Thursday, February 5, 2009

Publishing Programs' Applications Not Declining

Somehow this article in the January 26 edition of Publisher's Weekly got past me. (You know, the infamous issue in which former editor Sara Nelson said "Call me gullible or impressionable, but I'm actually feeling kind of hopeful this week"--right before she was laid off.)

Reporter Rachel Deahl spoke with the leaders of the well-known summer publishing institutes (Columbia, Denver, and NYU) and other graduate and continuing-education programs and found that students are as eager as ever to get into book publishing. The reasoning from CUNY publishing certificate program assistant director Retha Powers: "People start asking themselves, 'If I don't have the same job security, then what do I really want to be doing?' I think one of the answers is that people are really excited about publishing."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I saw that Sara Nelson quote . . . talk about the textbook definition of irony.

That's interesting about publishing program applications. I guess my question would be are there jobs at all for those folks when they get out? I mean, four year schools are still cranking out Ph.D.s at a breakneck pace but it's amazing how many of the folks I was in grad school with who, after spending all that time, money, and effort on doctorates, have now left academia entirely just to be able to support themselves financially.

Lori Cates Hand said...

I was wondering the same thing.

You might be interested in Penelope Trunk's post this week that's also down on trying to dodge the recession by going to grad school:

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/02/03/dont-try-to-dodge-the-recession-with-grad-school/