Other Work
Temple Liberal Arts
I’m grateful I had the opportunity to earn my PhD in English and loved writing my dissertation, which traced the influence of literary naturalism through the late modernist work of Samuel Beckett, Jean Rhys, George Orwell, and Virginia Woolf.
But about halfway through my PhD program, I realized teaching was not for me and began exploring other opportunities. I happily found myself working as a staff copywriter for the College of Liberal Arts marketing team. In this role, I worked with faculty and administrators to review and revise the content on each department website. I also interviewed students and faculty about their work and wrote short-form pieces for their website. (The links to these pieces break every few years so I’ve removed them: available upon request!)
That being said, I’m always happy to chat novels and novelists, though I lean toward more contemporary stuff these days.
Connected Academics
Connected Academics is an initiative of the Modern Language Association geared toward preparing doctoral students for a variety of careers. I was thrilled to be selected to be part of the Connected Academics 2016-2017 New York City Proseminar. During that year-long fellowship, we were given the opportunity to develop content for the blog. Here are two pieces I wrote during the process:
- Cool Aunts of Academia
- Doctoral Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The MLA Convention
Temple University Libraries
I directed the Libraries’ communications team for six years. The team included an editor/writer, a designer, a program coordinator, and a social media assistant. We produced several print and digital publications, including the Libraries’ Annual Report, event calendar mailers, and our twice-monthly electronic newsletter. We also handled programming, social media, and a range of other communications and outreach activities.
In 2019, we opened a new main campus library. My team created brochures, held an opening celebration, designed and implemented a tour program, and otherwise managed all internal and external communications required for closing one public service location and moving to another. I wrote about the process in Public Services Quarterly: you can read “Goodbye, Paley… Hello, Charles!: Marketing a Library Move” on TUScholarShare. You can also learn more about the move process for our new library below.
- Library logistics: How staff will prepare to move more than a million books
- NC State Libraries Modern Libraries Tour Series: Charles Library
I left Temple Libraries to start a new position with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in summer 2023.
Creative Work: Short Edition
I dabble in creative writing as well, and my short story, “Underground,” won honorable mention in Short Édition’s international fiction contest. Look for it in a Short Edition dispenser or read it at the link below.
It’s been nearly fourteen years, but there you were on my morning commute. On your way to work like nothing had happened. Both of us on our ways to work as if nothing had happened.
