Had an amazing turnout with Brown Books Publishing Group at the Texas Library Association Conference! 🎉
Excited to have had the chance to connect with so many people and engage in new conversations about hybrid publishing. Until next year folks!
All set for Texas Library Association conference this weekend!
I’ll be in the poster session on Monday from 11-1pm to present my poster “Publishing in Partnership” and talking about hybrid publishing.
Otherwise, come see the team at the Brown Books Publishing Group Booth 1231!
An Excerpt from Event Recap: Winter Student Research Showcase on DePaul’s WRD Blog:
“Brittany Griffiths is the senior manager of operations at Brown Books Publishing Group. She graduated last autumn, after earning her BA in WRD as a fully online student living in Texas. Her research focuses on hybrid publishing: an alternative option to the more well-known options of traditional and independent publishing. It requires authors to invest more at the outset, but it lets authors keep a higher amount of the proceeds than a traditional publisher would.
In her research project, supported by a Summer Undergraduate Research Grant (SURG) in 2025, Brittany performed a rhetorical analysis aimed at determining how this publishing method is perceived by different people in the publishing industry, and why those perceptions exist. Through qualitative interviews with industry professionals and a digital ethnography of spaces where authors and publishers are connecting (like Reddit and Instagram), Brittany found that traditional publishers do not seem to view hybrid publishing negatively, but that authors often do.”
I’m excited to be speaking virtually at this WRD DePaul event next Monday! If you'd like to tune in, scan the QR code above.
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Please join us for an upcoming Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse Department event featuring two of our outstanding students as they share their recent self-designed research projects. We hope you’ll also share this information with friends, students, and colleagues.
Monday, March 2, 2026
4:00–5:30 PM
SAC 301 & Zoom (see attached flyer for details)
FEATURED PRESENTERS
Brittany Griffiths
Writing and Rhetoric BA Online Graduate (WQ26)
“From Proposal to Conference: A Case Study in Undergraduate Research”
Recipient of the LAS Summer Undergraduate Research Grant (SURG)
Faculty Sponsor: Justin Staley
Amber Corkey
Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse MA Student
“Safety Tools in TTRPGs: A Pilot Study” (Table Top Role Playing Games)
Graduate Student Independent Study
Faculty Supervisor: Timothy Elliott
Everyone is welcome for what promises to be a fascinating pair of talks. We hope to see you there! —Organized by the WRD Student Community Committee
Last week, I had the pleasure of serving as a guest speaker in John Warren’s Business of Publishing course at George Washington University’s Master’s in Publishing program.
We explored today’s evolving publishing landscape, including traditional, independent, and hybrid pathways and discussed how authors and publishers can strategically evaluate which model best aligns with their goals.
It was a thoughtful and engaging conversation about decision-making in a rapidly changing industry. If you're interested in the frameworks and research behind the discussion, you can view the slide deck here.
I had the opportunity to interview Lucy Antek Johnson, author of This Was Toscanini: The Maestro, My Father, and Me for the Brown Books Publishing Group newsletter on Substack a few weeks ago.
In this conversation, I speak with Johnson about her book’s rare insider perspective, shaped by the firsthand experiences of her father, Samuel Antek, who performed under the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini. We explore the music, the discipline, and the careful preservation of a deeply personal viewpoint from within one of the twentieth century’s most influential orchestral legacies. Discover more from Lucy Antek Johnson on her website, and pick up your copy of This Was Toscanini today!
As of last Friday, I have officially wrapped up my undergraduate career at DePaul University! This has been nearly a 17-year journey to earn my bachelor’s degree. I began in ’08, right out of high school, with a scholarship to play softball at the University of Arkansas. After three years, I hung up my cleats and transferred to KU. When that didn’t work out, I moved back to Dallas and worked just about every job under the sun until I finally got my foot in the door in publishing.
Finishing school would have been so much more difficult without the support of my partner, family, and friends who encouraged me to finish and reminded me I’d regret it if I didn’t. They knew how long this had been hanging over my head, and they kept me accountable over the last three years to keep my head down and stay the course.
I’m equally grateful for the faculty in the WRD department, who in all my years of schooling, have truly exemplified the best of what faculty leadership can and should be. I cannot speak highly enough of them or the work I witnessed them do to help students succeed. Endlessly happy to bring this chapter of my professional career to a close! 😭 🙂
The proceedings from the 15th GW Ethics in Publishing Conference are live! My presentation was part of the Equity and Inclusion in Publishing session and explored ideas around hybrid publishing and its role in shaping access and representation.
It was a privilege be in the company of such forward-thinking publishing professionals whose work continues to steer conversations about education, scholarship, and equal access in a positive direction.
📄 Slide Deck: https://lnkd.in/g3_ri92A
I recently had the chance to do a brief Q&A with Voyage Dallas about my career path in publishing.
I had a bit of a ground-up entry into the industry, which I think is true for many of us here in the south, where publishing has been gaining momentum in Texas, but still isn’t quite the job hub the East Coast has always been. I’m always curious how other folks in the south found their way into publishing, so please share if you're open to it!
Huge thanks to Jonathan Chang for reaching out and to VD for the feature.
I’m so happy to share that I’ll be presenting my research at the The George Washington University Ethics in Publishing Conference this October! This will also be my first time in D.C., and I’m truly honored for the opportunity to be in such great company.
My presentation, “The Rhetoric of Hybrid Publishing: Negotiating Legitimacy and Stigma in the Modern Publishing Landscape,” builds on my Summer Undergraduate Research Grant at DePaul University. It examines how hybrid publishing has emerged as a disruptive force that challenges traditional notions of legitimacy, authorship, and artistic authority. My research uses a rhetorical framework to examine public and institutional discourse, drawing on publishing scholarship, digital ethnography of platforms such as Reddit and Instagram, and many, many interviews with publishing professionals.
I’m excited to join the conversation around publishing ethics, access, and creative agency in an evolving publishing ecosystem.
Full conference schedule here.