Off the Shelves: Public Scholarship & Trade Publishing
A CMU Humanities Center Faculty Writing Workshop Series.
The Humanities Center has launched a new writing workshop series for CMU faculty focused on public scholarship and trade publishing. In collaboration with Ed Simon, Public Humanities Special Faculty in the English Department and editor at Belt Magazine and The Pittsburgh Review of Books, this six-part series will support faculty interested in reaching broader audiences through their writing.
Each monthly session will explore a different part of the process, from pitching essays and adapting academic work for general readers to developing trade book proposals and promoting published work.
Host: Dr. Ed Simon, Faculty in Public Humanities, Department of English, CMU Dietrich College; Editor of Belt Magazine and The Pittsburgh Review of Books
What to Expect:
- Learn how to pitch editors and adapt academic work
- Explore outlets for long-form journalism
- Demystify the trade publishing process
- Develop a compelling book proposal
- Strategize publicity and promotion
Fall 2025 Schedule
Workshop 1
An introduction on how to strategically approach editors with pitches, how to orient your own work within the variety of sites that are publishing today, and the major differences between scholarly and public writing. There will also be an introduction to The Pittsburgh Review of Books, with a tentative release date for the fall of 2025.
Workshop 2
A discussion on how your scholarship can be used to illuminate current political and cultural events as well as how those same events can be used in the process of strategic pitching.
Workshop 3
Sites such as Aeon, Lapham’s Quarterly, and JSTOR Daily, as well as more traditional journalistic publications from The Atlantic to The New Yorker, often publish narrative pieces that translate scholarship into longform journalism. This workshop will focus on both the process of pitching and writing such articles.
Spring 2026 Schedule
Workshop 4
A practical look at the world of trade publishing—agents, advances, royalties, contracts, marketing, and publicity.
Workshop 5
An overview of how trade book proposals differ from academic ones, with a focus on projects that balance scholarly depth with public appeal.
Workshop 6
This workshop will focus on the ways in which public scholars can use the tools of social media, amongst other methods, for promoting their writing and work so as to reach the widest audience.