Jair’s Story: Writing and Applied Arts Major Video
Jair has always had a passion for writing, but he also wanted employability. He enrolled in the Writing and Applied Arts major at UW-Green Bay because he saw things like video game writing, professional writing, publishing and editing and he could still hone his novel writing while learning a bunch of other key skill for a writing career.
Some of his favorite coursework has revolved around the Teaching Press, UW-Green Bay’s printing press, and a campus literary and arts journal “Sheepshead Review.” This coursework has allowed him to be familiar with every part of the publishing process and will propel him toward a path in the literary field.
[Note to reader: This video contains information about the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Writing and Applied Arts]
Transcript: What drove me to the Writing and Applied Arts program was that I’d already been writing for years. Wasn’t good but I’d been doing it and I had a handle on how to construct a story but what I wanted was employability. Then I started looking at Writing and Applied Arts and I saw things like grant writing, publishing, editing and I could still hone my novel writing, which is what I love to do while learning a bunch of other skills that I could use in a career. Because I’ve learned so much in so many different fields. I took Topics in Publishing run by Dr. Meacham and that one was super fun and for some reason I actually enjoyed the process of publishing books. And then, in the Teaching Press, I learned how to edit, so I could either run a publishing press or I could edit the books, so I could do either side of it. And then also in the Teaching Press, I learned how to print books so I could print them myself. And then in Sheepshead I’ve learned how to run a literary journal. So, alongside taking Novel Writing to further writing the books, I can be placed into any spot along the pipeline of creating a book and I’d be able to do my job. My favorite class has been Novel Writing. The Novel Writing Workshop is the most fun and hectic class I’ve ever taken. It is like no other and I like that about it because it forced me to write my novel. My dream job absolutely is to be a novel writer. I’d love to go and write down all these stories I’ve had in my head for years and get them published and start raking in cash as a result of it. I would also like to go and write for things like Dungeons and Dragons. I’m a big DnD RPG player. I love that kind of stuff. Novelism will always be on the top. It’ll always be my goal and I’ll always keep writing no matter what but there’s a lot of really cool things that I’ve had my eyes open to.
