The Avenue – Submission Deadline Extended to October 31st

The Avenue has extended its call for submissions for publication. There’s still time for you to share your creative work with your peers in the Writing Studies community!


The  SJU Writing Studies literary magazine, The Avenue, has extended our call for submissions for the Fall 2023 issue! Submissions due by Halloween, October 31st 2023.

We want this issue to reflect the breadth, depth, and strength of  current students and recent alumni of the SJU Writing Studies Program.

Think pieces that wowed your classmates; pieces that elicited praise from your professor; and pieces that exhibit your writing at its best!

We invite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, prose, etc.; submission limit is 2000 words/8 pages of double-spaced work. Excerpts from longer pieces are welcome. We also welcome images/photographs of artwork.

Submissions should be in size 12 font, double-spaced; please submit your polished piece as a word document attachment and email to theavenue@sju.edudo not include any identifying information in your piece, as submissions will be reviewed anonymously.

Submit your creative pieces via email to theavenue@sju.edu no later than Halloween, October 31st

Questions or concerns? Please reach out to theavenue@sju.edu.

We’re looking forward to reading your piece!

– Thom Nailor, Mickey Schuster, Christina Tsakiris

The Avenue Editorial Board

Cross-Listed Journalism Course – Fall 2023

If you are interested in taking an in-person journalism course in Fall 2023, we are offering a cross-listed course with English & Communications that meets on Wednesday evenings. Please note that this is a high-level undergraduate course, and the instructor is willing to make adjustments for those seeking graduate credit. Please contact Heather Foster for an override. This course would count as an elective.

ENG 465/COM 473:  Digital Journalism
Wednesdays, 6:30 pm to 9:15 pm
Merion Hall 150
Instructor: Patricia Madej

In this intermediate-level course, students will learn the fundamentals of digital journalism. The course is designed to develop and enhance skills in digital storytelling and ideation, alternate story formatting, headline writing, SEO, and audience analytics. Students will gain knowledge about the digital newsroom, newsletters, analytics, interactives and product. Additionally, students will produce assignments that include writing for different platforms, reformatting complicated articles, generating headlines that could be used for A/B testing, and writing their own newsletters and social copy. ENG 261-Introduction to News Reporting is highly recommended for this course.

Instructor Patricia Madej is the senior digital editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer who is interested in all the ways journalists can make their work more accessible and engaging to online readers. She has also been on the transportation beat, a homepage producer, and breaking and trending reporter. She lives in South Philly with her husband, Sean, and cat, Cowboy, and can usually be found biking around the city.

SJU Writing Studies Fall 2023 Course Offerings

Registration begins April 11!

ENG 550: The Practice of Writing
Online Mondays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Melissa Goldthwaite
CRN: 40686 (Core Course)

This course is designed as an Introduction to the Writing Studies Program, and it allows students to explore a variety of genres while they explore career options within the writing/publishing world. Students will consider the work of various writers and will play the role of columnist, essayist, poet, fiction writer, and editor. At the end of the course, students will reflect on these different roles and begin brainstorming a possible thesis project in one area.


 ENG 620: Special Topics – Reading & Writing the Novel
Online Tuesdays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. April Lindner
CRN: 40687 (Areas I & II)

 

In this class you will explore the professional concerns of the novelist as you write the opening chapters for a novel of your own. Much of our in-class time will be spent workshopping. To further explore the possibilities of the novel, we will read books that take a range of narrative approaches. You will also choose a novel that takes a similar approach to your own project and present on it to the class. Finally, you’ll keep a journal in which you respond to the assigned reading. At semester’s end, you’ll put together a final portfolio of your revised chapters and, as your final exam, you will draw up an outline, giving you a roadmap to continue on with your novel in progress.


ENG 668: Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Online Wednesdays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Melissa Goldthwaite
CRN: 40688 (Area III)

Creative Nonfiction will explore literary diaries and journals, memoir, the personal essay, cultural criticism, and literary journalism. We’ll analyze and practice different forms of creative nonfiction with attention to both student and professional writing. This class will provide a context in which students can learn the conventions of the genre—from finding a topic to creating a structure, from scene making to fact finding and more; participate in the process of discovery and research; and work with others in crafting, drafting, revising, and seeking a larger audience through publication. Assignments include discussion of assigned readings, keeping a writer’s notebook, participating in weekly writing exercises, and writing, workshopping, and revising short (2-pages), medium (5-7 pages), and longer (20-pages) creative nonfiction pieces.


ENG 684: Health Writing
Online Thursdays 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Ann Green
CRN: 40689 (Area III)

 

In “Health Care Writing,” we’ll explore how race, class, gender, sexuality, ability/disability, mental health diagnoses, and substance use disorder are depicted in “medical writing,” broadly defined. By reading the writing of caregivers, medical professionals, and patients, we will consider how intersectionality and ability/disability, racism, sexism, and homophobia have affected how all of us engage with the medical system. We’ll particularly focus on the medicalization/crisis of the Black body and also consider how gender impacts access to care and perceptions of the female body. Participants will write about their own experience with bodies/medicine, explore what medical writing as a profession looks like, be invited to engage in a community-engaged learning project, and conceive of and execute a final project relevant to the course topic and the participant’s goals for his/her/their writing.