{"id":12738,"date":"2017-04-12T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T16:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bsuenglish.wordpress.com\/?p=12738"},"modified":"2021-12-08T15:38:58","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T20:38:58","slug":"john-maust-the-importance-of-encouraging-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2017\/04\/12\/john-maust-the-importance-of-encouraging-writers\/","title":{"rendered":"John Maust: The Importance of Encouraging Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>John Maust is president of <a href=\"https:\/\/littworld.org\/\">Media Associates International<\/a> (MAI), a publishing training agency based near Chicago, Illinois. John directs MAI\u2019s global training programs to strengthen Christian publishing worldwide and to foster the development and publication of gifted local writers. John became president of MAI in 1998 after more than 20 years of experience as an editor, author and journalist. He graduated from Ball State University in 1975 with a B.A. in Literature, followed by an M.A. in Communications from Wheaton (IL) College Graduate School in 1978.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000\"><strong>You have had such a varied career in publishing, including working for a newspaper and a magazine, as well as publishing three books of your own. In what ways did your English literature degree help to prepare you for these various endeavors?<\/strong><\/span><strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12750 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095521\/john-maust-2-227x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"227\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095521\/john-maust-2-227x300.jpg 227w, https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095521\/john-maust-2-529x700.jpg 529w, https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095521\/john-maust-2.jpg 548w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 227px) 100vw, 227px\" \/><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Within weeks of graduating from Ball State, I got a job as a 20-year-old editor of a small-town weekly newspaper in nearby Dunkirk, Indiana. Editorially, it was a one-person operation. So, for the first time in my life I had nightmares: would I find enough to fill the newspaper?<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, we never published any blank pages, and the work got done through long hours, hard work, a finely tooled typewriter, and more than a few prayers. I look at that experience as a time of real growth both as a person and as a communicator. They say you learn to write by writing, and that was surely the case at this newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>Next came graduate school, followed by work as a magazine news editor, and then as a roving reporter and writer trainer based in Lima, Peru. There, this English major learned enough Spanish to meet and marry my beautiful wife, Elsa, of 32 years.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->For the last 20 years, I\u2019ve been helping to equip and encourage Christian publishers and writers in the Majority World as president of Media Associates International.<\/p>\n<p>My English degree helped prepare me for all this simply through the act of reading\u2014reading widely from the best authors and doing so critically. Almost unconsciously, one<br \/>\nbegins to absorb and understand the difference between good and not-so-good writing and literature\u2014skills needed by any editor.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, I began to learn there\u2019s a wide chasm between the almost right word and the right word\u2014as Mark Twain quipped, \u201cit\u2019s the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.\u201d It\u2019s hard work, \u00a0crafting words to say exactly what you mean.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I learned about the skill required for boiling down an immense amount of information and ideas into a concise piece held together by a unifying theme that could be expressed in one sentence. Readers want us to write clearly and concisely.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000\"><strong>You are now the President of MAI, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping authors around the world to write and publish Christian literature for their local audiences and communities. Why did you move into the world of non-profit administration, and how do your writing and communication skills come into play in your current job?<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-12743 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/bsuenglish.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/02\/john-maust.jpg\" alt=\"John Maust.JPG\" width=\"236\" height=\"355\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095522\/john-maust.jpg 684w, https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095522\/john-maust-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095522\/john-maust-682x1024.jpg 682w, https:\/\/bsu-wpe-blogs.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/10095522\/john-maust-466x700.jpg 466w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/>I didn\u2019t go looking for work in non-profit administration. It came as a surprise. When<br \/>\nthe\u00a0founding president of Media Associates International began making plans to retire, he invited me to succeed him. And here I am after 19 years. It\u2019s encouraging to look back at the bits and pieces of my life\u2014including the years at Ball State\u2014and to see how God put them together into what I\u2019m doing now.<\/p>\n<p>Today, instead of books and articles, I\u2019m writing more grant proposals, Board reports and emails. Not so exciting perhaps. But I face the same need to write clearly and concisely, and maybe even more creativity is required to keep these reports from being deadly boring.<\/p>\n<p>In my work, I have the privilege of interacting with gifted men and women who are creating excellent \u201chomegrown\u201d content for readers in places like South Sudan, Laos, Peru, Bulgaria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Helping these friends write and publish stories that would not otherwise have been told is a bit like uncovering buried treasure.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, I vividly remember my Ball State course on \u201cThe Modern Continental Novel\u201d because it exposed me for the first time to the (translated) work of international authors and the world of words outside American and British borders.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000\"><strong>As someone who has worked in writing and publishing for nearly 40 years, what advice would you have for current English majors who are worried about their future employment prospects? What can English majors do now to prepare for future success?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>To be effective in the workplace, you need to be an effective communicator\u2014both spoken and written. An English major is better equipped than most in this regard.<\/p>\n<p>Employers in business, mass media, education, social services and other fields will value your English-major skills to think critically and creatively and to express yourself clearly.<\/p>\n<p>Through reading of fiction and nonfiction, you are also developing a greater sense of empathy for others, plus a broader worldview and a sense of how ideas shape culture and history. In this way, I think that being an English major makes you a better person by giving you valuable tools both for work and for life.<\/p>\n<p>If you are thinking about work in publishing or writing, there is no better major than English Literature. Both now and in the future, keep on reading, and keep on writing. It\u2019s a corny saying but true: \u201cTo write good readin&#8217;, you need to read good writin&#8217;.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An awful lot of people in our world live without hope. Your published and spoken words, hammered into shape with faith and hard work, can shine a ray of hope and leave a legacy for future generations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Maust is president of Media Associates International (MAI), a publishing training agency based near Chicago, Illinois. John directs MAI\u2019s global training programs to strengthen Christian publishing worldwide and to foster the development and publication of gifted local writers. John became president of MAI in 1998 after more than 20 years of experience as an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":17142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1973],"tags":[1974,826,937,1012],"class_list":["post-12738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinal-directions","tag-cardinal-directions","tag-john-maust","tag-literature","tag-media-associates-international"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>John Maust: The Importance of Encouraging Writers - Ball State English Department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2017\/04\/12\/john-maust-the-importance-of-encouraging-writers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Maust: The Importance of Encouraging Writers - Ball State English Department\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Maust is president of Media Associates International (MAI), a publishing training agency based near Chicago, Illinois. 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