SUNY Oswego will host its first annual Publishing Festival Oct. 29. Organized by Associate Professor Juliet Giglio of the English and creative writing department.
Giglio, accompanied by a number of students, are currently working to promote the event and plan to make it engaging and useful to students with the interest of attending.
The idea was thought of back in 2019 right before the pandemic crushed its chances for it to happen that year.
“Two years ago I started to think that we needed a special event for students to learn more about the publishing industry and how to get jobs in that field,” Giglio said. “We have many successful alumni in the publishing field and I had a feeling that they might love the chance to come up to Oswego so that they could visit their alma mater and give back.”
On campus, there are many events for students with interests in sports, music and art, but not anything for writers who want to learn about the realities of the publishing industry. That is when Giglio came up with the idea to host a publishing festival.
“The first two people that I contacted [was] Imani Gary ‘15 and Susan Velazquez Colman’s ‘16 [who] jumped at the opportunity to help out. I also reached out to my daughter, Sabrina Taitz who is a literary agent at WME and she got on board.” Gary is the marketing manager at Berkley, an imprint at Penguin Random House and Colman’s ‘16 is a junior agent at a boutique literary agency.
Back in March 2020, the pandemic hit hard on a lot of things and it left many students and staff losing hope on things going back to the familiar norm of college life. However, 18 months later, the idea for the publishing festival had not yet died out and was brought up again.
“I ran into Nira [Sapkota, senior in the Creative Writing minor] in the hallway of the Campus Center in early September and she asked me if we’d try to run the Publishing Festival this Fall,” Giglio said. “Her enthusiasm got me excited. My creative writing colleagues were also very supportive and encouraging. I quickly got all my sponsors back on board.”
While she was able to get Gary and Velazquez back on board, she had to find a new third panelist since her daughter is now pregnant. Taylor Rondestvedt, assistant editor at Simon & Schuster, will be the third and final panelist for the event.
“This is a very important event for those in any field. We have three guest speakers, two of which are Oswego alumni, to talk to us and answer questions we may have about publishing.”
For writers, editors or others simply interested in seeing what the event is about, the event runs from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Campus Center in the Auditorium room 132.
Image via SUNY Oswego
