Friday, February 28, 2020, Noon – 1 p.m., ELC Center Room, Lunch provided.
This informal roundtable discussion will focus on the career paths of a diverse group of Bucknell alumni from the undergraduate creative writing and literary studies programs as well as the English MA program. Hear their advice and perspectives as they discuss their work, career path, and available opportunities. The conversation will also include a question and answer period. Lunch will be served. Sponsored by the Literary Studies and Creative Writing Programs, English MA Program, English Club, Center for Career Advancement, and Center for Alumni & Family Engagement. Organized by Elena Machado, Joe Scapellato, and Jeremy Chow.
Please RSVP by Tuesday, February 25 on the Bridge:
- Log on through on Quick Links (CCA) or my Career Center on myBucknell.
- Sarah Jane Abbott, BA ‘12 (publishing)
- Celina Antonellis, BA ‘18 (legal sector)
- Christopher Bradt MA ’14 (education)
- Suzanne Valley Flinchbaugh, MA ’04 (public health/development writing)
- Carol Kearney High, MA ’16 (science research/grant writing)
- Jordan Walker, BA ‘17 (journalism/politics)
- Panel moderated by Elena Machado, Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies
Discussion questions:
- How did you get to where you are?
- What would you advise students in English, on the undergraduate or graduate level, to do before they graduate?
Panelist Bios:
- Sarah Jane Abbott, BA ‘12, is an associate editor for Paula Wiseman Books and Beach Lane Books at Simon & Schuster. She started her career at S&S as a publicity assistant before joining Paula Wiseman Books and Beach Lane Books as editorial assistant in 2014. She is also an editorial board member and frequent writer for Simon & Schuster’s OfftheShelf.com. She is a sought-after speaker at literary conferences across the country. She has had the pleasure of working with bestselling and award winning authors and illustrators including Karen Kingsbury, Anita Lobel, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Samantha M. Clark, and Scott Magoon. Her writing has been featured in publications including the ACLU Stand magazine.
- Celina Antonellis, BA ‘18, graduated from Bucknell with a degree in Creative Writing and Political Science. She was captain of the women’s softball team, despite being notoriously untalented at the sport. She is currently in her second year of law school at UPenn and will be working as a summer associate at both Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP and White & Case, LLP. Outside of school, Celina plays for the Penn Women’s Hockey Team and runs marathons for “fun.”
- Christopher Bradt, MA ’14, works at the Doane Stuart School, an independent school for early childhood through grade twelve, located in Rensselaer, New York. Mr. Bradt is the school’s librarian and his responsibilities include teaching nursery-sixth grade library class, advising a group of 10th-12th grade students, and directing all library operations. In addition, he founded and directs the school’s Writing Center and Piano Performance Club, assists with the boy’s tennis team, and teaches an elective, “creative writing,” which is offered to juniors and seniors. He is thrilled to be back at Bucknell to share his experience with students here.
- Carol Kearney High, MA ’16, works as the grants and operations manager for the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium within Penn State’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. Previously employed as operations manager of Bucknell University’s Center for Sustainability and the Environment, as communications manager for the Union County (PA) Library System, and as a features and outdoors writer for the Naples (FL) Daily News, Carol received a BA in British and American Literature from New College of Florida. For the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, Carol writes federal grants, evaluates state grant proposals, and publicizes grant-supported programs and projects. These efforts require careful prose that communicates pure and applied scientific research, innovative technology, and engineering topics for a variety of audiences. Carol also writes place-based literary nonfiction that explores human experiences in relation to ideas of wilderness. She has participated in the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers Conference and the Wildbranch Writers Workshop.
- Suzanne Valley Flinchbaugh, MA ’04, works as a development writer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. After an marketing administration career at IBM, she returned to school as a “non-traditional student” in 2000 and worked as an editorial assistant for Bucknell University Press, which led her to a career in publishing. In 2007, she accepted a position as an acquisitions editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, signing books in early modern history and political science. When the publishing industry started to contract in the mid-2010s, she redirected her career towards project management and writing. Explaining public health’s powerful research for diverse audiences requires the skills she developed writing her thesis on gender studies and 11th-century courtly love stories every single day. She reads and actively listens to understand complex topics, distills them into key concepts and then communicates them to myriad stakeholders, the general public, alumni, and donors. In today’s marketplace, this translational skill is pure gold, and English majors have it in spades. Drowning in data and tweets, people need stories to understand their world, and English majors not only know a good story when they see one, but they also know how to tell a good story.
- Jordan Walker, BS ‘17, majored in Political Science and English, and a focus in Creative Writing. After she graduated, she was a paralegal for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Unit (FCPA) of The Department of Justice for 1.5 years, where she assisted with investigations of foreign bribery. With the goal of getting her foot in the door of reporting, she left the DOJ in the summer of 2019 and interned for The Capitol Forum in Washington, D.C. for five months. She is now a correspondent for The Capitol Forum covering consumer protection and antitrust issues.