By Brittany Eldridge | Observer Contributor
Photo by Thomas Hill Jr.
Three local writers shared their advice on seeking a career as a professional writer.
Michelle Valois, English professor, stressed the writer’s need for supports such as professors, friends, and relatives. Students can discover other supports through online communities or by starting their own writing groups. Supports can provide students with advice on where to send work as well as feedback on how to improve their work.
Student writers can be proactive by starting their own book clubs. Valois suggested meeting with a group of writers at a library or coffee shop. She also advised that students choose and discuss books in a book club of the same subject matter they wish to write in.
Valois mentioned that resources for writing can be found through virtual sources such as Poets and Writers and New Pages. Poets and Writers (pw.org) provides writers with places to publish their work, workshops, job listings, and writing communities.
New Pages (NewPages.com) provides writers with calls for submissions, blogs, contests, and other resources.
Joe Benavidez, former Mount Observer editor and published author, said students should expand their writing to include a variety of topics, formats and genres. Students can then combine different elements of each writing format to create their own works. Benavidez likes to experiment with multiple genres and formats including journalism, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, medical, and scientific.
Students can submit their pieces to online journals. Benavidez started an online journal called Buck Off Magazine (buckoffmag.com) which currently has ten volumes. The journal consists of poetry, nonfiction, prose, art and photography submissions.
Benavidez encouraged students interested in publishing their work to submit to every available outlet. He recommended that students research magazines before submitting to them. Students should be aware of the magazine’s rules on ownership rights and forms of payment.
Aspiring writers can take advantage of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Benavidez is a member of multiple Facebook groups that were created by local writers. Sometimes magazine editors in these groups post publishing opportunities. Benavidez uses Twitter as a place to publish some of his short poems.
Zach Pavlosky, Editor in Chief for the Mount Observer, believes that writing for the paper helps students improve their writing skills. Pavlosky said that students learn how to write concisely and briefly.
As a Professional Writing major Pavlosky has completed a number of different writing classes. He learned a variety of writing styles in his Creative Writing, Technical Writing and Journalism classes. In the Creative Writing course students learn how to write poetry and flash fiction. The Technical Writing course focuses on writing professional memos, letters, instructions, reports, and proposals.
Writing for the Mount Observer allows for students to write about a variety of topics. Pavlosky has written articles about blood drives, Women’s History Month, the Academy Awards and President Trump. Students also learn how to write headlines and properly structure articles.
Working as an editor can improve students’ work. According to Pavlosky, editing someone else’s work helps writers identify common errors in their own writing.
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