A marketing panel of Butler graduates, including four Butler MFA in creative writing alums, assembled in the ECCW for the conversations@efroymson event: A job that doesn’t feel like a job: Creative Writers in Marketing & Advertising.

The Butler MFA degree fosters not just creative writers, but creative thinkers, and creative thinkers are in demand in Indianapolis businesses. Butler’s own MFAs have ave turned their degrees into careers as advertising directors, copywriters, and marketing consultants.These creatives love their jobs and highly encourage other creative minds to consider advertising or marketing as career choice. Last week, a panel of creative minds shared advice and encouragement with MFA and English students. The panel featured Ken Honeywell, the president of Well Done Marketing, and many beloved alumni, including Linda Brundage, Alyssa Chase, Jay Lesandrini, and Alex Mattingly.

Read below for some highlights of some of the main topics discussed during the candid conversations.

Why a job in advertising and marketing?

It’s fun. I laugh all day long. – Ken Honeywell

It’s the closest you can come to having a real job without feeling like a real job.  -Linda Brundage

It’s collaborative work with other creative people. – Alyssa Chase

What is it all about, anyway?

It’s good for curious people. It’s about finding what makes a product interesting and how to communicate that with others. – Alex Mattingly

In both creative writing and advertising, there’s a lot of talk about story and telling our story. Story is about change. Something always changes. -Ken Honeywell

There’s always something new. If you are working on a boring project now, your next project won’t be. – Linda Brundage

It can be as small as tweet or internal email or as large as a full article, blog, or brochure. – Jay Lesandrini

Okay, so how do we get one of these jobs?

Don’t be shy about asking for advice or ideas. – Ken Honeywell

Value your skill set. Don’t under sell yourself – Jay Lesandrini

You can never go wrong saying yes. The worst you could do is embarrass yourself, but you get credit for saying yes. – Alex Mattingly

Consider nonprofits. Be an extraordinary writer. -Ken Honeywell

A marketing panel of Butler graduates, including four Butler MFA in creative writing alums, assembled in the ECCW for the conversations@efroymson event: A job that doesn’t feel like a job: Creative Writers in Marketing & Advertising.

The Butler MFA degree fosters not just creative writers, but creative thinkers, and creative thinkers are in demand in Indianapolis businesses. Butler’s own MFAs have ave turned their degrees into careers as advertising directors, copywriters, and marketing consultants.These creatives love their jobs and highly encourage other creative minds to consider advertising or marketing as career choice. Last week, a panel of creative minds shared advice and encouragement with MFA and English students. The panel featured Ken Honeywell, the president of Well Done Marketing, and many beloved alumni, including Linda Brundage, Alyssa Chase, Jay Lesandrini, and Alex Mattingly.

Read below for some highlights of some of the main topics discussed during the candid conversations.

Why a job in advertising and marketing?

It’s fun. I laugh all day long. – Ken Honeywell

It’s the closest you can come to having a real job without feeling like a real job.  -Linda Brundage

It’s collaborative work with other creative people. – Alyssa Chase

What is it all about, anyway?

It’s good for curious people. It’s about finding what makes a product interesting and how to communicate that with others. – Alex Mattingly

In both creative writing and advertising, there’s a lot of talk about story and telling our story. Story is about change. Something always changes. -Ken Honeywell

There’s always something new. If you are working on a boring project now, your next project won’t be. – Linda Brundage

It can be as small as tweet or internal email or as large as a full article, blog, or brochure. – Jay Lesandrini

Okay, so how do we get one of these jobs?

Don’t be shy about asking for advice or ideas. – Ken Honeywell

Value your skill set. Don’t under sell yourself – Jay Lesandrini

You can never go wrong saying yes. The worst you could do is embarrass yourself, but you get credit for saying yes. – Alex Mattingly

Consider nonprofits. Be an extraordinary writer. -Ken Honeywell

Big congratulations to Butler Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing students Dave Marsh and Andrea Boucher.

Dave, an MFA candidate in fiction, is the prize winner of NoiseMedium’s premiere contest. This is what the editors said about his submission:

In regards to our winner, David J .Marsh’s truly impressive, “Blow,” we here at NoiseMedium found ourselves drawn back, time and again, to its careful wording, deliberate pacing, and measured tone.  Within “Blow” we found the very themes that we feel apply to good writing as a whole – a sense of contentment and a quiet focus on the things that sustain us and carry us through when the noise and commotion of the wider world threaten to unhinge and unbalance us.  In addition to being a flat-out good read, David’s piece exemplifies the reasons we wanted to bring NoiseMedium to you in the first place.

We could not agree more. Read Dave’s story, “Blow” here.

Andrea Boucher, MFA creative nonfiction candidate, continues to have amazing publishing success, this time at The Rumpus. Andrea heard from the editor the day after she submitted her essay and was thrilled they snatched it up so quickly. The editor wrote, “[Your essay] has a perspective our readers will find compelling.” Andrea said, “Getting published by The Rumpus was one of my personal goals. The Rumpus is Roxanne Gay and Cheryl Strayed.” The Rumpus is home to Strayed’s “Dear Sugar” column and Gay is the Essays Editor Emeritus and had one of the original columns. Andrea’s humorous and brutally honest essay, “Not an Alcoholic” will appear in the next few months. Until then, here’s a little teaser:

Turns out I’d driven to McDonald’s to get food, and an employee had called the police after I’d proven myself unable to navigate curbs in the drive-through. The police pulled me over less than a mile later. The officer didn’t believe me when I lied and said I hadn’t been drinking, nor did he believe me when I admitted a partial truth that yes, I’d had one small glass of wine hours ago, and that was it.

Hunter S. Thompson noted, “There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says ‘Good people drink good beer.’ Which is true, then as now.” The Butler MFA is blessed to be in Indiana, where there are many options to drink good beer including over one hundred and twenty craft breweries.

Indiana is home to over one hundred and twenty craft breweries and is often listed in top ten states for best breweries in both variety and quality. The top three big dogs, Three Floyds, Upland, and Sun King, win awards and are distributed nationally, but the Butler MFA students have made their favorites among smaller gems close to campus.

Chris Forhan, MFA professor in poetry, recommends Bent Rail Brewery. “It’s a giant but welcoming space slightly hidden away just south of where the main action is,” says Forhan. “The head brewer is Bradley Zimmerman, who spent years mastering the art of brewing in Seattle, including as an assistant to my brother, Kevin, who is a kind of Mount Rushmore figure in the Seattle beer world.  Bradley’s concoctions are bound to be marvelous.”

John Eckerd recommends the Broadripple Brew Pub. He says, “In my mind, the Broad Ripple Brewpub is the heart of the Butler MFA program. The atmosphere and menu are top notch. Nothing compares.”

 
Bailey Merlin combines two loves: beer and movies at Flix Brewhouse. “It is divine. The whole restaurant/movie theatre is really doing it for me,” says Merlin. “The theatres are small, but high quality, and the food and booze (the beer is made in house and is great) is delicious for a decent price.”

David Anderson can’t get enough of Two Deep. “I really like the quieter vibe of the tasting room. Upscale warehouse decor and a variety of seating options lends itself to a big group or a date night,” says Anderson.

Mindy Dunn discovered St. Joseph Brewery & Public House located in a 135-year-old Catholic church. With owners bringing years of successful expertise (they also own Ralston’s Drafthouse and Chatham Tap, and the head brewer pioneered Oaken Barrel Brewing Company), the food and beer are amazing. However, with beer named Holy Roller Oat and Confessional IPA, seating in a choir loft, a bar in the nave, and fermentation tanks dominating the apse, it is the ambiance that makes St. Joe’s a must visit brewery.

Indiana also celebrates over twenty craft beer festivals yearly, including October’s America on Tap, a venue offering samples from hundreds of breweries across the nation, so there will always be new beer to discover.

“Isn’t beer the holy libation of sincerity? The potion that dispels all hypocrisy, any charade of fine manners?” – Milan Kundera

“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” – Ann Sexton

“Beer’s intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.” – Ray Bradbury

“For a quart of Ale is a dish for a king.” – Shakespeare

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.” – Dave Barry