Publishing Expertise

Expand Your Network and Establish Publishing Expertise

Monmouth’s rigorous curriculum includes a practical emphasis on how to find readers and publish your creative writing. Through our course offerings, our faculty’s connections within the publishing world, our proximity to cultural hubs such as New York City and Philadelphia, and our celebrated Visiting Writers Series, we offer our students unique opportunities to build a literary community and gain pragmatic insight into how the publishing industry works.

Research Assistantships with Acclaimed Authors

Our M.F.A. students have the chance to pair with nationally known authors of their choosing as research assistants. By working closely in one-on-one partnerships, students learn how to utilize research in their own creative writing, get tips on how to write for top-tier publications and book publishers, receive mentorship on their own creative projects, and establish relationships with writers at the top of the creative writing field. Our students have recently partnered with the MacArthur Fellow Karen Russell, Guggenheim Fellow Alexandra Kleeman, Pushcart and O’Henry Prize winner Marie-Helene Bertino, and the critically acclaimed writers Dina Nayeri and Sarah Gerard, among others.

Publishing Seminar

Students enrolled in Monmouth’s M.A./M.F.A. can take this course specially crafted to give them a wide-ranging introduction to the publishing industry. Not only will they learn the ins and outs of publishing their own work, they will also learn from experts in a variety of publishing-industry jobs how to break into these fields professionally. Recent guest lecturers have included editors at the New Yorker magazine and Simon & Schuster publishing house, the Executive Director of the high-impact nonprofit Literary Arts, New York Times-bestselling authors, award-winning investigative journalists, top literary agents, established advertising copywriters, successful screenwriters, and others, nearly all of whom are also established authors. In this course, taught by faculty members who have worked in high-level publishing jobs, students will learn how to write query letters to literary agents and story pitches to magazines, submit one of their own finished pieces of writing for possible publication, practice using trade-industry journals and databases, and continue to expand their own literary networks.

Visiting Writers Series

Monmouth University’s Center for the Arts Visiting Writers Series brings the most celebrated poets and prose writers from around the world and our own backyard to the University’s historic Great Hall. With our Visiting Writers Series, we hope the audience will experience a renewed appreciation for literature and language.