Wake Up and Use the Resources!

In this week’s blog post, I wanted to call attention to a resource that we as students fail to use to its fullest extent: the Department of Alumni and Professional Engagement.

Last week, I had the pleasure to sit down and interview the Director for Career and Professional Development of the Dept. of Alumni and Professional Engagement, Wren Frisky. Ms. Fritsky has been with Bloomsburg University for over 5 years and serves as the CoST Liaison and TWC Campus Liaison for BU.

To start, I asked Ms. Fritsky to give me a brief rundown of what the Department of Alumni and Professional Engagement aims to do for students? She explained that the department has two main goals:

1)      To prepare students through networking practice, internships, career experiences, and professional development; they have a special grant, called a Professional Experience Grant (PEG) helps alleviate some of the costs associated with career experience.  

2)      To connect students to alumni so they can have a peek into various industries and make connections that will help them find employment after graduation.

To do this, the department provides workshops on everything from interview preparation to career coaching; from building a network to how to present yourself. The Department of Alumni and Professional Engagement also looks to host events to get alumni back to Bloomsburg to talk about their experience, and possibly connects them to career opportunities. One place you might have encountered the department’s handiwork is the COLA symposium and other BU college conferences. They help recruit and invite alumni to volunteer- as panelists, classroom speakers, experience hosts, and more.

The Department encourages students to get involved with networking platforms like Handshake and LinkedIn, which some of you might be very familiar with. The links below allow you to go directly to the login/account setup page for each of these platforms.  

·       LinkedIn: Log In or Sign Up

·       Students | Handshake (bloomu.joinhandshake.com)

 

Ms. Fritsky recommends that students utilize these resources as much as possible, calling them, “ A student’s best friend!” Social media platforms like these are especially helpful when wanting to build up your network, which the folks at A&PE say is everything when looking for a job or internship. This applies to all students, not just English majors.

Later in the interview, I asked if there were any specific scholarships or job placement for English majors? Her advice to me is to examine and reflect on yourself when you are looking for a job or field of study. Look at what you like or what you do not like. Reflect on your non-negotiables and broaden your search to include jobs with the type of skillset you have, not just what your major says. She also said to look for what makes you happy and to take every opportunity to push yourself to try things outside your comfort zone. Ms. Frtisky’s last point was to understand that college years should be used to try, fail, learn, and try again. In other words, take every opportunity that comes your way, even if you are a little afraid because you never know what can come of it.   

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with, Wren Fritsky or any of the department members at ProfessionalU@bloomu.edu. You can also find them at the Greenly Center 3F downtown.

Alumnus Interview with JC Lee

About the movie Luce (2019):

“It's been ten years since Amy and Peter Edgar (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) adopted their son from war-torn Eritrea, and they thought the worst was behind them. Luce Edgar (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) has become an all-star student beloved by his community in Arlington, Virginia. His African American teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), believes he is a symbol of black excellence that sets a positive example for his peers. But when he is assigned to write an essay in the voice of a historical twentieth-century figure, Luce turns in a paper that makes an alarming statement about political violence. Worried about how this assignment reflects upon her star pupil, Harriet searches his locker and finds something that confirms her worst fears.” (rottentomatoes)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recently, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with JC Lee, an alumnus of Bloomsburg University and Juilliard who recently showed his move Luce on campus. We talked about his movie, his career, his methods for how he got from point A to point B in his life, and advice he had for anyone trying to do the same.

The inspiration for the original play came from multiple places and facets of his life, including how he himself is mixed race, and how he’s had to code-switch to fit in with different groups of people in his life, a theme prevalent in his play-turned-movie. He also drew a little bit from his love of superheroes and their own alter egos, and the idea that everyone has a mask that they put on for others.

The movie Luce was originally as play, as we know. Lee has been involved in the theater for basically his entire life, especially during his undergrad at Bloomsburg University, and his time at Julliard. During our conversation, he told me that he’d been writing a bunch of comic stories with superheroes at Juilliard for a while.  Near the end of his time there, he was told that he had to write a “grown-up” story. “I thought, “What does that even mean?” he joked with me, and told me he’d ended up returning to an idea that he’d jotted down in a notebook years ago and written in “Come back to this when you’re 35.” That idea ended up becoming Luce.

The play debuted in 2013, and it was due to the encouragement, prompting and pushing of a friend that it became the movie it is today.

How he got to where he is, Lee told me, is basically through hard work. You have to have a drive, and it’s something people are born with or not. “I have no doubt that there are a lot of talented people in LA,” he said, “but you have to have the drive to go after your goals.” He’s had to support himself for much of his life, and his suggestion on “making it” was to go for it.

Currently, Lee is working on another play, a short movie based on a short story by Stephen King, and series for Apple TV. When I asked him why he took on so many varied forms of media, he told me that working on different genres and forms of media helped to hone his skills.

Following that, his advice is to hone your skills by working on different things, and also to take in everything. Every form of media, books and TV shows and movies and plays, and to take in the bad as well as the good.

Thanks to JC Lee for letting me pick your brain and share your thoughts with the masses.

Big Dog Reading with Wemple and Lawrence

Our own Prof. Wemple and Dr. Lawrence were the guests for the most recent installment of the Big Dog Reading Series.

Prof Wemple introduced the event with a the statement, "November, the worst month of the year," a sentiment echoed by many who prefer warmer weather. Ironically enough, both educators' readings were set in the summer.

Dr. Lawrence started us off with some personal and deeply touching flash (non)fiction and illustrations (and a bonus drawing she added in to lighten the mood).

She began with a flash fiction piece, then led into a series of flash-nonfiction pieces she wrote about her recent discovery of her birth father, following a timeline that started before she was born, and ending in the summer of 2019.

Her pieces explored family dynamics, mother-daughter interactions, including one of her truest lines, “mothers in opera are notoriously bad,” and piecing together parts of the past to create something beautiful out a messy, scattered life.

Best line: “When I was 5, I thought Mr. Rogers was my father.”

Wemple read second, introducing a set of nostalgic summertime poems he wrote during a retreat this past summer.

His six poems were titled as follows: “That Summer,” “GAR,” (standing for Grand Army of the Republic), “Smash Cans,” and “Almost,” “First Visit, South Carolina,” and “Tapies.” 

His prose led us through sun-soaked backyards and parking garages with evocative imagery and engaged all the senses, recalling the nostalgia of summers long past. He connected the past with the present, and engaged the audience: “Of course, everything is connected, even those of you listening to this here and now.”

Another quote: “Because baseball is a metaphor for life, I’m gonna end with a baseball poem.”

Big Dog Reading Series: Jerry Wemple & Claire Lawrence

Don't forget to go to Monty's on Thursday and hear two of our own professors in the English Department, Prof. Jerry Wemple and Dr. Claire Lawrence, share their work. The event starts at 7 pm in Monty's Assembly Room on upper campus.

We can't wait to see you there!

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.

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.

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.

Tyler Mills Poetry Reading Cover

Featured as the guest reader for the 20th season of the Big Dog Reading Series, Tyler Mills read for us all yesterday in Monty's assembly room.



Mills read a selection of poetry from her book, Hawk Parable, covering themes about nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific and exploring her family's mystery of her grandfather's involvement in the bombing of Nagasaki.



Her poems were varied in tone and perspective, jumping from the point of view of a soldier to searching for bomb testing sites that were wiped out on Google Maps, but each work held a deep respect for their subjects and themes.

During the Q & A at the end of the session, Mills said that she started researching these topics for her poems before 2009, some of her poems taking as long as 3 years to write, and some only taking a few hours. She especially became invested in digging through old videos of released footage of bomb testings. "[At times] I found myself pausing these videos and wishing I could stop the bombing," she told the audience.



The evening was a powerful, instructive, and enjoyable one for all of her audience members, full of poignant and moving poems. Tyler Mills' presence at Bloomsburg and her poetic insights were greatly appreciated by all attending. In hearing her poetry, we all agreed with her statement, "To me, poetry has a power to create a voice that's eternal."

Big Dog Reading Series: Tyler Mills, Poet

Check out this event!

Welcome (back) to BU: Activities Fair Coverage

Welcome (back) to BU: Activities Fair Coverage

Hi everybody, and welcome to Bloomsburg University. If you’re returning, welcome back! Since this is obviously the English Department blog, covering any and all things related, we’re kicking off this semester with a recap of some of the great organizations related to the English Department.

WALES (Writing and Literacy Engagement Studio) is probably the best place to get help with any kind of writing project you’ll have this semester. The yellow bookmarks this WALES rep is holding in the pic are too little to read on screen, but they list available hours in Andruss Library (Schweiker Room), Bakeless 206, and Elwell Hall (N219). Check out their full schedule at http://bloomu.edu/wales for their full hours schedule, or email them at wales@bloomu.edu for an appointment.

Warren, the campus Literary and Art journal, just had their 70^th anniversary last year of the journal existing on campus (under various names). They’re holding their initial meeting Thursday, August 29, in Bakeless, so be sure to swing by and hear about all the cool things they’re doing this semester. These lovely ladies are showing the most recent edition of the journal, which is completely student-published, and also completely free, so ask them for any extras they may have lying around. Check out their website: http://warrenliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/

NCTE stands for the National Council of Teachers of English, and they “amplify the voice of educators through personal connection, collaboration, and a shared mission to improve the teaching and learning of English and language arts at all levels” (http://www2.ncte.org/). Check them out if you’re on the Secondary Ed English track.

The Voice, the campus newspaper, prints every Thursday and is always looking for new “voices” in their sections. Check them out online at http://buvoice.com/, especially if you're a writer looking for something to talk about.

Other pics and tables from the fair:

Table Top Gaming club, representing;

The Anime and Manga club was doing really well;

The Sci Fi club, having a blast (and apparently learning the ukulele);

Active Minds in health and wellness was so busy I could barely get a picture;

The LGBTQA table had FREE pride flags!

The Women’s Resource Center, perfectly posing;

And the whole fair!

Here's to the start of a great semester.

Department Events This Thursday 4/9

Hello everyone!
We have two great events coming up on Thursday.

At 5:30 PM in Bakeless 207, Dr. Entzminger will be reading a non-fiction essay about her great aunt's interesting marriage.

At 6:30 PM at Monty's Upper Campus, the Big Dog Reading Series will host Daryl Sznyter and Brian Fanelli, two poets.

Be sure to attend these events and show your support!

Reserve a Spot on the Husky Career Road Trip!

English majors in all tracks who are juniors and seniors should consider the Husky Career Road Trip sponsored by ProfessionalU to WebFX on Friday, April 12. The Harrisburg-based company is ranked as one of the top "Best Places to Work for Millennials" in the nation. WebFX (http://www.webpagefx.com) is a full-service internet marketing company offering innovative web marketing solutions to mid to large sized companies across the globe.

Megan Berbaum, a 2014 Bloomsburg graduate with a Creative Writing major and Professional Writing minor, has worked at WebFX since 2016. Megan says she really likes working there and encourages upcoming graduates to check out the company because they are hiring content creators. Megan would be happy to answer questions for any current Bloomsburg students about WebFX. Her email is mberbaum@webfx.com.

To find out more information, or to reserve a spot on the trip, follow this link to Handshake:
https://bloomu.joinhandshake.com/events/287377.

Upcoming Event: Warren Open Mic Contest

Happy Monday!

Guidelines for Warren's Open Mic Night have been released. Read below to find out how to join this event!

Bloomsburg University's Warren Literary Journal will be hosting an Open Mic Night that will be held at 6pm in the Student Service Center (SSC) room 004 on Tuesday, April 9th. Submissions are due no later than Monday, April 1st to the litmag@bloomu.edu email. The email subject must include the category of the submission that corresponds with one of the categories listed below.

Categories for Open Mic Night contest April 9th:

Poetry: Maximum 350 words, no specific form/style is required

Fiction: Involves imaginary events and people in the form of prose. Please limit pieces to 2,000 words maximum.

Creative Nonfiction: Wikipedia defines creative nonfiction as a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Please limit pieces to 2,000 words maximum.

Critical Essay: Thoughtco.com defines critical essay as a form of academic writing that analyzes, interprets, and/or evaluates a text. In a critical essay, an author makes a claim about how particular ideas or themes are conveyed in a text, then supports that claim with evidence from primary and/or secondary sources. Please limit pieces to 2,000 words maximum.

Contest winners will be notified no later than Friday, April 5th and are encouraged to read their pieces aloud at the Open Mic Night. However, all participants are welcomed to attend and read their submissions to the public. There will be pizza and refreshments available during the event.

Find the contests here:  

https://warrenliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/contests/

Taste of the Arts Today!

This is just a reminder that the Taste of the Arts will be held today (Saturday 3/2) from 2pm to 5pm at the Greenly Center, 50 E Main St. This is an event sponsored by the BU College of Liberal Arts and the Center for Visual and Performing Arts, and it will feature performances by student musicians, video productions from mass comm majors, poetry/prose, and art gallery demonstrations.
Be sure to stop by and check it out!

Sigma Tau Delta Lecture Series

Diversity Conference News

Last Wednesday, November 14th, Bloomsburg proudly hosted the 16th Annual High School Diversity Conference under the theme "Empowering Your Voices," aimed at encouraging young students to feel confident in sharing their stories and speaking out.  Over 100 high school students and faculty from several school districts surrounding Bloomsburg showed up for a series of panels on issues on communication and diversity.

Of our English Department, Dr. Christina Francis gave one of the six versions of the final panel, designed to discuss the challenges and ways to navigate speaking out in their schools and communities.  Several of our English majors, including Nancy Zola, Kearstin Calhoun, Sarah M. Goulet, Brittany Stephenson, Jonathan Beaver, Alissa Heatherington, Morgan Mickavicz, Breyana Rolon, and Sherri Boyles, helped facilitate these final panels.  Additionally, another one of our majors, Angela Montaño, participated in the panel "Unity within Diversity."  Wonderful job, everyone!

Even more excitingly, the local news station, WBRE, featured a one-minute clip on the conference. Dr. Francis is a featured voice in this clip.  Please check it out here!

Narrow's Open Mic and Micro Contest Announcements

Warren Contests and Open Mic

As a reminder to all students interested in entering short contests, the deadline is coming up for the micro essay contest this Friday, November 2nd.  A micro essay is a one-page essay that can fall under any subject and style.  The Brevity Magazine has some excellent examples of these essays, which you can view here.

For your submissions, you are allowed to enter 1 (one) essay of any genre, as long as it falls under the word count (one page, single-spaced, font size 12.  The essay should be submitted as a Word (.doc or .docx) to litmag@bloomu.edu under the header "Full name/Title/Microcontest."  Don't place your name anywhere on the document.

There is a mini poetry contest sponsored by the Warren as well.  You may submit up to two poems of any genre.

Additionally, The Warren will be hosting an open mic on Monday, November 12th. Winners will be announced at the Narrow open mic held at 6:30 p.m., Monday, November 12, in room 004 Student Services Center (the small auditorium downstairs). The open mic is open to all students would like to read a poem or short prose piece, but you need to have entered the contest.

Danielle Evans: Tips for Creative Writers

Last Tuesday, Danielle Evans visited Bloomsburg Campus to talk about short story writing and her collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. During her 7:00 reading at Monty's she read "Boys Go to Jupiter," featured on The Sewanee Review and in The Best American Short Stories 2018, edited this year by Roxanne Gay.  As a piece focused on where innocence trips into mistakes, "Boys Go to Jupiter" is a contemporary piece that challenges how we judge guilt and truth.

Writing Tips

Earlier in the day, Evans hosted a talk with Dr. Lawrence's short story writing class, where she offered some excellent advice for creative writing and her writing process.

According to Evans, there are four components to keep in mind while reading and writing short stories:

1. A good short story is a contained unit in of itself. 
The premise is that something - maybe about the character, or maybe about their situation or worldview - has changed in a permanent way, wherein there is a distinct "before" and "after."  There is an immediate question that gets answered by the end of the story, but secondary questions are left for the reader to ponder.

2. Compression does not necessarily equal minimalism.  
A short story is concise by nature, but it does not have to be minimalist and bare-boned.  If time moves, then pressure builds; Evans encourages understanding how time and flashback/backstory sequences move a story while keeping it compressed.

3. You can have a narrative where the loss of possibility is the pivot point.  
Evans stated that she is personally interested in "stories where the loss of potential" drives the plot.  While some stories are driving up to the point of a great moment of change, others look at the results after a particular decision was made, or ask where the realization was about a past choice.  Tension, in these cases, can also be given by giving information, not just withholding it.

4. The point of view makes a story distinct. 
For this point, Evans asked the following questions:

• Where does the narrative voice come from?
• Do we get scared to "fully inhabit" a point of view?
• How do we frame the contrast between doing and thinking (or internal/external performance)

Evans, a realist writer, says she likes to start writing while thinking of why a character would make a particular choice instead of starting with the character themselves.  Where could we empathize with a character, and when do we judge them?  Her stories like to challenge and blur these boundaries, as "Boys Go to Jupiter" attests. 

If you are interested in other interviews with Danielle Evans or would like to learn about her publications, you can visit her official website here.  

Big Dog Reading Series: Danielle Evans

The Official Cover

Danielle Evans, author of the short story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, will be visiting campus on October 2nd!  She will be conducting a reading at 7 p.m. in Monty's Assembly room.

A graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, she has won numerous awards, including the 2011 PEN/Robert Bingham Prize and three inclusions in the Best American Short Stories (2008, 2010, and 2017).

The New York Times Book Review calls her work: "Whip smart," while the Boston Globe review says Evans writes "Emotion wracked tales of love and race... Evans pulls off writing that makes your throat catch... Intriguing, disturbing, and memorable."

We hope to see you there!