MLitt Publishing Students visit the Saltire Literary Awards

December 13th, 2013 by Dana Kendra Peters | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on MLitt Publishing Students visit the Saltire Literary Awards
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The MLitt Publishing Studies class of 2014 was invited to attend this year’s Saltire Society Literary Awards ceremony held at Mitchell Library in Glasgow on November 14, 2013.

The awards are the oldest and among the most prestigious for authors based in Scotland. The society is well known for their integrity and commitment to excellence. The Saltire Society strives to celebrate the Scottish imagination and to promote Scotland’s culture for years to come. This goal was certainly achieved at this year’s Literary Awards.

The award categories are as vast and varied as the nominees. This includes: graduate student awards, Scottish history books, and Scottish research books. Such a wide range of published material aims to encapsulate all aspects of Scottish society, continuing to reinforce the Saltire Society’s commitment to the Scottish imagination. The Saltire Society’s website also has a full list of winners and nominees.

However, the most interesting win of the night was the joint win by Air Cuan Dubh Drilseach by Tim Armstrong and As Far As I Can See by Eunice Buchanan. There was an audible amount of surprise throughout the room when two winners were announced, showing that it is a rare occurrence for two people to achieve such an honour.

Just to show how varied the categories and winners are, Tim Armstrong’s book is a Scottish Gaelic science-fiction novel, while Eunice Buchanan’s book is a collection of poems and a short story in Scots. Her book previously won the McCash prize for Scots poetry.

The theme of the evening was small publishers. Many of the winners and nominees were from smaller publishing houses, which goes to show that it is the quality of content and not the name attached to the book that win awards such as these.

Scotland is home to a number of small publishers, supported in part by Creative Scotland, who also strive to support excellence in Scottish arts and creativity.

What was most surprising–and encouraging–was the warmth with which many of the attendees greeted the MLitt Publishing Studies students. When the ceremony ended, many publishers approached the students with curiosity about the course and their attendance at the awards ceremony that night. Quite a few people engaged in conversations about the publishing industry with the students and were quite receptive toward those they approached.

Overall, the evening was a success for the MLitt Publishing Studies students. Not only were they warmly received by the attending members of the Saltire Society, but they were able to observe the world they are working towards.

Thank you to the Saltire Society for their kind welcome to the MLitt Publishing Studies class of 2013/2014.

Keisha Ann Stewart, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2013-2014

December 13th, 2013 by Keisha Ann Stewart | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Keisha Ann Stewart, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2013-2014

Prior to this course, I’ve worked as an international educator and examiner. Some of the countries I have taught in include the Bahamas, Bahrain, UK and USA. I enjoyed my international career and would love to continue working on the global front after I have completed my MLitt in Publishing Studies.

I am interested in working with electronic, educational, fiction and non-fiction texts. I also enjoy writing, and hope to, one day, compose a graphic novel or a modern day fairy tale. Engaging with many different literary styles is one of my favourite pastimes so this makes my publishing interests quite varied. My interest range is reflected through the types of books I’ve either edited or proofread – namely:  a motivational text, a book of poetry, an apocalyptic novel and a health book based on home remedies.

Throughout my publishing career, I aim to combine my background in Applied Linguistics, Literature, Education and Philosophy with the changing face of the industry. After acquiring sufficient experience, I intend to start a magazine company that will focus on innovative ideas and movements that would benefit residents in a developing nation.

 

An Introduction to Oxford University Press

December 12th, 2013 by Min | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on An Introduction to Oxford University Press
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Min Yu reports on Vivian Marr (OUP)’s Visiting Speaker session:

Oxford University Press is a worldwide academic publisher. We were so lucky to have Vivian Marr, Head of Language Acquisition from the Global Academic Business to give us a presentation about OUP. According to Vivian’s talk, we know so much  information about the press and learned useful knowledge.

First of all, Vivian introduced the important history timeline of the OUP, for example, in 1478, first book printed in Oxford, first publication of Oxford English Dictionary (in instalments) in 1884 and OED online launched in 2000. With the develoment of OUP, it has enabled excellent research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. When Vivian introduce the range of publishing, we are surprised that OUP has 6500 employees in 60 countries and more than 4000 employees are outside the UK. It has more than 6000 new copyrights per year across 40 languages. We can see OUP is the largest and most successful University Press in the world.

Then, Vivian presented the structures of OUP and its governance. It is amazing that its publishing branches are in 13 countries, offices in another 50 countries and representation in more that 50 countries. OUP has 5 main business groups to maintain and extend the market: Global Academic Business,English Language Teaching, Oxford Education (Oxed), Asia Education and OUP Esp.

OUP also has rapid digital growth, with its digital sales doubling in the three years 2012. OUP now has more than 15,000 UK and US titles available as eBooks, and 250 mobile Apps for iPhone, iPad, and other mobile devices-developed using OUP content. Finally, Vivian told us about the development of dictionaries at OUP in the future. Dictionaries are also very important because they provide new business and revenue opportunities because digital licensing income of the dictionaries will replace the lost print salses revenue. In the future, OUP would like to lead the global brand in the world, so it has some global language solutions, for example, it will use a global content brand to work with global technology companies.

After Vivain’s presentation, I learn so many useful things.She also gave us some useful websies and twitter presence, so if you want to learn more about OUP, you can visit these :

•www.oup.com: general information about OUP, also vacancies and internships
•www.oxforddictionaries.com: free dictionary service with premium subscription service
•www.oed.com: the full history of the English language, constantly updated
•www.oxfordreference.com: access to hundreds of Oxford’s reference titles
•www.oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com: French, Chinese, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish bilingual dictionaries

Twitter presence

•@oupacademic: info on OUP’s publishing, mainly from the Global Academic Business Division
•@oxfordwords: anything to do with words, new and old, grammar, writing, language and lots more
•@oed: the latest research from the Oxford English Dictionary

The Mood Board Project

December 11th, 2013 by Amalia Koulakioti | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on The Mood Board Project
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Definitely one of the most enjoyable activities of the course was the creation of a mood board. Our mood board had to be related to our publishing project and contain interesting things that might act as an inspiration for us.

It was a perfect opportunity to show our creativity and to think about our upcoming publishing projects.

My mood board included images of Greek goddesses, covers of favorite fantasy and dystopian novels, a draft sketch of how I imagine my cover to be, and a sample of different typefaces that I might use in the actual project.

Of course creating the mood board was only the first part of the fun. Bringing them with us in class and observing what everybody else had created, was the second.

The class filled with colors, pictures, even fabrics. All of the students had tried their best to create beautiful and inspiring mood boards. Liam’s mood board was full of colorful landscapes, traditional dances and Scottish monuments.

Dana’s mood board was a playful look at one of the most iconic British heroes, Sherlock Holmes. Her whole mood board looked like a children’s novelty book.

Laura (Jones) presented her favorite ampersand in a purple font, with various different pictures and images inside it, while Aija’s mood board was in a black font, with dozens of letters embracing the protagonist of her story.

Clem’s chest looked like it had come out straight from the pages of a novel, with letters, cards, and books about the Great War inside of it.

Jana’s mood board was so deliciously medieval. Arthurian legends, wonderful castles, beautiful manuscripts found their way into her project (her husky was adorable as well!).

Alexis was purely…anatomical. A ribcage, a human heart, the muscles in an arm, the eye cornea and a skull, were all part of her mood board.

Keisha presented nostalgic pictures of her academic years, combined with popular cartoons like the Simpsons, Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry.

Ana combined pictures, textures, and words to create a beautiful demonstration of her upcoming Braille project.

Vidhya showed us the sights of her hometown, the customs and traditions of a typical Indian city.

Laura (Muir) collected pictures of some of the most fascinating tattoos and Rosie’s mood board was full of flowers, lovely drawings and…bees.

Fanny’s mood board was romantic; the box that she used was like an object you can find in a Jane Austen novel, as well as the letters inside.

Lastly, Monidipa collected images from dystopian landscapes and futuristic cities, along with her logo for her publishing project.

Amalia Koulakioti