Life as a Staff Writer for Alumni and Public Relations

By: J. Helen Ksiazek and Bettie Groenhout

The Writer's World

As we stood outside an unmarked building that loomed over us on South Michigan University's beautiful campus, uncertainty overcame as to whether or not we were at the right place. The stoic brick building looked like an academic hall, but could have easily been an administrative office, dormitory, or a fine arts center of some sort. The ambiguous arrows on the surrounding signs did not in the least relieve us of the uncertainty, but, pushing our doubts out of our minds, we entered the mysterious building and fumbled through the halls, seeking her office. Our escapade ended after only a few minutes of searching, upon seeing a sign on a door reading “Shelly Johnson: Alumni and Public Relations”. As we stepped into her office, it was at once apparent that we had indeed finally stepped into a writer’s world, a writer who had a job as complex and ambiguous as our route to her office.

Shelly Johnson’s office was cluttered, to say the least. Hundreds of texts covered the walls. Cut-out poems of her favorite pieces of literature and photos of the family she’d raised before becoming a writer were taped to the area around her computer. Plants sprawled out over a messy desk filled with notepads, post-it notes, and a lone, dusty tape recorder. Her computer glowed in the dimly lit room, showing written words on a white screen, displaying that she’d been busily working on one of her many projects she’d soon tell us all about. Upon sitting down and making friendly small-talk, we proceeded to battle with the stubborn tape-recorder we’d brought to record the interview, blatantly giving away our newbie status as interviewers. Finally, having coaxed the obstinate device into working, we began to inquire into her career as a writer, and she proceeded to explain in detail what exactly her job entailed and how she got to her position as the staff writer at Southern Michigan University.

The Path to Shelly's Current Position as Staff Writer

Like most writers, Shelly did not enter the field at her current position, but rather has experienced jobs in several different areas. “I raised my family,” she says, gesturing to the photos lining the walls, “for many, many years, and went back to college as my children grew older. I majored in English, because I wanted to be impractical, and I really wanted to study classical works by authors like Chaucer and Shakespeare…but I also took a couple practical classes such as journalism so that I could be marketable in the field.” Shelly completed a journalism internship at the Take Pride Community Magazine, and upon finishing college, the Take Pride Community Magazine asked her to free-lance regular features. She worked for the magazine until she acquired a “bizarre” job at a weekly publication in Rockford as a reporter. Her job as a reporter was not in the least her favorite, as she was regularly required to attend events such as commission meetings and report on traffic accidents. Her experience at this weekly publication, however, allowed her to gain skill in turning out works of writing quickly while maintaining proficiency. Shelly stayed at the Rockford publication for one month.

At that time, Shelly interviewed for one of the open positions at Take Pride Community Magazine, the same magazine she had interned at. The jobs that the magazine had been interviewing for were given to other applicants, but the magazine really wanted Shelly to work for them again, so they created the position of staff writer for her to fill. She stayed at that job for almost two years, performing all varieties of writing for the magazine. Finally, in the year that her daughter began attending South Michigan University in 2001, she discovered that Southern Michigan University had an open position for a staff writer in media relations, the first time that the college had ever had a writer in that area. Shelly interviewed for and got the job, and remains there today.

Job Responsibilities as Staff Writer

When asked about what exact job duties she performed, Shelly laughed and replied, “Well, you might think there’s writing involved!” Shelly performs an amazing amount of writing for the university for a hodgepodge of purposes, such as press releases, departmental descriptions for the various majors offered at the college, brochures for incoming or prospective students, and also for the president of the college. Multi-tasking remains imperative in her job, as she explained to us that she had several different projects going all at once; writing new things, editing old pieces, interviewing people for new projects. Furthermore, photography remains an essential part of her job. Although still a somewhat new task for her, photography nevertheless grows increasingly important as time passes. She can often be spotted around campus, taking pictures for her numerous brochures and pamphlets.

Befriending Technology in the Workplace

As for the presence of technology in her job, her response remained fairly surprising to us. She merely eyed the tape recorder we’d battled with earlier, grinned, and replied, “Well, I definitely wouldn’t use a tape recorder! They’ve failed me numerous times. I just got a card-reader for my camera, and I find that when you learn a new technology, you put yourself in peril in the campus community. Everyone flags you down and asks, ‘Can you take a shot of this? Can you take a shot of this?’” When interviewing people, Shelly prefers using a pen and paper and writing down what they say verbatim. Her job involves a lot of editing, but mostly the only computer program she utilizes remains Microsoft Word, or other simple programs for her brochures and other writing tasks.

Love Words, Love Writing, Love the Job

Shelly has an elaborate network with her co-workers, and an immense amount of contact with them given the fact that she writes for so many different departments at the college. She interviews many of the staff, and also works alongside of many of them in her writing, such as her boss, who is more tech-savvy than her and works on the more technological aspects of some of the things she writes. The love of working with words remains the most favorable part of her job. “You find out early on in life if you’re a word person, like if you find something someone has said funny just because of the way they worded it, and you’re just fascinated with all the ways in which words can be combined. I love playing with words and editing. I feel like it’s been a good day when I’ve put a lot of words out there. I also like the photography aspect of my job.” Shelly’s daily routine, therefore, consists of a variety of tasks; multi-tasking her many writing projects, meeting with co-workers, interviewing a variety of people, and digital photography

Advice for Up-and-Coming Writers

Finally, Shelly had the following advice for writing students, “Your grades are going to matter, and your experiences are going to matter, so I’d really encourage people to do internships. Another thing I would recommend is anything you do that’s tangible that you can have on paper or on the web with your byline on it, save it to show future employers. Employers want to see what you can do. They want to see what you’re capable of. That’s one interesting thing about going into the writing field; you can show employers what you can do, whereas people applying for jobs in other areas can only display their abilities on a resume.”

The Writer in a Nutshell

As for future plans, Shelly seems pretty content with her job as the staff writer at the university. We’ve got a feeling, however, that she would find happiness at almost any job, excluding that bizarre reporting job from years ago, that involves writing, editing, and playing with word combinations. As the interview drew to a close and we walked out of her office, the halls seemed less winding and confusing, the surrounding signs less ambiguous, and most importantly, our minds were clear as day when it came to what we’d learned about this particular career in writing.