Who is Mary Elizabeth?
Mary Elizabeth is an educator, author, and composer who has always had a lively interest in stories, words, and music since her early introduction to folk singing, opera, and ballet. She began composing and acting in children’s theatre at an early age and wrote her first opera when she was in high school in Evanston, IL. Following her graduation from the University of Chicago, where she received a BA in English, she then moved to New York, where she became a writer and editor of K–12 student and teacher. After earning an MEd in Reading and Language Arts at the University of Vermont, Mary Elizabeth began to write and design original educational materials, primarily in the areas of language and literature. Her works include an American English slang dictionary and thesaurus designed especially for non-native speakers, a series of literature teaching guides (most recently on The Hunger Games Trilogy and The Graveyard Book, which will be published this fall), and currently, a series of five grammar books. She researched and designed several thousand pages of international music education content for the Sibelius Worksheet Creator and co-authored the content for the Sibelius Groovy Music series for Musica Viva Australia’s Musicadventures series. Mary Elizabeth currently teaches eBook formatting in the Editing Program at the Graham School and an MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also working on a series of speculative fiction called The Bent Parallels Quintology. You have quite a diverse professional background and have successfully managed to integrate two of your passions in your professional life, writing and music. Was it conscious hard work on your part or did things organically unfold in these directions?I’d say it was a combination of hard work and a chain of connections. By the time I was eight, I had seen the operas Aida, Don Giovanni, and Carmen, been to Pete Seeger and Sam Hinton concerts, and seen Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet. I sang in various choruses all through secondary school, played flute, clarinet, and took music composition in high school and college. Life intervened, but in the early 2000s, becoming a composer-mentor in a program for young composers led me to using Sibelius music notation software, for which I became a beta tester, and then a content developer. Through this experience, I met James Humberstone, a Sidney-based composer and educator, who had been commissioned by the school where he was composer-in-residence to write a children’s opera. James arranged for me to be commissioned to write the libretto, and we both wrote cross-curricular materials to be used along with preparing the performance. Our children's environmental opera Kiravanu premiered in September, 2008 at Sydney Showgrounds, performed by nearly 400 children from MLC Sydney and Broken Hill, a sister school in the outback, whose students had never been in a city before. The conductor for the opera orchestra went to work for Australia’s oldest independent professional performing arts organization, Musica Viva Australia, and in 2013, she invited me to prepare a pilot for multi-touch interactive eBook to show what could be done with music education through this medium. A year later, I was hired to co-author five multi-touch interactive eBooks in the Musicadventures series. So you can see that in addition to a certain amount of dedication and hard work, my work has benefited from a wonderful series of connections.Can you tell us about one of your most fulfilling professional experiences?
In 2001, I had an idea for a new kind of reference book. I was thinking about book design for non-native speakers, and the problem with the situation that if they were to look up an English word in a thesaurus, they would then likely need to look all the synonyms up in a dictionary. It also seemed to me that using language as the only means of communication with people for whom the language was the area in which they needed assistance was not the most useful approach. So I invented what I called a “Dictionasaurus” and which the publisher called Barron's American Slang Dictionary and Thesaurus, combining the two reference books into one, and using visual cues (typeface, color, and style)—rather than linguistic explanations—to signal language registers. It was published in 2009 and adopted as a required text in ELL classes at University of Vermont, which was very exciting.In your opinion, what aspect(s) of your professional experience is/are the most valuable to our students at the Graham school?
The fact that I’ve worn so many different hats in the publishing world means that there’s probably something in my experience similar to the focus and goals of each of my students. Besides being an author, I’ve done a range of editorial jobs. On the production side, I’ve done just about every job: book design and layout, proofreading, and illustration. Also, the breadth of books I’ve formatted—from cookbooks to tax guides to fiction to children’s literature to academic research to poetry to business productivity guides—means that I can speak to a broad range of interests.You teach “Introduction to eBook Formatting,” an elective course in the Editing Certificate. Can you briefly explain what this course is about?
Introduction to eBook Formatting is aimed at giving students a grounded introduction to the world of digital publishing, providing them with an understanding of and experience in current best practice for creating simple, flowing eBooks, as well as introducing them to software with which they can continue to increase their capabilities, either with additional coursework or self-tuition. It is designed to both build on students’ existing competency with Microsoft Word and their fluency in pattern identification, a key element of editing, although “patterns” it is not necessarily the focus of editing training. And the course is designed to allow students to complete the coursework using either Mac or Windows.What do you want your students to take away from your course?
Three things. First, I want them to leave with the understanding, skills, and strategies that will help them produce quality, simple, flowing eBooks. Second, I want them to leave with the motivation to learn more about eBook formatting. And third, I hope they’ll have the resourcefulness to apply some of the techniques they’ve learned in areas beyond eBook formatting, for example, in their editing and writing.I’m one of those who are still grieving the paper book and library era. As an instructor, I also miss the practical and simple usage of the traditional textbook. I have been inconvincibly using eBooks for a while. It seems to me that the learning curve can be a significant road block for technically challenged students. As for those who are technically savvy, they seem more interested in figuring out shortcuts and technical tricks to finding answers than immersing themselves in the content. Can you convince me otherwise?
The value of print and digital books is partially a matter of personal preference and partially context dependent. Your question focuses on instructional use, so I’ll speak to that. In teaching an aural/oral subject, like music, for example, being able to include multimedia is obviously going to facilitate instruction. In teaching art history, being able to use a medium in which full color doesn’t cost any more than black and white reproduction means that you may have the possibility to do a better job of sharing the repertoire. In addition, eBooks have the potential for implementing elements of universal design—it is easier, in some ways, to create a layered text, with both support for students who need it and extended information for students who are ready to go beyond the basics. It’s also possible to include glossaries, pop-up definitions, built-in reviews and quizzes that are automatically emailed to the instructor, as well as include features that allow students to add their notes and even images to the eBook. Two caveats: If we’re going to use digital books in the classroom, teaching students how to learn from this technology and teachers how to use it for instruction are key. And since there are some things for which print books are simply better, it’s important to acknowledge this, and use them where their use is more productive.Are there any industry-specific trends you are interested in exploring and integrating in the Editing program?
I am interested in the growth of EPUB 3, including the development of multimedia, multi-touch interactive eBooks and layered books, as well as exploring software and approaches that are meant to streamline the creation of joint print/digital editions.In your opinion, what skills should people new to Editing focus on to increase their marketability?
With the rise of eBooks, many publishers are putting out both print and eBook editions of their new titles and sometimes even adding digital editions of their backlist. And with the rise of self-publishing, many clients who want to publish eBooks do not understand the purpose or role of editing, or think they don’t really need it. There are also people trying to reach an international or US market who do not know how to render their work in American English (rather than British English), and even some British English speakers don’t understand the rules of British punctuation. So, people new to editing can increase their marketability by adding eBook formatting to their repertoire of skills, even if they wish to work for traditional publishers, and also by having the ability to turn editing clients into self-publishing clients, and vice versa, as well as being able to address client’s dialect needs.Are there any misconceptions students seem to have about Editing that you keep encountering in your class?
One misconception I’ve run into is the idea that technology is for the young. In the summer of 2013, when I was teaching eBook formatting courses at the University of Vermont, I received an email from Grant Corson, who told me he’d received his BA in 1960 and wondered whether enrollment in my course was open to “old duffers like me?” Well, it was and it is! Grant self-published print and digital editions of two books as a result of the course: The Ratcatcher’s Son: An unauthorized biography, a memoir of Grant’s great-grandfather, and The Weed Road Chronicles, anecdotes about life in Vermont. He’s currently completing his third book The World According to Nub.What is your next writing project?
In the realm of non-fiction, I’m writing a series of grammar books that bring updates to traditional grammar instruction for middle school and up. New understandings in this field have been widely taught in higher education for decades but have made no inroads into secondary-level curriculum. Taking a cue from the books I used to study German and Latin in junior high, instead of the explanation-definition-exercise with 10 disconnected sentences mode that is used in much English grammar instruction, my books are based on dialogue between a Moon Martian, who is eager to learn English, and a professor of English, who is happy to teach him. Their discussion of the possibilities and eccentricities of the English language develop richer understandings than one finds in books that stick to “An adverb is . . . A preposition is . . .” and so on. The Moon Martian can stand in for the student, asking the kinds of questions they are likely to have, and the conversation also provides an opportunity for humor. The books will include manipulatives and puzzles to serve visual and kinesthetic learners, as well as those who are strong in logic. The series will be published by Garlic Press in 2016. I am also working on the second volume of a speculative fiction series, The Bent Parallels Quintology. The first volume is called The Wrong Story; the second is titled The Thief of All Good Things.Thank you Mary Elizabeth!
Agenda
Karine's Note 2016-2017 Career Services Update New PDP Team Members New PDP Programs Student Profile: Katrina Malone Faculty Interview: Meet Mary Elizabeth Meet the Graham Staff: 10 Facts about Bonni Van EckAugust 3, 2016