, skills, and interpersonal skills. Finding a job can be extremely stressful, but if you are able to apply the skills you gained with your English degree, your career possibilities are endless.

You can check out Becca's blog here, connect with her on LinkedIn here, and take a look at the literary journal she participated in during college here. 

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Dan Jolley: Self-Employed Freelance Writer

Name: Dan Jolley

Age: 44

College & Majors/Minors:b University of Georgia, BA in English

Current Location: Ringgold, Georgia

Current Form of Employment: Self-Employed Freelance Writer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I work from home—I'm self-employed—and my current position alternates between "on the treadmill" and "on the couch." I write in both locations, though; I have a walking desk set up, where I plod along at 2 miles per hour and type, and on a good day I do about 5000 words and about 15000 steps. That works best for prose, though. If I'm doing non-prose, such as a comic book script or a screenplay or dialogue for a video game, more often than not I wind up on the couch. Usually with one or more cats on me.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

Gray Widow's Walk (Gray Widow Trilogy Book 1)

By Dan Jolley

Buy on Amazon

I got my first professional writing contract at age 19, after I met a girl in a video arcade and asked her out. On our first date I told her I wanted to be a writer, and that I'd written a number of short stories, and she asked if I'd ever considered writing comic books. I hadn't, but I'd grown up reading them, and I told her as much. She said, "Well, I know a couple of comic book artists. Want me to introduce you?" I told her yes, yes I would like that very much, and she introduced me to Tony Harris and Craig Hamilton. I ended up working with Tony for about the next ten years on various comics projects, one of which got nominated for an Eisner Award, the comics industry's equivalent of an Oscar.

From there I branched out into licensed-property novels, movie novelizations, original young adult novels, some manga-format novel tie-in comics, some children's books, and video games. 

I've been writing more games than anything else for the last several years, but that's about to change, because on May 13 of this year, my first original novel for adults is coming out from Seventh Star Press. It's called Gray Widow's Walk, the first book in the Gray Widow Trilogy. It's the story of Janey Sinclair, a teleporting vigilante in contemporary Atlanta, Georgia, who must face a grotesque, vicious, possibly extraterrestrial enemy.

Then, on October 18, the first book in my new Middle Grade novel series, Five Elements, debuts from HarperCollins. Set in modern-day San Francisco, it's the story of four twelve-year-old best friends who become bound to the magical elements of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, and have to try to stop a century-old, hideously evil magic user from dominating the world.

Dying Light - PlayStation 4

Warner Home Video - Games

Buy on Amazon

So I guess I'm a little more novelist than game writer now. Well, this year, anyway.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

In 2014 I was fortunate enough to land a job coming up with dialogue, scenarios, and characters for the first-person parkour-vs-zombies video game, Dying Light.

While working on the game, I got to live in Wrocław, Poland for three months, since that's where the developer, Techland, is located. It was a fantastic experience. I got lots of exposure to a culture I might never have otherwise known, made some fantastic friends, and ate way more pierogies than I probably should have. Dying Light went on to sell a bit north of five million copies, so now I can realistically say that my words have reached people all over the world. 

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

College is about a lot more than taking classes. It's a chance to test the adulthood waters without committing a hundred percent, and at least in my view, is an excellent time to make mistakes. (One of the best bits of wisdom I ever heard was, "The older you get, the higher the stakes are when you screw up.") I made a lot of mistakes in college, from partying too much, to making terrible relationship decisions, to endangering a few true, solid friendships. The key there is to learn from those mistakes, because living life and gaining experience will help your writing every bit as much as mastering your command of language. Not much good comes of being a brilliant writer if you've got nothing to write about. (It helps, I've found, to have friends with terribly sordid pasts.)

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

Well, this advice is for those who want to be writers, because I got my start as a writer before I left college and haven't ever truly tried to do anything else. But here it goes: absorb as much knowledge as you can, both in class and out. Make as many friends as you can. Listen to as many stories as you can, from many different types of people. Take as many creative writing classes as possible, to be sure, and learn as much as possible from your professors. But be aware, keenly aware, often painfully aware of the world around you, because that's where your stories will come from. Sometimes you'll witness whole sequences of events that you faithfully transcribe; sometimes you'll hear other people's accounts, with which you can then take artistic license; sometimes you'll catch just a scrap of conversation or an image glimpsed from the corner of your eye that will spark an original idea. As Stephen King puts it, when you're a writer, "Everything is grist for the mill."

““Also—and saying this got me in hot water when I spoke to some creative writing students at NC State a few years ago, but it’s one hundred percent true—do not, under any circumstances, expect your degree to get you work by itself.””

Also—and saying this got me in hot water when I spoke to some creative writing students at NC State a few years ago, but it's one hundred percent true—do not, under any circumstances, expect your degree to get you work by itself. Use the knowledge you gain as you earn the degree, certainly, but the degree itself is... I wouldn't say worthless, because you learn so many invaluable things while you're getting it. It's just that the credential itself is inconsequential. I've been a professional writer for twenty-five years now, and no editor or publisher or producer has ever, not once, asked me about my education. They don't care. It doesn't come up. The all-important question is, "Can you write, or can you not write?" That's the only thing that matters.

Check out DanJolley.com, follow Dan on Twitter, and check out his Facebook page! 

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Casey Brown: Institutional Grant Writer

Name: Casey Brown

Age: 29

College & Majors/Minors: I attended Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. My major was in English with a concentration in Creative and Professional Writing; my minor was in Psychology.

Current Location: Oklahoma

Current Form of Employment: Institutional Grant Writer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

My current position is with my alma mater, Cameron University, as the Institutional Grant Writer.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different).

While I was a non-traditional students and worked for several years as blackjack, craps, and poker dealer before entering college, this job is the first that required an English degree. I heard about it because I was actively looking for jobs at my school. I wanted to give back to the place that had helped transform my life for the better. This job materialized and my boss at the time (I was working as a student English tutor at the Center for Writers) heard about it and told me. I applied and interviewed for the Institutional Grant Writer position during my last semester of college. It was lucky timing. I had been looking for a job for about a year at that point and had had many close calls. For example, I had a job offer that I accepted that was later pulled due to extenuating circumstances. Therefore, I was scrambling when I heard about my current position. Very lucky timing!

I also freelance as an editor and proofreader on Fiverr. I found out about that site, which is an innovative marketplace, from one of my classmates. She praised the site, and since I knew and trusted her, I looked into it for myself. It really is a very useful way to supplement my income, so I'm glad she pointed it out to me. Working there on the side allows me to help pay for travel to read my creative writing, which I otherwise might not be able to afford.

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

I think that all of the internships and student worker positions I had as an undergraduate were very important to my writing career. As I mentioned, I worked as a student tutor. I did that for three years, and I also worked as an editor for multiple publications: the Gold Mine, the in-house literary magazine, the Oklahoma Review, a national literary magazine, and the Cameron Collegian, a weekly newspaper. I also did reviews and contributed to other publications such as the Oklahoma Review, CyberSoleil, and Cuento Magazine.

When working for the Oklahoma Review, I volunteered to do layout and taught myself how to lay out a publication on Microsoft Word. I also did layout for the newspaper, which taught me how to use Adobe InDesign. All of those experiences shaped my voice as a writer, provided me with items for my resume, and taught me important life and work skills, such as the software experience, how to write professional emails, how to manage my time as a professional (which is different from how a student manages her time, at least in my experience), and how to sell my work. They also taught me how to be a good and respectful editor, which I absolutely love doing. If it weren't for those opportunity, I don't know that I ever would have discovered how much I love working with my fellow writers. I also built in publishing credits in my undergraduate years that are paying off now.

““The best possible advice I can give to students is to say yes to every opportunity you have to hear a visiting writer, work on a publication, attend open mics and literary festivals and symposiums, workshop someone else’s writing, participate in an internship, and otherwise set yourself up for future success and support your local literary community.””

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

I paid attention, asked questions, learned how to write a resume and cover letter, learned how to sell my English skills for non-writing jobs. I visited the career center as much as possible, too. They were very helpful in providing me with a refresher on interview skills, job leads, and much more. If you have such resources available to you at your school or something similar in your community, use them!

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

For students, I would recommend making as many connections with your classmates, professors, and visiting writers as possible. Those connections will help you in one way or another, often in unimaginable ways, once you've graduated. The best possible advice I can give to students is to say yes to every opportunity you have to hear a visiting writer, work on a publication, attend open mics and literary festivals and symposiums, workshop someone else's writing, participate in an internship, and otherwise set yourself up for future success and support your local literary community. It is our charge to be active citizens of the literary community; if we don't take care of it, who will? It is tough to participate in those types of things when you are tired and stressed from your schoolwork, your family, your jobs, but challenge yourself to say yes to more of these types of things when at all possible.

To graduates my advice is to, after an appropriate amount of time has passed, revisit your undergraduate work (creative writing and/or essays and/or other work). Consider revising and submitting it for publication. I would also encourage those of you who have not found a job that uses your degree yet to not lose hope. Do not be discouraged. Keep looking, keep reading, keep writing. It is a myth that English major don't get jobs. Also, I advise students to join any organizations on campus such as Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society. 

Check out Casey on Fiverr, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. You can also listen to a podcast that Casey was a guest on here! 

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Heather Greiner: Technical Writer

Name: Heather Greiner

Age: 45

College & Majors/Minors: University of California, Santa Barbara

Current Location: Los Angeles, CA

Current Form of Employment: Technical Writer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I am the Scribe in Chief at CounterTack, Inc, I serve as the Senior Technical Writer.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different). 

I fell into technical writing right out of college. I applied for a receptionist position with a small computer hardware manufacturer in Southern California and the office manager felt I was overqualified for the position and suggested I speak to the president of the company about a better post. I had never heard of a technical writer, but my degree in English and my background as a mechanic made for a good fit. I have been a technical writer for over 20 years now and I have worked for movie studios, IT security companies, large banks, and a major university. My current position I found through a recommendation of a former coworker—his new company needed someone who could create end-user documentation for a highly complex security project.

““Creating the habit of writing every day and finding a new author or a new genre each month keeps you on top of your game.””

What was another writing-related job that was important in your career?

I have had the opportunity to write a column for Valley Scene Magazine, I get to write restaurant and hotel reviews, and often get a chance to write about the local music scene. It's a great opportunity to flex a different writing muscle, and to reach a different audience.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life?

In college, I made sure to study a wide range of disciplines under my major; I took linguistics courses to better understand language and culture; I studied prose and poetry, and Eliot, Pound, Milton, Byron, and Shakespeare were a few of the seminars I took each quarter. Expanding my base to further understand how people perceive the written word has been vital to honing my skills to reach my audience regardless of their level.

What is your advice for students and graduates with an English degree?

The best advice I have is to write every day and push yourself to read something new each month. As you get older it gets harder to find time, or make time, to do the things you love. Creating the habit of writing every day and finding a new author or a new genre each month keeps you on top of your game.

You can connect with Heather on LinkedIn! 

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