>> I went to the University of Pittsburgh, the Oakland campus
and I studied English Writing on the Poetry track.
I was fortunate that I did a post-secondary enrollment options program as a high school
in Ohio, so I entered PITT with some college credits under my belt and I went right
into my major head first because I really knew that writing and poetry, in particular,
was what I was interested in and wanted to study.
So I did that and I really enjoyed it.
I had really great instructors and felt a good sense
of community in the writing program at PITT.
But one of the things is I was aware enough of the fact that writing is a very hard vocation.
It's a very hard way to make a living especially in poetry so I started feeling
out the different options which are there are academic
and scholarly options and another one is publishing.
I had worked on my high school literary magazine and when I came to PITT I worked
on "Three Rivers Review" which is one of the undergrad literary magazines here.
It's published through the honors college and I absolutely loved the work I was doing.
I made really good friends.
It was amazing to see all the really, really strong work that writers,
my peers were producing and so as I did that sort of editorial work where I was finding work
and working on the magazine, I learned more about magazine design and publicity
and really got a feel by about my junior year that publishing is really something
that I would enjoy doing and from there it was just about kind of sharpening my toolkit.
I took a few courses in design, document design and professional writing and just kind of tried
to teach myself through the means of PITT and also just self-teaching
to gain the skills I would need for my career.