Publishing Masters Degree

A note from Kevin J. Anderson—

The publishing world is changing at warp speed, offering countless challenges—and opportunities—for authors.

I’ve launched a cutting-edge Master of Arts degree program at Western Colorado University, a one-year, low-residency program equally balanced between big traditional publishing and indie and new-model publishing. It’s a broad-based, hands-on program unlike any other, and I’m really excited about it.

Western’s Publishing MA program covers both traditional and new-model indie publishing, and goes over editing, book design, proofreading, cover design, contracts, copyright, distribution, bookselling, marketing and many more topics.  You can click here for detailed course descriptions.

This is a one-year low-residency program, which means you come out to beautiful Gunnison, Colorado for a week in July, and then the fall and spring semesters are online, and then you’re back for a final week the following summer.

Because publishing is changing so rapidly, we don’t rely much on textbooks, but instead we study current blogs, podcasts, Publishers Weekly, and do a lot of hands-on work. We interact directly using Canvas or Zoom, and I have brought in numerous guest speakers at the top of the publishing industry.

In addition to the specific topic discussions, each year’s cohort puts together an original anthology, funded by Draft2Digital. They write up the call for submissions, read the slush pile and select the stories, edit them, issue contracts, work with the authors, design the book, and release it the following summer with a full marketing push. Our first three anthologies are Monsters, Movies & Mayhem, Unmasked, and Gilded Glass.

Each student also does a solo Masters project of reissuing a public-domain title, where they do every step of the process and release their book the following summer (by working as an intern for WordFire Press), with their name on the copyright page as production editor.

Each year the students launch their solo projects and their new anthology with a gala book-signing event in Gunnison, so they get their moment in the limelight.

To see all of the student projects produced so far, see http://wordfirepress.com/GPCW

Allyson Longueira

Gwyneth Gibby

Joining me as instructors are two other highly experienced industry professionals.

Allyson Longueira, who has designed and published more than a thousand books, in addition to a well-established journalism career.

Gwyneth Gibby is a feature film director, designer, and investigative journalist.

We teach all courses together, so students get the full range of experience and plenty of face-to-face time.

I think it’s an innovative and highly useful program that will teach you how to be your own indie publisher or how to work in the larger publishing industry.

Western’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing also has excellent MFA and MA programs in Genre Fiction, Screenwriting, Nature Writing, and Poetry. You can view the whole program at https://western.edu/program/graduate-program-creative-writing/

We are open for applications right now, and we expect the cohort to fill up next year as well. If you’re interested in upping your game, going through a formal and exhaustive learning process that will result in a Masters degree at the end, click here for more information, or you can send me a note at kjanderson (at) western (dot) edu.

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