Prize winners 2016-17

November 10th, 2017 by cs48@stir.ac.uk | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Prize winners 2016-17

We’re celebrating the successes of our MLitt in Publishing Studies class of 2016-17, who will graduate next week.

This year, we have a number of awards sponsored by our Industry Advisory Board.

The first award goes to Rachel Kay, who wins the Routledge Prize for Most Distinguished Student on the MLitt in Publishing Studies. Rachel did consistently well across the programme, and also contributed to the wider life of the university, including interning at the newly founded Pathfoot Press.

The Publishing Scotland Dissertation Prize goes to Stephan Pohlmann, for his superlative research, ‘The Paradigm of Bookishness: Digital Publishing Beyond Ebooks’.

The Faber & Faber Prize for Digital Innovation goes this year to Caroline O’Brien, for her work on our PUBPP24 Digital: Process and Product. As her award, Caroline will visit the Faber & Faber offices to see their digital operations.

Finally, the Freight Books Prize* for Design goes to Shem Otieno, for his work in creating the prototype for a literary magazine in Kenya. After the MLitt, Otieno has returned to Nairobi, and is working as an Assistant Editor at Kwani Trust.

 

*The Freight Books Prize has been awarded for the final time this year; we will be looking for a new sponsor for our Design prize.

Wendy Russell, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 10th, 2017 by Wendy Russell | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Wendy Russell, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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A mature student, I have recently graduated from Stirling Uni.  in Heritage and Conservation and through the course of my studies, I was able to do modules in History and English (always my favourite subjects at school).  I decided that I wanted to stay on to do a Masters and searched for a course that would give me greater employability, but that I also enjoy.  I have been self-employed for many years and ideally would like to continue with this in some form after the course.  Hopefully, throughout this year I will find a focus for business development which would utilise my knowledge of the heritage sector and combine this with publishing.

I have been a volunteer at the Battle of Bannockburn Centre and the Anne Frank Trust and more than anything else, I would say that this taught me to be flexible in what you want to do and be open to new ideas.

I feel that this is a really interesting time in publishing and that we have the opportunity to be a part of the changes that are taking place.

 

Literary Dundee – Peggy Hughes

November 10th, 2017 by Mireia_Paune | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Literary Dundee – Peggy Hughes
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On Thursday November 2nd, Peggy Hughes, manager of Literary Dundee (but changing to Program Director of Writers’ Centre Norwich this month), visited Stirling University and enlightened Publishing and Creative Writing students in our future possible paths in the book industry.

With a lot of enthusiasm, Peggy talked about her adventure in this sector, beginning with her English Literature studies at St Andrews. While studying, she knew that she didn’t want to become a teacher, so she applied for a job in the Edinburgh International Book Festival to get some experience in the book industry. She got rejected (as life is full of rejections) but she got involved with StAnza Poetry Festival, a very useful experience that helped her get into Edinburgh International Book Festival the following year.

West Port Book Festival

Then she graduated and started to work in the bookshop Armchair Books, located in Edinburgh, which the sitcom Black Books was based on. As a result of working there and seeing the potential of the area for housing a book festival (West Port had six bookshops and a nice pub), she set up the West Port Book Festival with some friends.

It was not easy to re-brand the area and start a project like this without funding, so they pre-crowdfunded the project (the clients of Armchair Books contributed to the cause) and learned how to develop a festival like this. West Port Book Festival was celebrated for five years (from 2008 to 2012), which is not difficult to believe, regarding that some of the authors of the first year were Ian Rankin, Ali Smith and Alison Louise Kennedy.

After that, Peggy worked for nine months in the Scottish Poetry Library (at one point the 4th most influential library in Twitter) and later in the press and marketing of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust, where she got to promote unique events celebrated in Scotland. In 2013 she got a job in Literary Dundee, where she is currently working as a manager, as said earlier.

Literary Dundee

This cultural organisation, associated with the University of Dundee, celebrated Dundee Literary Festival for the first time on 2007. Since then, the organisation has organised lots of different and uncommon events, as talks with authors, involving music, biscuits, networking and a brilliant atmosphere. This October the festival had Laura Jones and Heather McDaid (404 Ink), Jenny Niven (Literature and Publishing at Creative Scotland) and Laura Waddell (HarperCollins) among others.

This November, Peggy starts a new chapter in her career as the Program Director of the National Centre for Writing at Dragon Hall, a magnificent medieval building in Norwich that will become a literary centre and where she will be working within a team. She is very excited to start a new adventure in this dreamy place.

Some final tips and book recommendations

Apart from seeing Peggy’s steps and how her career has brought her to Ireland again, one of my favourite moments of her visit and, probably not only mine, was when she gave us some top tips for working and getting into the book industry:

  • Keep calm and love spreadsheets: have a good relation with numbers and with Excel, as being confident with it will benefit employment opportunities.
  • Look for a mentor.
  • Live and learn how to prioritize.
  • Do your research: be accurate when applying for a job and think about the person that is in the other end and receives your email (as there are people there).
  • Read, read… read: if someone asks you “What are you reading?” you should be able to answer.
  • See an opportunity and do it: this is what 404 Ink did.
  • Say yes, and yes: the first time is frightening, but you have to try. Only if you know for sure that you can’t do a good job say no.
  • Just be nice.

She also gave us two book recommendations: Align me by walking by Sarah Bomb, a novel that shows you how to stay motivated and remain hopeful, and The faraway nearby, by Rebecca Solnit.

She finished her visit in the best way possible: with free books to a lucky winner and the quote “how you spend your days is how you spend your life”, affirming that we had to feel like a cat with balloons, meaning that what we do has to make us feel happy. The truth is her visit and her enthusiasm (and its terrific end) made us feel really happy.

 

By Mireia Pauné

Lucie Santos, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 10th, 2017 by Lucie Santos | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Lucie Santos, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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I am very fond of travelling, of discovering a new culture and a new way of thinking. Sometimes, I just observe people and I see what they want to do or who they want to be. So, one of the best way for me to get into culture and to develop my critical thinking is to read books. As an editor, you take part in someone’s dream and you have to meliorate it and to think how their book can interest someone else.

After my A-level in France, I searched what I wanted to do and I found my life’s passion: working in publishing and books. I did my bachelor’s degree in publishing at Paris-Descartes University. I developed my skills in digital publishing and made different internships in bookshops and in indie publishing houses. I am particularly interested in South American literature. That is why I made an internship in a publishing house in Buenos Aires. I learned a lot from this experience and I can speak fluent Spanish.

Thanks to that I made an apprenticeship last year in Nathan, a publishing house in Paris, working at the Spanish methods department. I made some copy-editing in French and Spanish, proofreading, iconography researches and I was in charge of the rights for the texts and images of two textbooks. I really enjoyed getting in touch with literary agents, sending contracts and respecting the copyrights. It was really interesting and I realized that to follow my dreams and create my own publishing house specialized in translated fiction, I should improve my English. I chose Stirling University because I wanted to discover the Scottish culture and develop my skills in publishing. I am very passionate about the classes and I really want to work in this sector.

If you are interested in my work, you can have a look at my Linkedin profile.

6×6 With PublishED and SYP Scotland

November 10th, 2017 by Ana Tratnik | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on 6×6 With PublishED and SYP Scotland
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October’s event organised by SYP Scotland introduced six speakers who work in publishing sphere. The six minute talks were on Editing, Right Sales, Production, Publicity and Marketing, Sales and Bookselling. Each speaker talked about their roles and responsibilities they are facing every day at work.

The first speaker was Rosie Howie, Publishing Manager at Bright Red, talking about her editorial role. It is very important to build a relationship with all colleagues if you want the work to go as smoothly as it can. An editor is involved in content creation from the moment a manuscript has been delivered to proofreading, and has to be able to produce quality material with limited sources.

Laura Jones is a freelancer and co-founder of 404 Ink, an independent publisher of books and literary magazines. Her talk was about her first success, magnus opus and the first mistake, she was talking about importance of style and design, and how easy is to make ebooks ugly.

Laura was followed by Jamie Norman, Campaigns assistant at Canongate and writer, who showed us the importance of marketing and publicity for publishers. His work is to promote books in magazines, newspapers and blogs, be sure to market them soon after they are published and to keep in contact with partners and try to meet them face to face. Canongate also keep talking about their books on social media and create big physical ads, which are expensive but make a huge difference. To make them effective it is important to engage people with design and think who is going to look at the advert.

Vikki Reilly energetically took us to the world of Sales. She happily works for Birlinn Ltd, daily talking to book buyers and booksellers, who are passionate about books as much as she is. She organises author events in bookshops, where she gets a feedback about a book from readers. Working in sales she gets to know everything, what formats work for specific books, design, she has to stay in contact with editors to really know the book etc. If deadlines change, she has to let bookstores know. When she gets a book report, numbers make sense to her, because she knows the story behind them. So, her answer to a published book is not I cannot sell it but how can I sell it, whilst being imaginative and honest with booksellers.

The talk I was looking the most forward to was by Rights Manager at Black & White Publishing, Janne Moller. Her role is to know the taste of as many commissioning editors around the world as possible. She sells translation rights at book fairs and via email by selling catalogues. Since book fairs are very expensive it is good to get funding or fellowships. She was also talking about how meetings at book fairs look like, what is the role of subagents and literary scouts and why are they important.

Mairi Oliver beautifully concluded the evening with sharing her passion for the Lighthouse, the Radical Bookshop in Edinburgh. There they organise events, festivals and book fairs. It is an independent bookshop which brings new voices to the market and aims to hold 15 % of female writers and 15 % of black or minority–it curates the world that is out there.

All the speakers interestingly described their daily publishing world and perhaps encouraged students to try themselves in a role they had not thought about before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: SYP

Yuehan Chen, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18

November 10th, 2017 by Yuehan Chen | Posted in Student Profiles | Comments Off on Yuehan Chen, MLitt in Publishing Studies 2017-18
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Hi, I am Yuehan Chen, you can also call me Hannah.

I come from the city of Chengdu in China, the hometown of pandas and spicy hotpot. I have loved reading since I was a little girl. Bertrand Russell once said: “There are two motives for reading a book: one that you enjoy it; the other that you can boast about it”, and mine is the former. I really enjoy the time when I immerse myself in the world of words, which brings me peace and pleasure. Gradually, I began to think about that what a mystery the word is and how these words are printed and published. And because I wanted to figure out the secret of words, my interest in Publishing grew and grew. Therefore, in February 2016 I started to teach myself the basics of publishing. I choose to study this course in Stirling University in order to get a more comprehensive understanding of publishing and put the publishing knowledge I have learned into practice.

When I was an undergraduate I worked as the Vice Chairman and Outreach Minister of the Students Union, and I gained many experiences from it that I think can be applied to publishing such as organising a program of events, how to apply for sponsorship and how to save money, which I think is important in publishing. I studied Applied Psychology in Nanjing for four years – it was interesting and I really enjoyed it. But after four years,  I found that the more Chinese psychology books I read, the fewer  options I had for what to read next, as there are not so many psychology textbooks written in Chinese. After graduating from Stirling I want to produce more high quality Chinese psychology textbooks or magazines, and since I am really interested in book design now, maybe I will do some psychology textbook translation or design in the future.

You can find me on

instagram@hannahhh08

Twitter@yuehan_chen

 

The Invisible Crowd – Ellen Wiles

November 3rd, 2017 by cs48@stir.ac.uk | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on The Invisible Crowd – Ellen Wiles

We congratulate PhD researcher Ellen Wiles on the publication of her novel The Invisible Crowd, published by HarperCollins.

The Invisible Crowd focuses on the experiences of Yonas, an Eritrean asylum seeker in the UK, and Jude, a British human rights lawyer who takes up his asylum case.

Ellen, who was previously a human rights barrister in London, is also the author of Saffron Shadows and Salvaged Scripts: Literary Life in Myanmar Under Censorship and in Transition (Columbia University Press, 2015). She directs Ark, an experimental live literature project, which ties to her PhD research into live literature, funded by the AHRC.

The Invisible Crowd is available to buy in bookshops and online.

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