I love to read.  I love books.  I love magazines and newspapers.  I relied on, if not quite loved, journals and scholarly monographs during my undergraduate degree in Cultural History at the University of Aberdeen.  I even like the nutritional information on cereal boxes in the morning, just to ease me into the day.  It might be an old cliché in the publishing industry, but I came to the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication because I love reading and I knew that working with books, or magazines or journals, was something very important to me.

I decided to continue my studies on the MLitt in Publishing Studies at Stirling University because although I had a passion, I wanted to develop my professional skills before entering the job market.  There are a number of postgraduate courses in Scotland and England, but Stirling’s blend of creative, business and practical modules appealed instantly.  Publishing, after all, is not only about editing and the Centre’s socio-cultural modules offered me a chance to pursue my academic interests.  My undergraduate dissertation examined the impact of imperialism on the culture of childhood in Edwardian Britain; a large part of my research actually focused on the development of the publishing industry and its output.

Already this semester has been a steep learning curve, but my fellow students and I have more than risen to the challenge!  I’m so glad I made the decision to come to Stirling and I look forward to developing my creative and practical publishing skills even more in the next few months.