LU students learn publishing by doing
This semester, Alyssa Voigt, a sophomore from New Holstein, Wis., majoring in marketing, is creating content for the Lakeland blog. This is the latest in a series of blog stories she will write.
This spring, Lakeland University’s Literary Publishing course is partnering with Water’s Edge Press to publish three chapbooks from a pool of submissions that were received over winter break. The students in this course are working with the authors to edit, design and publish these manuscripts.
This collaboration was made possible through the course’s instructor, LU Assistant Professor of Writing Madeleine Wattenberg, Ph.D., and Dawn Hogue ’90, principal and managing editor at Water’s Edge.
Hogue has considerable experience in the publishing industry and has a deep ongoing history with Lakeland.
As a Lakeland undergrad, she served as a member of the Mirror staff and ended with a role as co-editor in chief, was a student editor of Seems, engaged in efforts to bring national poets to the campus and created and managed the Great Lakes Writer’s Festival website.
Hogue also taught English at Sheboygan Falls High School from 1990-2011 and was an adjunct instructor at Lakeland from 2011-2012. She began at Water’s Edge Press in 2017, the same year she published her first novel and has been a great asset to the company ever since.
Thanks to Hogue’s Lakeland ties, she connected with Wattenberg and shared her interest in publishing a chapbook series. Wattenberg mentioned her Literary Publishing course and proposed the collaboration.
“In 2024, I was introduced to Maddy Wattenberg, via my friend (LU Assistant Professor of Writing) Jodie Mortag, and came up with the idea of a chapbook series, thinking it would be a great real-life project for her literary publishing class,” Hogue said. “Maddy and I have been enthusiastically working on it ever since.”
Wattenberg said the partnership is giving her students a real-life look at the industry. “In this way, students aren't just learning about the publishing process in theory, but actually helping writers publish their books,” she said.
This is the first time this course has been taught at Lakeland, but Wattenberg hopes to find future collaborations. “While future intentions of the course may look different, I aim to always provide students with a sense of real-world impact through these types of partnerships,” Wattenberg said.
Hogue is the publisher of the three chapbooks that Lakeland students chose. The three chapbooks they chose are “City of Honesty” by Freesia Mckee, “Aging in Place” by Lynn Aprill and “Human Geographies” by Megan Muthupandiyan. The students are working as the project editors and their responsibilities in this role involve communicating directly with the authors and doing the things editors do, such as suggesting edits, discussing cover design ideas and creating promotional materials.
The timeline for this project is very compressed -- just three months, compared to the usual publishing time of over a year. Students read 36 manuscripts and discussed 12 each day. Each manuscript was written by a different writer, and includes a title, table of contents and the poems, all with different themes.
Along with the condensed timeline, some of the students dedicated hours outside the classroom towards the process.
“I have put in at least 20 hours of work so far: between reading 36 poetry manuscripts, doing extra research on Chicago style, learning more about each of the authors, and researching the press,” said Miranda Boswell, a student in the class.
After observing their class, some of the main editorial points they discussed included: inspecting word choice, punctuation, the title, style and form of the poem. They also considered what they thought the audience would like, how it made them feel and considered the business/ marketing aspects from a selling point.
Wattenberg said the next stage will be copyediting the manuscripts, going through and ensuring everything is clear and formatted correctly. Hogue will take the lead in doing the book layouts. She already has met online with the class to show them the basics of setting up a book in Adobe InDesign, which helped students see the link between what they are doing as editors and the final printed book.
This collaboration allows students to gain some marketing experience through helping the writers brainstorm cover ideas. Students will research cover trends and produce suggestions for the authors that they can either accept or decline.
It also allows students to connect with many local writers. These manuscripts were limited to Wisconsin writers, so all these writers can act as a relatable and close resource for students to connect with and talk to.
“Publishing is a small community that allows writers and editors to connect,” Wattenberg said. “You never know where an opportunity might come from next.”
Lynn Aprill, whose chapbook “Aging in Place” is one of the three that students selected for publication in the course, enjoyed the process and working with LU students.
"The Lakeland student editors were all incredibly helpful throughout the entire process, answering emails extremely quickly and giving me excellent feedback on my manuscript,” Aprill said. “I worked previously with a 'professional' publishing company on my first chapbook, and I assure you, the experience I had working with the three Lakeland students was far superior to that one."
The class hopes to finish the project before the semester ends. The books will have gone through copy editing, page layout, proofreading and printing. Wattenberg hopes to hold a book launch on April 26.
Her main goal for the collaboration is for the students to gain hands-on experience with publishing – reading the manuscripts and making critical decisions. “I think knowing that you are helping bring writers' books into the world is much more meaningful,” says Wattenberg.
Boswell agreed, saying, “Working with Water’s Edge Press has been so beneficial. We get to learn about publishing hands-on instead of being in a lecture-based course. It is easier to stay engaged with the few lectures we do have, because I know we will use the information immediately. It is a huge opportunity to work collaboratively with a press company; a lot of students do not get that experience in an undergraduate program.”
This opportunity is useful for students planning a career in publishing but also holds value for students planning to enter any aspect of the writing industry. Students can take this editorial experience into consideration as a writer and think about how publishers and individuals might be looking at their work.
“I did not consider working in the publishing industry,” Boswell said. “Now, you could say it is a top contender for a future career. I find copy editing difficult, but also so rewarding. I cannot wait until we get in contact with the authors and start working with them more closely.”
Hogue said learning is especially effective when it comes through experience.
“Our collaboration is an opportunity for students to engage with real authors, editing and publishing,” she said. “Whether or not they end up in the publishing field one day, the interpersonal skills they gain through this experience will be invaluable.”
