Interview with Shawn Rosler: The Coarse Grind

This week, we interviewed Shawn Rosler, Bloomsburg University alumnus, about his podcast "The Coarse Grind." Listen to the end for info on a special giveaway.

Find out more about Shawn Rosler and "The Coarse Grind" here:

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COLA Symposium, English Alumni Panel Cover

Bloomsburg University’s 4th annual College of Liberal Arts Symposium was held just last week, inviting professors and alumni to speak and share their experiences and knowledge at various panels. One such panel featured five alumni of the English Department, providing life experience to English majors who are all going to be wondering the same thing upon graduation: what happens next?

From left: Steve Kotch, Lisa Regan, Jennifer Melzer, Seth Nolan, Keara Hozella

Keara Hozella (’14) is a Corporate Storyteller at SEKISUI SPI, a plastics manufacturing company in Bloomsburg. What does a corporate storyteller do? Hozella does all of the company writing, including social media, press releases, internal communications and editing. Whew.
Biggest piece of advice? Be involved at Bloom outside of classes. Hozella was a Gender Studies minor as well as an English major. SHe was also involved with the Voice (our student newspaper), the writing center (now WALES), and was gender studies work study student. All of these extracurricular activities helped her to gain skills that she uses in her job today.
Her interviews that she did with the Voice helped her to learn how to interview her coworkers and colleagues. Her English classes taught her how to write, write well, and edit well—and importantly, how to edit others without offending them.
Words of wisdom: “Your plan that you have right now might shift, but there are always ways for you to get to where you want to be.”

Steve Kotch (’10) is currently a copywriter at web.com, and is working on his teaching degree. He started out in the education track, but decided to go the full English major route when he found he wanted to write more. After completing his undergrad, he took a job at the call center of web.com, and after working there a little, noticed that they had copywriters and copyeditors. He applied for that position, and is now a copywriter, writing and editing copy and helping businesses move up the ranks in Google.
Words of wisdom: (on applications) “They want to see that you’re interested in the craft.”

Jennifer Melzer (06’) is a freelance author and editor. She’s been editing since right after she graduated, after hearing the advice from those around her saying that she had to focus to do something with her degree. Meltzer scoured the internet and created contacts that helped her build her client list and has been editing and writing fiction for the last 12-13 years.
The skills Meltzer uses most as an editor are her peer review skills she honed from her English classes, and how to give feedback without being hateful or hard. It all boils down to tact.
Words of wisdom: “I just started looking all over the place for places to write for, and through those opportunities I met other writers, and most of them were fiction writer or business writers and they needed an editor.”

Seth Nolan (’15) is currently a newspaper journalist at the Williamsport Sun Gazette, a “medium-to-small sized city with big city problems” that covers the news daily. Nolan has been a reporter there for three years, after a stint with the Press Enterprise, and is now an editor, in addition to helping with media and design.
Nolan learned how to be a diverse writer at Bloom. At the paper, he’s been required to cover all sorts of stories, from crime and court, to environmental issues, to whatever else they’d throw at him. It all requires him to be in a different headspace, and his experiences with English helped him to cover these stories.
Words of wisdom: “I was always more on the creative end, even though I was on the literature track. I realized I needed to get a portfolio together and got involved with the Voice. I started a little late, but it’s not too late to start building a portfolio . . . I’d got together a solid portfolio and send it to different editors, saying ‘this is my experience.’"



Lisa Regan (’02, ’05) currently is a full-time writer. Her titles have been on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.
After first graduating from BloomU, Regan wasn’t sure of what she wanted to do, so she decided she wanted to get her PhD and become a professor. She came right back for her masters, and upon student teaching, realized that she didn’t share the same passion for teaching that her colleagues did. She finished her masters and went to Philadelphia to start working on writing, becoming a paralegal to pay the rent. She worked for thirteen years as a paralegal before she could start writing full time. She currently has eleven titles published, with her twelfth coming out in December.
There are three skills she gained as an English major that helped her with both her paralegal work and her writing, she says, and will carry over to any field. The first is critical thinking. The second, attention to detail. And the third, spelling and grammar.
Words of wisdom: “NOBODY uses critical thinking in the real world. I was a very highly paid paralegal. I was a plaintiff’s paralegal, which normally doesn’t pay much, but my boss valued my critical thinking skills so highly that I made twice as much as the others.”



While all of the alumni on the panel had great advice for the students in the crowd, one of the best pieces of advice came from Dr. Entzminger, the English Department head, while closing the panel: “Not everybody’s job is the right job.” None of these panelists started in the job the ended up in, and a few of them might move on to different jobs in the future, but the skills they learned as English majors with carry with them throughout their lives and help them in their careers.

Meet Our Students: Anna Jaskiewicz

Where are you from? Bloomsburg
Major? English: Lit and English: Digital Rhetoric
Year? Senior
Literary Strengths? writing analysis, professional writing (gotten better at)
Favorite books and/or TV shows? Steinbeck, East of Eden, probably anything from Margaret Atwood. I don’t really watch TV so I don't have any favorites—except for Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Why did you become an English major? At first I wanted to teach English in a high school setting, then I just fell in love with study of literature and literary criticism, and I realized there was a lot more that I could do with an English degree than I originally thought.
Favorite class(es) ever taken? Major Authors, focusing on Atwood - Topics and Criticism with Dr. Randall - European Lit 1 with Dr. Whitworth - Approaches to Lit with Dr. Randall
What organizations are you a part of? Phi Sigma Pi, a national honors fraternity (I'm the president), Sigma Tau Delta which is another honors fraternity, and I'm the opinion/editorial editor of the Voice.Favorite subjects to write about, formally or informally? I like literary criticism, even like on a more base level just book reviews, but I only really write when I have to.
Quick, create a title for a book you’d like to write: Middle Class Memoirs
Now a title for a book about you: Uh, Incredibly Indecisive
Dream job? Professional Reader–does it have to be real?
Any advice for incoming freshmen or students thinking about taking more English classes? Enough is never enough with lit classes. Don’t be afraid to even minor in English if you want to major in something else because the skill set is invaluable.

COLA Symposium

If you’re taking any English class whatsoever (and I hope you are!), you probably know about the 4th annual College of Liberal Arts Symposium. Make sure to check out the schedule found here to see what lectures you want to see the most—like our multiple English Department alumni. The event is taking place this Thursday and Friday in multiple buildings around campus, so be sure to attend.

Sigma Tau Delta New Initiates

Congratulations to our new Sigma Tau Delta members! Initiation was held at Dr. Francis’s house last Sunday and included a lovely potluck dinner and some light poetry for dessert.

Our three initiates:



Sheila Patoka (right), Sophomore Secondary Education major
Caroline Vandivere (left), Junior Secondary Education major
Robert Leonard, Sophomore Creative Writing major

In addition to initiation, guests also talked about upcoming events in the honors society, like the Ervene Gulley Faculty Lecture Series on November 20th. Their main speaker, Dr. Stuart, is focusing on the topic “Inheritance.” Be on the lookout for more info when we get into November.
The whole of Sigma Tau Delta is also hosting their international convention in Las Vegas next spring, and submissions for that event are open until October 28th.


(President Jose Gamboa, emphasizing a talking point so hard his hand blurred)

The night was filled with laughter and fun, and was a hugely successful initiation overall. We warmly welcome our newest members to the Theta Kappa chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, International English Honors Society, and wish the best for them in their future scholarly endeavors.

(About Sigma Tau Delta: The International Honor Society of English Majors and Minors has a capture here at BU and is housed in the Department of English. The society seeks to recognize students who excel in literary studies and supports their work as they grow through enriching their knowledge through academic and scholarly endeavor.)

Halloween Flash Fiction Contest

Law (Enforcement) Career Expo: Not for English Majors?

Dr. Decker’s English 488 class went to the recent “Law, Legal and Government” Expo to see what job opportunities they had to offer and what experience they could get from this event. The expo was held on the 9th of October in Kehr Union Ballroom, from 11:30 to 1 pm.

While the expo had numerous opportunities, the majority of them were for law enforcement rather than the other titles stated in the name of the event. Several students interviewed about their experiences after the event, including Jose Gamboa, Madeleine Malley and Anna Jaskiewicz all said that it was “not anything like the university advertised.”

One job representative at a booth there outright said “we’re not hiring teachers.” After the students said that they even though they were English majors, they were not focusing on teaching, the representative only repeated their initial statement.

Another student started a great conversation with a representative from another law enforcement table. Unfortunately, when he learned this student’s major, he dismissively said that they weren’t looking to hire English majors.

Despite these negative interactions, the experience was still instructive. The main lesson these students learned was to actively scout out potential employers and inform potential employers about all the skills that English majors have to offer besides being “teachers" (all those critical thinking skills learned in reading analysis are helpful in many legal careers, for example). Hopefully, this experience will help the university as well as its students in holding and attending more successful career expos in the future.

NCTE Book Club!

Check this out:

Meet Our Professors: Prof Jerry Wemple

Where are you from?

I grew up in the nearby towns of Danville and Sunbury, but also spent part of my childhood in southwest Florida. As an adult, I have lived in several different parts of the US and visited about 12 countries. I left after high school and only came back to this area when I got a job at BU.

Where did you graduate from?

I have an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

What kinds of publications have you written for?

I have three published poetry collections and I co-edited a poetry anthology that was published by Penn State Press. My poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in lots of journals and anthologies.

How long have you taught at Bloomsburg?

Twenty years.

What classes do you usually teach?

I teach a lot of different courses. I teach the poetry workshop and the nonfiction workshop, also The Practice of Creative Writing, which is a junior-year seminar for majors. I taught the poetry literature course, African American literature, and American Ethnic Lit. Of course, I also teach English 101.

Involved in any other organizations?

I am the director the Visual and Performing Arts Learning Community. That can be a lot of fun. Recently we went on a weekend field trip and were able to get a guided tour of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. There is some wild stuff in there.

What are your personal favorite kinds of books/shows?

I read a little bit of everything. I read poetry, of course, but I am interested in creative nonfiction and history, too. I am also always looking for new books to teach in class. For example, right now I am reading The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. It is graphic memoir depicting an immigrant Vietnamese family. I may use in my American Ethnic Lit class in the spring.

If you could create your own class to teach, without restriction and about anything you want, what would it be?

One of the nice things about our English Department is that professors have a lot of academic freedom. I can shape my courses in a way that works for my students and me. I am kind of always teaching the course that I want, but I am always looking to keep it fresh. Even in English 101 I will not use the same books and approach more than a few semesters.

What is the best advice someone has ever given you about English?

In high school, one of my English teachers told me “good writing is good writing.” What he meant was to not limit oneself to a particular genre or style, but simply strive to be a good writer. When I worked for newspapers, I wrote sports, local news, and about crime. I was essentially a technical writer when I was in the Navy. Those types of writing definitely informed my creative writing. Working toward being a good writer in any genre will generally help your writing overall.

Quick, create a title of a book you’d like to write:

I just finished a new poetry collection. It is called “Ridge and Valley.” My poetry is often about place, and we are in the ridge and valley zone.

Now create the title of a book about you:

“Damn”

What would you like to see for the English department?  (Both short- and long-term)

In both the short-term and long-term I think the department needs to get the word out even more about the successes of our graduates. I’d like to see more students (and their parents) recognize what an English major can do for them. We have graduates from all of our tracks who go on to do amazing things and earn good salaries. However, too many people have a vocational mindset when it comes to higher education. If you want to be an accountant or a nurse, then by all means pursue those majors. But English teaches people to analyze diverse and often difficult literatures, research multiple sources, to synthesize, and to write effectively. In creative writing classes, we are always problem solving. For example, writing a sonnet is problematic: a sonnet should conform to a certain meter and rhyme scheme. It also has a rhetorical structure. The poet must set up and solve a problem in 14 lines, and do it in an inventive manner that appeals to readers. That is a lot of problem solving, and those skills lead to creative thinking. English majors who work hard during their college years are prepared to succeed and to adapt. Studies show that STEM grads generally start out with higher salaries, but liberal arts grads eventually catch up and surpass them.

(Hear some of Prof Wemple's and Dr. Lawrence's works at the next Big Dog Reading Series event!)

Rosemont College Info Session

Interested in grad school? A representative from Rosemont College is visiting to talk about their program options. Check it out here:

Chaucer Class Trip to Met Cloisters

This past Sunday, Dr. Francis’s Chaucer class took a trip to the Met Cloisters and Renaissance Faire in Fort Tryon Park NYC.



The Met Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that’s devoted to medieval Europe art and architecture. The building includes traditional sculpture and architectural elements from France, containing three cloisters (enclosed courtyards), and chapels from Spain and France. The artwork within the museum can be traced from all over Europe.



Some of the great works from history the class was able to see were the Reliquary Cross, claimed to hold a piece of the true cross of Christ, The Annuncuation Triptych, several illuminated manuscripts, and the famed Unicorn tapestries.

                
       (The Unicorn in Captivity)                                 (The Unicorn Purifies Water)

The class went to study medieval history and artwork for their class, as well as interact with characters from a medieval setting at the renaissance faire held around the museum. According to Dr. Francis, the faire has grown since she’s last taken a class on this trip, but the larger crowd provided more attractions.



For those who don’t know, Renaissance Faires generally follow a medieval story, and the troupe at this faire featured the story of Robin Hood. The day included demonstrations from the Armored Combat League, aerial acrobatics, human chess, traditional music, falconry demonstrations, and jousting tournaments.



The trip was jam-packed with information, excitement and fun, and was an overall success for the class.