English Department: Publishing Is Just a Subgenre | Interview with Karyn Valerius

For this series I asked questions to three professors in the English department. The professors I chose were Joseph Fichtelberg, former head of the department, Karyn Valerius, current head of the department, and Kelly McMasters, head of the publishing department. These three professors gave me insight on the English and publishing departments as well as why our program has been, and still is, very important. Publishing is a part of literature that is sometimes overlooked. People only look at the final product without thinking of the process behind it.

Josie Racette: Why do you think Windmill is a good opportunity for students?

Karyn Valerius: It is an opportunity to put into practice what you are learning in your publishing classes. It’s a great way to apply what you’re learning, and it’s also practical experience that you could then build on and bring with you to an internship or to a job in publishing after graduation.

JR: Yeah, especially since [students] want to go into publishing, I think this is a really wonderful class to have at Hofstra.

I don’t know if you can answer this question because I don’t know if you’re teaching any classes this semester, but in previous years, how many of your students are concentrating in publishing studies or have concentrated in publishing studies?

KV: Ah, okay, well, I am teaching this semester, but I’m teaching a feminist theory course for women’s studies. My students in that class are women’s studies majors and minors, and none of them are publishing students. I usually teach literature classes, and in those classes, there’s usually a mix of students, depending on whether it’s a distribution course or not, who are not English majors or minors who are taking the course for LT distribution credit, and then students who are English majors and minors who have any of our four concentrations, so they will usually be some publishing students, some creative writing students, some literature students, and some children’s and young adult students.

JR: Why do you think the publishing department is so important?

KV: My understanding is that there are not that many undergraduate publishing studies programs. The other publishing studies programs are masters degree level programs. Hofstra is interesting because our program goes back 40 or more years. We’ve had a publishing program for a very long time. We had a faculty member who was also a creative writer who had worked in publishing for a long time before becoming a professor. That was the person who initiated [and] built the program. I think that as universities look to combine career training with liberal arts education, more English departments might become more interested in establishing publishing studies programs, but we’ll have to see if that happens.

JR: Very interesting.

What’s some advice you’d give to a publishing student at Hofstra?

KV: I’d say read as much as you can and as widely as you can. You know, challenge yourself and read lots of different kinds of books.

JR: Yes, I completely agree with that statement. Thank you so much for taking your time to talk to me today.