SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 478-4

(PUBLISHING PROJECT GROUP)
THE PUBLISHING VOICE

Prerequisites:

Minimum 60 credit hours including at least one course in publishing and permission of the instructor. It is recommended that you have CMNS 375. Special permission may be granted to talented writers.
This course is heavily oriented towards writing and writing style and the emergence of the voice of a publication on the basis of writing used in a magazine. It will demand of students not only an ability to write well, but also the capacity to be able to identify in their own and in the writing of others, the nature of the style used and how it can contribute to a publication’s voice. Students must submit a piece of writing, no longer than 500 words that will be assessed by the instructor and form the basis of entrance into the course.

Course Description:

The interplay of writing, editing and other processes of publishing creates the aura and the personality of a publication (or a publishing house): in short, a publishing voice. The publishing voice is the foundation upon which the identity of a magazine or book publishing house is built. It also acts as the filter through which an audience is identified and a lure to bring that audience to the publication. This course will study aspects of the publishing voice by examining the writing and editing styles of an array of cultural magazines, identifying their audiences, and assessing their effectiveness in speaking to and for those audiences.
The bulk of the course work is in the writing assignments.

Required Texts:

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Farrar Straus; ISBN 0-374-52172-7.
George Orwell, The Penguin Essays of George Orwell, Penguin; ISBN 0-14-018803-7.
Stephen Osborne, Ice & Fire, Arsenal Pulp Press; ISBN 1-55152-061-3

Evaluation:

1st Personal Essay 30%
2nd Personal Essay 30%
Contribution to Class Discussion 15%
Research Assignment 25%

Course Requirements:

Two personal essays (one short and one long) of literary non-fiction intended for one or more of the magazines under study; presentation of a research project; editorial exercise in revising for publication. Class attendance is mandatory.
Magazines studied will include: Saturday Night, Harper’s, New Yorker, Geist, Canadian Forum, This Magazine, Sub/Terrain, Border Crossings, Canadian Geographic, Malahat Review, Descant, Room of One’s Own.
Reading will include essays by Walter Benjamin, George Orwell, Joan Didion, Janet Malcolm, John Berger, Robert Fulford, Jacques Barzun and William Zinsser.
Writing samples should be non-fiction narratives of about 500 words, following the example of “Talk of the Town” in the New Yorker, “Canadian Letters” in the old Saturday Night of 1999 or “Notes and Dispatches” in Geist.
First Class: Introductory
a) Assign Magazines: Geist, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Night, Harpers, Canadian Forum, Canadian Geographic, Border Crossings, Malahat Review, Descant, Subterrain, and other more “popular” magazines will also come under scrutiny, as student interest suggests.
b) Define Course Topics
- What is the Publishing Voice
- Elements of a Magazine
- Editorial Roles
- Writer’s Roles
c) Define Assignments
- Analysis of voice
- Personal Essay (Short piece in style of selected magazine)
- Literary Journalism (Somewhat longer essay of reportage)
- Assign Editorial & Discussion Groups
1st Month
Readings
First Writing Assignment
Editorial Voice
2nd Month
Magazine Analysis
Second Writing Assignment
Readings
3rd Month
Research Project
Final Drafts
Editorial work on Literary Journalism
Take Home Exam

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic Discipline” (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).