Chris Strom: Marketing Copywriter

Name: Chris Strom

Age: 28

College & Majors/Minors: B.A. & M.A from Central Washington University

Current Location: Seattle, WA

Current Form of Employment: Marketing Copywriter

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I'm pleased to say that I have just accepted a new position working as a marketing e-mail copywriter. I suppose, though, I could speak more to what I had been doing prior since I've not gotten into my new digs just yet.

I have been working as a copy editor for zulily.com, where I edit all kinds of copy that goes onto the site or into e-mails. In a nutshell, my job is to uphold voice and style according to brand and make sure writing looks presentable for the public. I also work one-on-one with writers to help them develop their own work copy and dabble in some special projects.

Currently, I work with designers and other copywriters to put together marketing e-mails for clients.

What did you do in college to prepare for your post-grad life? What kinds of extracurriculars did you participate in?

Is it extra-curricular if you got paid? I guess I'm not sure. I wish I had more to present here, but I don't. To be honest, a lot of the extra things I put into my college experience were really helping me to prepare for teaching, which was my interest for a very long time. I worked in the writing center, acted as a TA and taught my own composition courses. Additionally, once I had gotten into grad school, I submitted several papers to literary conferences. If I was looking to actually become a college professor, I was on a great path.

However, this isn't to say that none of this shaped my career now. These were instrumental in developing my editing abilities, and I believe wholeheartedly that learning the basics of tutoring, teaching and public speaking also made me into a much better coworker and communicator, and I've prided myself on my interpersonal skills. They translate over!

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job (if different). What was it like applying?

At first, terrible. I did not expect it to be so hard. If you think you're the only one struggling in your job search, you're not. I use this as a way to preface my statement with a ray of hope. As hopeful as it may make you feel to know that your misery is in company. It's just that I had to learn this the hard way once my morale had taken quite a beating. I looked very hard for a couple of months, and all the responses back were rejections. And that prompted me to, well, give up. I thought that it was me and that I wasn't talented all along, and this is where I mean it would have been nice to know I wasn't alone.

Finally, I took a chance and decided to get in contact with an old college friend of mine. My preliminary message was just to ask for advice on where to look and maybe get some other contacts. She was very nice and insisted I send in my resume to her work because they were looking for an editor. I got very lucky. It kicked off the entire interviewing process where I did phone screenings, an editing exercise and eventually an in-person interview.

I've had other interviews since then, including the one for my new employer. It definitely got easier as I built up my own professional confidence, but I still don't think I know what people are looking for. Of course, they want all of the normal things like multitasking and great under pressure. In fact, it's listed right in their job postings, but that makes those things boring. You should be able to demonstrate basic professional skills, but they shouldn't be your focus. I think employers want to see you beyond the cookie cutter responses they're used to getting in interviews with people hellbent on impressing them. You have to be you. The person you're meeting face to face is also human, and they're going to be looking to make a personal connection as much as a professional one.

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

Everyone is going to tell you to connect, connect, connect. Get out there and network, and it's true that the two main jobs I've been able to grasp onto first started out with my own professional/personal connections. So, always keep people in mind down the road.

I think, though, judging from my own experience and past, I'd most like to say don't be afraid to start small. If you expect to get your dream job straight out the gate, well... you might, but chances are you won't. Those people want experience, and your name will get shuffled right out (maybe/all speculation/educated guessing). My first job out of college was not my dream job, but it certainly got a better job to look at me after getting a year+ experience under my belt. This is the beginning of your dream, so don't try to get to the end so quickly.

Alicia Cook: ​Associate Director of Admission & Communication Coordinator

Name: Alicia Cook

Age: 27

College & Majors/Minors: Undergrad: Georgian Court University, English Literature Major, Journalism Minor. Graduate: Saint Peter’s University, Masters in Business Administration

Current Location: New Jersey

Current Form of Employment: Associate Director of Admission & Communication Coordinator

Where do you work and what is your current position? 

I currently work at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, NJ. I am of two Associate Directors in the Office of Admission. I am also the Communications Coordinator. I wear many different “hats” with this job, and I love that writing and editing is one of them. I take part in the writing, editing, and execution of all targeted electronic communication to prospective students in our office. It is definitely more technical and informational writing, but it’s writing and editing nonetheless.

Prior to being hired at Saint Peter’s, I was briefly employed with a nonprofit organization as their Program Director. In this capacity, I wrote their monthly newsletter and assisted in grant writing. I have occasionally freelanced for local newspapers as well, though news reporting is not a passion of mine.

Tell us about how you found your first job, and how you found your current job.

I applied to my first job at the nonprofit before I even graduated college. Applying for jobs in general is quite nerve-racking! So many qualified (and even overqualified) people are applying for the same position as you. An advantage someone with an English or writing background may hold over other applicants is their strong voice in their cover letter. As an English major I really learned how to write in a concise, engaging, and compelling way while avoiding the cliché statements found in every cover letter.

I had always known that I wanted to go on to graduate school. I love learning new things and broadening my knowledge base. A few months into my first job, an opportunity with Saint Peter’s presented itself and I knew they had graduate programs employees could enroll in with no outside cost to them. I was not looking to accrue debt, and higher education careers always interested me, so I thought this was a wonderful chance for me to move forward. One of the first things that were mentioned in my interview at Saint Peter’s was that I had an English background. They saw that as a “plus.”

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

Like I said, I write technical and informational pieces every day. However, my real passion is creative writing, though it is not paying the bills right now. So, another writing-related job that was important to me as a writer, but not to my current career per say, occurred in October of 2012. Superstorm Sandy had just devastated the Jersey Shore, where I am from. On the night of Halloween, I wrote “An Open Letter to the Shore Kids” and posted it to a blog site. My friends began “sharing” it with others. By the next day it had gone viral and major news, including USA Today and CNN, picked it up. I received hundreds of emails from people all over the tri-state area and beyond who felt the desire to share their memories of the shore. This was the first time my writing touched people on a major scale. It is a wonderful feeling and gave me the confidence to start posting more of my writing and poetry online.

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

Though I do believe writing is a natural talent instilled from the start, practice does make perfect. I joined anything in college that could help me hone my writing and find my voice. I joined the college paper as a staff writer. This helped me better adhere to deadlines and constructive criticism (there’s nothing like the first time you see your article two paragraphs shorter than it was when you submitted it!). I was also one of the editors and a contributor to the annual poetry magazine. And any time one of my peers asked if I could proofread their work, I did.

I also picked up a Journalism Minor. I did this because in my English classes I was constantly writing 10+ page papers. I felt like I needed the minor to learn how to say a lot in a much smaller space.

I went to a very small school so many of my English professors I had more than once. In one of them, Dr. Woznicki, I found my mentor. Whether he signed up for the mentor-role or not, he was mine! He pushed my writing and red-penned my work like no one had ever done, and I am a better writer for it. I can’t thank him enough.

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

If you want to study English, study English. Don’t let anyone tell you that any subject within the Liberal Arts will not translate in the job world. That’s not true at all. I have had plenty of job offers, all with writing being at least one component of the position. The job world has finally caught up with the fact that not everyone – no matter how skilled they are in other fields – can write well. And yet, every single job requires some level of writing. More and more hiring companies are looking for multi-faceted people. Some skills can be learned over time, but high quality writing is a rarity. If you have that skill, you are one hot commodity!

I would advise minoring in something else as well to make you a better rounded candidate. Or even double-major in something if you can. I went on and got my Masters in Business Administration because as I grew older I realized though I loved writing, I do also like the business world. And guess what? Most of my MBA program required writing!

If you can find a way to blend your passion with a livelihood, then you’re set. It is my opinion that if you love to write, then you love to write even when a paycheck isn’t attached. I post a lot of creative writing and poetry on my Instagram account to share with fellow self-proclaimed writers. If you never share any of your work, how are you ever going to get noticed? Write daily.

Visit Alicia on Instagram @thealiciacook and connect with her on LinkedIn!

Kelsey Wiseman: Freelance Editor

Photo courtesy of Alexandra Kay Photography

Name: Kelsey Wiseman

Age: 25

College & Majors/Minors: University of Puget Sound Class of 2010, BA – English Literature and German Literature. Minnesota State University, Mankato Class of 2013 MA – English Studies.

Current Location: Gilbert, AZ

Current Form of Employment: Retail full-time and Freelance Editing with Wiseman Editing, LLC

Where do you work and what is your current position?

I currently work in middle management at Target and freelance through my LLC, Wiseman Editing. In the past I have worked in my undergraduate library as a desk assistant, with university newspapers as a copy editor, and on Shoutwire.com as a content editor. Each of these jobs had me doing something different and I enjoy that. I also like that much of what I have done has been around the printed word.

Shoutwire had me submitting original posts and acting as a moderator and spam filter. With Shoutwire I had the freedom to write about whatever I wanted to as long as I felt it would appeal to the masses that frequented the website. In that vein I wrote about such important topics as Robot Unicorn Attack, the Kool Aid Man comic books I found, what the best kind of super power would be, and how technology has drastically changed in such a short time span. My favorite piece, however, was about how Twilight was taking over the marketing of such classics as Wuthering Heights by stating it as “Bella and Edward's favorite book.” I still think it is a brilliant marketing attempt to create a larger fan base for classics using the cult fanaticism of Twilight readers. Granted, I also still think the majority of said fanbase wouldn’t be able to understand Wuthering Heights and am also still miffed that the two have become connected in such a way. I had so much fun writing for these guys because of the freedom that I had to produce original content and I am sad that the website is no longer functional. It was unpaid and taught me that there are a lot of different ways one can be an editor.

Currently, and for the past three and a half years, I work in retail. I like the stability and benefits that come with a steady job and the flexibility that the schedule gives me to work on my business. I have spent hours in meetings and on the phone with authors, people I have worked with, and my design company in order to get my website, wisemanediting.com, up and running. Additionally, I have spent hours finding the right forms and people to talk to in order to become an officially recognized business in the state of Arizona. Not to mention the networking. I don’t think I would have been able to work a standard 9-5 job and find time to go about the legal proceedings that are involved with incorporating and networking for an LLC. I actually decided I wanted to do freelance over working in an actual office, even though it means less time in my day is devoted to editing. I like to set my own hours and have the freedom to pick what projects I would like to be working on.

With the LLC, I work on a contract basis. An author will send me an enquiry and I will send them back an estimate based on word count, level of rhetoric, genre, level and type of edit, and time I will need to commit to the piece. I do not always win the author over and getting over that rejection is difficult, but not insurmountable. When I have a contract, I set aside time to work on the piece outside of my work schedule and hammer out edits. Usually I work with digital copies, but I have had to send hard copies back and forth through the mail.

As for what the future holds? I don’t know. I think I would like to eventually work with a publishing house, but I also think that indie publishing is taking off and big publishing houses will eventually die off. Either way, I am excited to see what will happen, because we all know that there will always be people who want to tell stories and share them with the world. 

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

The stories of how I found any of my jobs is fairly standard. Either someone told me they had heard about an opening or I was actively looking for a job. Applying for any job is a terrifying thing.

I do remember applying for the editing jobs with Shoutwire and Bookmen Media Group (a company that I infrequently work with through my LLC for contracts) being the most scary simply because I wanted them so badly. I didn’t have any idea what either one of them would entail as far as time commitments or day to day duties, but they both seemed to allow me to garner more experiences in a field I wanted to be in and that was the most important thing to me.

I’m not sure if this is standard for most, but the application process was fairly informal for both. Shoutwire had placed an all call on their website and I simply emailed the man who was running the site with my information and why I thought I would be qualified to act as an editor. He answered my email by asking me to come up with a handle and letting me know that I needed to post at least one original piece a month. There was no real interview and there was no obligation to work with them any longer than I wanted.

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

BMG was similar. I had a friend who was already editing for them and she passed my name along and told me I should contact them. I emailed my resume and a cover letter to my contact and she called me back within a few hours and we talked briefly before she asked me on. I think it was so simple with BMG because they have so many different editors. They send out manuscripts to several editors at a time and whichever estimate the author chooses is the one who edits the piece. I also think that working with BMG has been good for my own career because I have had to be clear in my estimates and my interactions with both BMG and the authors I work with. I have found more of my own stumbling blocks working with BMG than with any other and have used these interactions to modify the ways in which I do my business.

I have made all of the common mistakes. I have overcharged, I have undercharged, and I have communicated poorly. However, I have been able to use all of these mistakes to make myself a better business woman.

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

College was a way for me to dip my toes in, I guess. I worked on newspapers and I have taken all kinds of classes on technical editing and analysis of literature. I can tell you what makes a good book and I can help steer people on the right track for their stories. I enjoyed the workshops we did in my undergrad because the focus was on the story and not just the mechanics of grammar and punctuation. I enjoyed the technical editing courses in my grad program because they covered things like how to properly use Word and how to frame pricing for manuscripts.

As far as extracurricular activities, I found a lot of them on my own and I was asked to participate in several others. I acted as the editor of the final write up and data display for an article my international technical communication class wrote about technology usage in China. This was eventually published in Techniques, the university’s chapter in STC, in the fall of 2011. Through my work with this course, the professor approached me and asked me to help him head up and run a separate study and present it to the university. These experiences helped me learn how to frame academic studies, how to ask for grants, how to use a more passive voice as is normal for science texts, and how to put together and present presentations outside of my normal body of work.

My grad school newspaper only had me come in once a week to copy edit whatever articles had been submitted. In addition to copy editing I also wrote A&E pieces. My specific set of parameters had me covering events that were put on by Student Affairs and I enjoyed having a more focused brand of writing.

In my undergrad I found out one of my good friends was writing a novel for her independent study and hounded her into letting me edit for her. She ended up self publishing (the book is called “Rosebound” for those of you who are interested) almost a year after she graduated. I still remember shaking so hard when I first held the published copy of it I was so excited.

While working on The Trail, the university paper of Puget Sound, I was given one specific section of the newspaper to copy edit. This paper allowed me to make content suggestions to the authors in their initial writing stage and then copy edit the final layout before we went to print. This was satisfying because I was able to actually talk with the writers and understand exactly what they were trying to get at in their pieces. It also helped that I had the satire section and we had a little bit more freedom in what we submitted.

Overall, I don’t think it was the classes that really helped me along so much as the connections and experiences I found for myself. Don’t get me wrong— working with the newspaper and taking classes helped me tremendously with the academic, booky side of things, but the people I met and the time I was able to spend going after things myself really helped to show me that life isn’t going to hand me the perfect editing career. If I want this, I need to make it happen.

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

The best advice I can give is to network. Go outside of your comfort zone and say yes to projects that will allow you to meet a different group of people. Look for the meetings to attend for like minded individuals in your area. Is there an authors’ workshop? Attend it. Do you have a vague connection to a newspaper? Use it. Is there a local association for writers/editors in your area? Join it. Get yourself out there and get known. It’s hard and it’s scary, but it’s the only way to really get out there and make a name for yourself. It is much easier to find a job if you can say that you have put in time and effort and have solid recommendations on your side, especially if some of the recommendations come from someone/someplace that is known and respected by your potential employer. 

Visit Kelsey on her professional website, Wiseman Editing.

Andi Satterlund: Self-Employed Writer/Knitting Pattern Designer

Name: Andi Satterlund

Age: 24

Major: English Literature

Current Location: Seattle, WA

Current Form of Employment: Self-employed Writer/Knitting Pattern Designer

Where do you work and what is your current position?

The short version is that I’m a self-employed writer who specializes in knitting patterns and knitting related content, but like many self-employed writers, my current job is cobbled together from bits and pieces. I’m both a small business owner and freelance writer. I run a knitting blog and self-publish and sell knitting patterns through my business. On the freelance side of things, I’m a regular contributor of knitting articles and patterns for a tutorial website, and I also write articles and patterns for various knitting magazines.

I originally began writing about knitting while I was in college, and I continued to do it on the side while working another job. Prior to being self-employed full-time, I worked as an associate editor at a small cake decorating magazine where I both wrote and edited content. I spent a lot of time editing cake decorating tutorials and working on web content. Although cake decorating wasn’t a craft I did myself, the writing skills I had developed in college and through writing knitting content were useful no matter the topic.

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

My hobbies in college led me to my current career path. I started writing a knitting blog just for fun, and I developed a bit of a following. My readers were enthusiastic about my work and encouraged me to start submitting it to publications. I had my first pattern published by a yarn company my junior year of college, and it was so exciting to be paid to do something I loved. I continued to do it just for fun until my senior year when I began to worry about finding a job after graduating. I began running my website more professionally and started to try to make more professional connections through social media. I went from treating my blog like a hobby to treating it like a part-time job.

Andi's work was featured in the 2013 Winter issue of Pom Pom Quarterly.

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

Like almost all of my jobs, I found my first freelance job by networking, and I suspect I got it through having my blog because it’s like a giant portfolio. I was a member of a message board for knitting pattern writers, and someone posted about a yarn company’s new program to work with up-and-coming designers. I didn’t think much of the original post, but one of my blog readers encouraged me to submit a proposal, so I gave it a try. On my blog I had simple patterns I had written before, and I included a link to them in my proposal, which I think helped convince the company to take a chance on me. Having a wide variety of writing on my blog has always come in handy.

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

Get experience while you’re still a student! Whether it’s an internship, working on a student paper, running a blog, or getting published— all of it is incredibly helpful when you’re trying to get hired. Your degree gets your foot in the door, but your experience is what gets you work, and it’s a lot easier to find the time and opportunities to get experience when you’re still a student.

My second bit of advice is for content creators looking to build a career online, and that is if someone is profiting from your work, you should, too. The “honor” of getting published by another website or company is not worth giving your work away for free. It can actually be damaging to your career because it’s hard to get rid of a reputation for working for free. It’s the 21st century, and you can get your work out there without a publisher, so don’t let someone take advantage of you. Your work has value. That’s why these places want to publish it. They’re just hoping you don’t recognize the value of your work, too.

Visit Andi on her knitting blog Untangling-Knots.com, follow her on twitter @AndiSatt and check out her knitting tutorials on Tuts+.
 

Melissa Pilgrim: Writer, Editor & Writing Coach

Name: Melissa Pilgrim

Age: 45

College & Majors/Minors: University of New Hampshire (1990). B.A. in English, Minor in Theatre. Graduate of The Institute of Children's Literature (1993).

Current Location: White Mountains, N.H.

Current Form of Employment: Writer, Editor, & Writing Coach

Where do you work and what is your current position?

For the past seven years, I have run my own writing, editing, and script/writing coaching service called Your Writing Muse from my home office (which started in Los Angeles, but is now in the White Mountains of N.H.). In the course of my career since leaving college in 1990, I worked all over the country for seventeen years in all mediums-- theatre, film, TV, and book publishing-- and based on all of those experiences I am now able to help others with their own writing goals.

You can see my full bio on my website, but in short I have had 16 plays produced, four screenplays optioned, one TV show optioned, one children's book and app published, have either edited or ghostwritten over twelve books (both in nonfiction and fiction genres), been a judge in two screenwriting contents, and have been hired by many producers, authors, and companies as a writer-for-hire on various projects (including Martin Sheen's ESP Productions). I also co-write songs as a lyricist with musicians. Besides doing all these types of creative writing projects/jobs, I also work on business websites helping clients with all their business-related writing and editing needs including their page content, blogs, articles, reports, and newsletters.

As a writer I've found it's great to be able to always stay both creative and versatile, for you never know what kind of writing someone may need help with! Working in all fields has kept me both marketable and employed, for when it's slow in one medium it's normally not in other ones. (Plus, it keeps life interesting!)

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Tell us about how you found your first job. 

My actual first job out of college was very hard to get, for when I graduated in 1990, the country was in a recession. I went all over Boston and N.Y.C. hoping to find work in theatre, film, or publishing, but no one was hiring. But, one interview in N.Y.C. led to a lead for an interview for a job as part of the "starting crew" of Universal Studios in Orlando, which I got. So I moved to Florida where I did a variety of things at Universal, including working in casting for one of Nickelodeon's TV shows. This experience showed me that I really wanted to work with kids more as well as write more. So I started sending out my resume and writing samples to different children's theatres that I knew of in the area, and I was soon hired by one of them.

I found that having great writing samples was very important to get the playwriting/directing job in children's theatre I was looking for, so I always kept writing and trying to improve my craft. It also helped to keep studying in the craft (especially within the children's writing market, specifically), so in the early '90s I also did The Institute of Children's Literature writing program to really learn how to write for every age group of children and teens. This knowledge has helped in many job interviews later on dealing with children's projects in all mediums, for clients can tell I know the field very well.

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

I have worked in different community theatres in several states with both children and adult groups, and not always, but most of the time writing the plays for each group basically "came with the job," and so I was very fortunate to be able to be paid for my writing skills as well as my directing and producing skills all at once. But I wouldn't have gotten hired just on my writing abilities alone in any of these theatre jobs. I found it was an asset to have a variety of skills to offer when interviewing for positions in the field of theatre. People who can handle many types of jobs and responsibilities are more likely to get a job in most small theatres. (But as you work your way up to bigger theatres, this changes and you can then be more specialized into doing only one job, or at least let one job be more of the focus overall.)

For instance, I really got into playwrighting even more when I spent five great years as the artistic director for The Sheil Park Players in the Wrigleyville area of Chicago where I wrote plays for the children and teen groups.  I also did writing workshops for adults to develop new plays out of it for the adult group and helped new playwrights’ original work get showcased.  Many of those workshopped plays went on to be produced in other theatres in Chicago, New York, and even London.

During this whole time I was also focused on evolving my writing in other areas— I started writing screenplays and sending them out to writing contests. One of them placed as a quarter-finalist in both the Nicholl's Fellowships and the Writer's Network Screenwriting Competition, as well as a semi-finalist in the Illinois/Chicago Screenwriting Competition. An agent from Beverly Hills then noticed it, and I moved to L.A. to start writing for film and TV. I went on a lot of what Hollywood calls "meet & greets" and got four of my screenplays optioned over time. I was hired to do a lot of rewrites, script coverage/critics, became a judge in two screenwriting contests, and helped many clients develop their own ideas into screenplays or book manuscripts.

The biggest break of these kinds of jobs came when I was hired to work for ESP Productions (Estevez-Sheen Productions), which is an independent production company in Los Angeles founded by Martin Sheen and his son Ramon Estevez. (It is now run by Ramon and his brother Charlie Sheen.) I worked for them as a writer when it was under Martin Sheen. They are a wonderful family and it was a fantastic experience when they hired me after reading one of my original TV series pilot scripts I had being pitched around Los Angeles at the time. I didn't sell that TV series (yet-- I'm still trying!), but it just shows you never know what is going to happen when you're showing your projects!

I learned early on in my various entertainment jobs that you always have to keep writing new projects all the time and keep pitching/showing your work. Perseverance is key when it comes to writing as a career, in all the mediums, and especially in book publishing... I have helped a lot of people with their book projects (in both nonfiction and fiction genres) over the years, and I really saw how long it took before many books became well known. This kept things in perspective for me as I created my first children's picture book, Animal Motions, which is a fun, easy-to-do, interactive book based on some of my made-up children's theatre improv

games.

After pitching Animal Motions many different places (to both big and small publishers), I finally found a great publisher, Indigo River Publishing, who understood the book's concept and importance to kids right away and I got a publishing contract with them. They found a wonderful illustrator, Ira V. Gates, and we all worked together on the book's creation, with me using my theatre background to "direct" the design of each page as the story unfolded. So once again, I learned how valuable it was to know how to do more than one thing when it came to working on a project like this. An app for the book (published by Authorly.com) was also created in this fashion and it is being launched in February 2014, which is very exciting!

Each of these experiences have all been very important in my career, and I hope they show all writers reading this that working on any and lots of different kinds of projects is possible-- you just have to stay focused and keep writing all the time (as well as bring as many other skills you can to the table/project). If one medium isn't working for you (or you just need a change from it), then do a different one. It's all up to you to keep writing and trying until the right project falls into place at the right time, then you can go on to the next one.

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

I always knew that I wanted to write in a variety of mediums one day, but my first love was the challenge of writing for the stage. I felt it was a great way to learn characterization, dialogue, and plot development skills that would then always help craft any other kind of writing to make it even tighter, better, and stronger overall. So I became an English major with a creative writing focus while I also minored in theatre to really learn as many theatre skills as I could. (Even back then I was advised that to work in theatre you should have several different kinds of jobs/skills to be marketable in the field.) At the time, the east coast had the best programs in writing, but there wasn't as much opportunity for learning about how to write for film and TV, which I knew I also wanted to do. So for my junior year I did an exchange program with San Diego State University to learn the craft of screenwriting out west, where the best training for that was offered. By the time I graduated, I felt I had covered all the mediums and was ready to work in any of them!

At the University of New Hampshire, I was involved with UNH's concert choir, drama groups, several different writing groups, UNH's Student Exchange Club, and SCOPE (a music/performance club that got professional people to come do shows and events at our school including rock groups like The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Inxs, comedians like Jay Leno, filmmakers like Spike Lee, etc.). They were all fun and great activities, but SCOPE was the one that put me around professional people who were doing creative, writing-related types of careers for a living, and that inspired me to know it was possible for me to do it too.

Also keep in mind that just because you're out of college doesn't mean you shouldn't stop learning about or working on your craft. For instance, I always knew I wanted to write for children as well as adults, so I enrolled in The Institute of Children's Literature writing program and studied how to write for children and teens pretty soon after I graduated from UNH. Always look for ways you can keep improving in your craft so others will see you're highly skilled and valuable to their specific project/job.

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

My advice to anyone just starting out in the world of writing (beside perseverance, which I already mentioned) is to learn to have patience… things take a long time to get done in this whole "writing world," both the actual writing part and the trying to get it sold (and then hopefully produced) part. So patience is a big lesson in this field (along with a good sense of humor when a project you thought was all set to sell or go suddenly "falls apart")!

I'd also like to mention that it's important to always respect (and appreciate) other people's time and only pitch them something you feel is truly relevant to their own needs or goals (in all mediums, always). I can't tell you how many times I've worked for companies or people who say they only want to read romantic comedies at this particular time, yet get pitches for all genres anyway. Do your research before you pitch, always! For it only makes you look unprofessional if your project doesn't seem relevant to their current needs or tastes.

And lastly, if this is a career field you truly want to do for a living, then respect that it is an actual career choice and expect to get paid for it. Know that your skills--and eventually experience-- are worth being paid for. I see many "free/spec jobs" listed for writers all the time and it saddens me, for all forms of writing takes time, focus, and skill to do, and if someone is going to put all of that into a project they should also be paid for their time, focus, and skills. But for some reason people try to talk them into doing it for free or very little money. But I, like other professional writers I know, normally work on their own projects for free until they're ready to be pitched and sold. Working on other people's projects is then an actual job. Believe it will be for you, too.

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Visit Melissa on her professional website YourWritingMuse.com for more examples of her work and writing tips. You can also check out her latest project at AnimalMotions.com!