Deepen Your MFA Experience / Accelerate Your Publishing Career
The Graduate Certificate in Publishing Practice is for current Mason graduate students, as well as current MFA in Creative Writing students, and industry professionals throughout the region who are not yet part of the George Mason University community. The 18-credit certificate is comprised of current foundational courses, publishing practicums, and new courses being developed specifically for this career development experience, all taught by practitioners and experts in the field.
Explore Traditional and Innovative Practices
Over time, Mason Creative Writing has cultivated a variety of entities focused on publishing practice and literary engagement. These efforts led to the formation of Watershed Lit: Center for Literary Engagement and Publishing Practice in 2020. Core to our publishing initiatives is Stillhouse Press (a literary imprint launched in 2014) and Poetry Daily (an online daily poetry anthology founded in 1997 and relocated to Fairfax in 2019). Soon, the creative writing program built curricula around these thriving enterprises, which both operate as arts nonprofits.
Today, Stillhouse Press and Poetry Daily--along with their corresponding courses--are at the center of the experiential learning that makes the Graduate Certificate in Publishing Practice unique.
Graduate Certificate in Publishing Practice Application Page
Students can deepen their graduate education while professionals can accelerate their careers. With guidance from program advisors, MFA students can graduate with a terminal art degree plus a professional certification. This provides a two-fold benefit: graduates will be prepared for careers in publishing, editing, marketing, and communications, as well as positions in other for-profit and non-profit sectors; MFA graduates will be specially prepared for launching and sustaining careers as successful authors and poets knowing how the business side of their craftwork operates.
So whether you are a publishing professional looking for an edge to advance your career, a graduate student within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences or elsewhere at Mason interested in the publishing world, or an MFA in Creative Writing student hoping to leverage skills and knowledge associated with your art, the Graduate Certificate in Publishing Practice is the perfect complement to your aspirations.
Graduate Certificate in Publishing Practice (18-credits)
REQUIRED
ENGH 503 Theory and Practice of Editing
CORE
ENGH 605 Publishing Practicum: Stillhouse Press
ENGH 606 Publishing Practicum: Poetry Daily
ELECTIVES
ENGH 504 Internship
ENGH 505 Document Design
ENGH 507 Web Authoring and Design
ENGH 509 Proposal Writing and Development
ENGH 612 Cultures of Professional Writing
ENGH 689 Advanced Proposal Writing
Plus new courses are under development such as International Publishing, History and Theory of Publishing Practice and Technology, and more.
For more information, contact Scott W. Berg, author, professor, and publisher of Stillhouse Press, at sberg1@gmu.edu.