Editor Panel: Public Writing Online

April 16, 2025

The editors of three online publications joined the Office of Public Scholarship to share best practices for pitching and writing for their audiences. This event featured:

  • Rebecca Onion, senior editor at Slate
  • Dennis Hogan, editor of the Higher Education section at Public Books
  • Torie Bosch, First Opinion editor at STAT News

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Editor Panel: Writing for Places Journal

March 17, 2025

Senior Editor Frances Richard and Public Engagement Editor Jericho Rajninger of Places Journal — an online publication for public scholarship on architecture, landscape, and urbanism — joined the Office of Public Scholarship for a webinar. Among other things, they provided:

  • An overview of public scholarship on the built environment as Places defines it
  • Information about what writing for Places is like
  • Information on the benefits of the Academic Partner Network as available to individual faculty members (WashU is an academic partner of Places)

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Public Scholarship: Strategies for Amplifying Academic Publication’s Impact Beyond the Academy

May 9, 2024

Christopher Schaberg, PhD, director of public scholarship, and Liz Wolfson, PhD, media specialist, joined the Association of University Presses to explore the opportunities public scholarship presents for university presses and scholars alike, as well as effective strategies for pursuing this mode of scholarly engagement.

Editor Panel: Crossover and Academic Trade Books

April 16, 2024

Editors Kate Marshall (University of California Press), Cate Hodorowicz (University of North Carolina Press), and Timothy Mennel (University of Chicago Press) provided an overview of crossover and academic trade publishing and offered suggestions for scholars considering a foray into this area of publishing. Key points addressed include:

  • What do terms like “trade,” “academic trade,” “crossover,” and “midlist” refer to? How are they different or similar to one another?
  • The importance of identifying a specific audience for your book
  • Building a scholarly platform: why you should do it, and how to do it in a way that’s right for you
  • The role of agents

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Writing for a Public Audience with Ian Bogost

February 8, 2024

At Arizona State University’s Humanities Institute, The Atlantic editor and Program in Public Scholarship Co-Director Ian Bogost explained how to translate academic essays from across the humanities into public genre writing.