The fall 2024 edition of Spalding’s Business of Writing Seminars takes place 11:00 a.m. – 3:45 p.m. EDT Saturday, September 7, 2024, for students, faculty, and alumni of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. Four virtual sessions offer extracurricular instruction in the world of social media, publishing and production, and writing-related careers.
The seminars are free to School of Writing students and faculty.
Alums register by making a donation in any amount here: www.spalding.edu/mfa-payments. The registration deadline for alumni is Friday, September 6. Your donation helps make possible these educational events for our community.
All sessions will be recorded, and the recordings will be available for one month after the event for students, faculty, and registered alums.
Here’s the program for the event:
Saturday, September 7, 2024
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EDT / 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. CDT / 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. MDT / 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. PDT
LinkedIn for Writers 101
with Jill Cox-Cordova (’17)
Writers need a LinkedIn profile too. When I earned my MFA in 2017, I revised my profile to reflect my credentials and interest in pursuing writing-related jobs. Since then, I have received at least one direct message every week from people offering me writing and editing opportunities and the chance to either interview authors or be interviewed myself. LinkedIn also helped me land a full-time editor position at a national magazine. You, too, can have much success on LinkedIn.
In this interactive session, I'll show you my LinkedIn profile to indicate what we writers must consider when we create or revise ours. We’ll discuss the many opportunities my LinkedIn presence has yielded.
You’ll gain several benefits:
Step-by-step guidance on what to include and avoid when creating or revising an effective LinkedIn profile
A handout that serves as a checklist
A chance for feedback on your LinkedIn profile
12:15 – 1:15 p.m. EDT / 11:15 am. – 12:15 p.m. CDT / 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. MDT / 9:15 – 10:15 a.m. PDT
Panel: What I Wish I’d Known before My First Publication/Production
with panelists Whitney Collins (F ’18), Lennie Hay (P ’19),
and Michelle Tyrene Johnson (PW ’22)
Join panelists as they discuss their journeys to publication and production and share lessons they learned along the way. Panelists include a playwright, a poet, and a short-story writer.
1:30 – 2:30 p.m. EDT / 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. CDT / 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. MDT / 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. PDT
Down and Dirty: Working Your Way into the Crowd of Teaching
and Presenting Your Written Work
with Heather Wyatt (’09)
I am a proud Spalding alum, but transitioning from MFA to college English instructor and promoter of my own written work has not always been an easy track. For this presentation, I will share my experience as both an educator and writer. I will provide tips on being hired as an instructor, breaking through the adjunct slog, promoting your written work on college campuses, and just generally being an advocate for yourself as an instructor and writer. I’d also like to discuss my own journey from the corporate world to tenured English instructor and reading series director at a community college. I have more than twelve years of experience in teaching and I have found success at both the educator and writing levels, though it was not without its challenges.
2:45 – 3:45 p.m. EDT / 1:45 – 2:45 p.m. CDT / 12: 45 – 1:45 p.m. MDT / 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. PDT
Launching into Global Communications with an MFA
with Cory Jackson (’12)
A strong culture can differentiate a company from its competitors when it comes to winning new business, forming brand perception, and attracting new talent. Clear, strategic communication lies at the heart of every company's culture, and most medium-to-large companies have a dedicated team to develop and execute communications.
The umbrella of communications covers a broad range of external and internal work, including media relations, employee engagement, crisis communications, and more. There is no prerequisite degree for a job in communications, but you do need a strong ability to take an idea and express it in the written word tied to a strategic goal of getting someone to feel, know or do something.
In this session, you will learn about the role of corporate communicators, the types of opportunities that exist, skills that will get you noticed by a hiring manager, and how artificial intelligence is being used to help communicators.
Spalding’s Business of Writing Seminars, presented virtually each spring and fall, have three main goals:
To help Spalding writers learn more about working with agents, literary magazines, presses, and theaters and production companies.
To help students better understand how to market work once it’s published or produced.
To provide enriching instruction to Spalding writers interested in writing in the professional workplace. Sessions include advice on how to break into new freelance markets; work as a copywriter, editor, speechwriter, or grant writer; and write for nonprofits or for-profit organizations.
To learn more, email schoolofwriting@spalding.edu.
Whitney Collins is the author of Ricky & Other Love Stories (Sarabande, 2024) and Big Bad (Sarabande, 2021), which won the 2019 Mary McCarthy Prize, a 2021 Bronze INDIES, and a 2022 Gold IPPY. She is the recipient of a Best American Short Stories 2022 Distinguished Story, a 2020 Pushcart Prize, a 2020 Pushcart Prize Special Mention and won the 2020 American Short(er) Fiction Prize and the 2021 ProForma Contest. Her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, AGNI, The Idaho Review, Gulf Coast, Book of the Month Club’s literary magazine Volume 0, and The Best Small Fictions 2022, among others.
Jill Cox-Cordova’s LinkedIn profile has led to her receiving countless professional opportunities. LinkedIn also recognized her as a Top Voice for her expertise. She earned her MFA in 2017 and holds a broadcast journalism master’s degree from Northwestern University. She’s worked as a TV news producer and an Essence freelancer. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published and awarded. She’s a vodcast cohost.
Lennie Hay is a 2019 MFA graduate of Spalding University. She grew up in the Midwest between two cultures—Chinese immigrants and Ukrainian German farmers. Lennie has been published in various print and online journals and in two anthologies. Her book, Lost in America, was just published by Broadstone Press.
Corrine Jackson (Cory) has published four young adult novels with Simon Pulse and Kensington and is represented by Bradford Literary Agency. She currently works as a Senior Employee Experience Communications Representative for an aerospace and defense technology company with over 95,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion. Corrine has over eleven years of experience in Corporate Communications.
Michelle Tyrene Johnson is a senior producer at Louisville, Kentucky’s public radio station, a writer, and a former attorney. As a playwright, Johnson’s plays have been staged nationally. Several of her plays have been in New York City festivals and readings. Other acclaimed plays by Johnson include Justice in the Embers, The Green Duck Lounge, The Green Book Wine Club Train Trip, and Coloring Between the Lines. Her commissioned play “Only One Day A Year” was selected for the Kennedy Center’s New Visions/New Voices Festival in 2020, was the recipient of a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and had its world premiere at Coterie Theatre in 2023. Johnson received her MFA in Writing with an emphasis on playwriting in May 2022 from Spalding University.
Heather Wyatt is an English instructor at Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham, Alabama. Her first book, My Life Without Ranch, a nonfiction combo of self-help and memoir, is out now from 50/50 Press. Her poetry chapbook, Call My Name, is available now from The Poetry Box, but prior to that, her poetry has been featured in numerous journals since 2006. She is also an essay writer with pieces published in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Robot Butt, The Syndrome Mag, and High Noon. She received her bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Alabama and her MFA in poetry from Spalding University.