With three academic degrees, her own publishing company and a full-time job as a library director, Christina Steffy might be expected to rest on her laurels.<\/p>\n
Instead, Steffy is currently finishing her master\u2019s degree in professional and digital media writing at East Stroudsburg University. She embraced the online program as a way to enhance her writing skills while gaining new tools for her role as editor and marketing coordinator for Crave Press, the Leesport, Berks County publishing company she started with her husband, David J. Reimer Sr. Steffy and Crave Press were recently featured in a story on Berksmontnews.com<\/p>\n
Launched in 2012, Crave Press publishes fiction and non-fiction in a variety of genres. The company offers an alternative to large traditional publishers that accept a tiny fraction of submissions and to so-called \u201cvanity press\u201d establishments that require authors to pay up front to get their books published.<\/p>\n
\u201cMajor publishers take such a small percentage of what they\u2019re pitched every year,\u201d Steffy says. \u201cThere are so many wonderful things that don\u2019t get picked up by publishers, especially the major publishers.\u201d<\/p>\n
But those authors who choose self-publishing pay all the costs and don\u2019t always get the professional services such as editing and the wide distribution offered by traditional publishers. All the books published by Crave Press can be found on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and other outlets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe skills I\u2019m learning with ESU help me be more creative and knowledgeable about tools to use for social media marketing and web design,\u201d Steffy says. \u201cIt really has been wonderful in terms of Crave Press and in terms of where I want to take my own writing in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she was looking for a master\u2019s program in writing, she was attracted to ESU\u2019s for its focus, quality and affordability, plus it offered classes completely online. In addition to her work at Crave Press, Steffy is director of library services and an adjunct English professor at Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences in Lancaster and an adjunct faculty member at the library science department of Clarion University. This leaves no time for a long commute to another campus for in-person classes.<\/p>\n
At ESU she found great mentors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve worked very closely with Dr. Sandra Eckard and Dr. Holly Wells and they\u2019ve just been fantastic throughout the whole program,\u201d Steffy says. \u00a0Wells, who taught a course called Seminar in Professional Writing Styles and Approaches, and Eckard, Steffy\u2019s thesis advisor, encouraged her to broaden her writing endeavors and develop strategies for overcoming the challenges of writing.<\/p>\n
After years of helping other writers at Crave Press and as an adjunct professor, Steffy is expanding her own avenues, including looking into writing for professional journals and perhaps even wading into fiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time while I was developing professionally as a librarian and I was helping other people with their writing, I was putting a lot of my own writing interests on hold,\u201d she says. \u201cSo by being in this program it has kind of lit a fire in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her master\u2019s thesis could not be more timely. Entitled \u201cDo No Harm: Ethical Reporting of Health News,\u201d the thesis looks at the way the media reports on health issues and how the public understands such issues. Steffy\u2019s thesis topic was approved before the coronavirus pandemic hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt examines the ethics of reporting health news out of context and how this practice has primed our country for the \u2018fake news\u2019 era,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is getting very hard to determine what news is credible especially since it is often colored by commentary related to a certain side of a political issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thesis looks at how that reporting relates to the public\u2019s trust \u2013 or lack of it \u2013 in science and in media. She hopes to submit her research to a professional journal for publication.<\/p>\n
Steffy\u2019s academic pursuits are a testament to someone who considers herself a lifelong learner. She earned two bachelor\u2019s degrees from Kutztown University, one in speech communications and a second in English\/professional writing. She also has a master\u2019s of library and information science from Rutgers University.<\/p>\n
When Steffy and her husband Dave, who is also a writer, were looking for a name for their publishing company, Steffy\u2019s mother came up with \u201cCrave\u201d as a cross between Christina and Dave. \u201cIt works on different levels \u2013 our names and if you\u2019re craving a good book,\u201d Steffy says.<\/p>\n
She counsels would-be authors: \u201cMake sure before you start pitching your work to publishers and agents, do your homework and understand the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then she offers advice she has lived by:\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to take chances and try something new.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With three academic degrees, her own publishing company and a full-time job as a library director, Christina Steffy might be expected to rest on her laurels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[143,20,42,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-esu-success-stories","category-news-release","category-slider"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20110,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20106\/revisions\/20110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}