Current Employer: Penguin Young Readers
I am the Assistant to the Vice President / Director of Manufacturing at Penguin Young Readers. After the recent merger between Penguin and Random House I now work for the largest publisher in the world. I place credit for my being able to carry this position largely on the education I gained from the Children's Literature Certificate program at Pitt. What started as an interest in reading anything and everything YA grew in breadth and depth from Children and Culture all the way through Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. I learned the history of our perceptions of "childhood," diving excitedly into the Romantic movement. I joined the Fantasy Studies Fellowship and was so intrigued and stimulated that I continued attending meetings years after graduation.
My interests expanded to include a new fascination with the visual world of picture books. I even attended the Children's Literature Association's annual conference; the next year I won the Carol Gay Award for undergraduate critical writing and was able to present at that conference. The passion for children's literature that the program drew from me and inspired in me will always shine, not only on my resume, but in every conversation I have with publishers, printers, authors, editors, and academics. The professors challenged me and pushed me, but above all they supported me. The Children's Literature Certificate program provided opportunity after opportunity; I recommend taking every one of them.