Emma Waldinger - 2020
Position title: Editor
Pronouns: she/her

What career pathway have you pursued since your time in the UW Madison English major?
I guess you could say some combination of storytelling and food systems. I took an internship at a local nonprofit, FairShare CSA Coalition, directly out of college. During that internship, I worked on programs that help people access fresh and local produce. Soon after, I started a job at a local restaurant and meal kit business, Pasture and Plenty, managing community events and programs related to food and cooking and building connections with farmers, chefs and other people in Madison’s food system. For the last 2.5 years, I’ve been at Madison Magazine, where I write a monthly print column and several large features a year and oversee all print and digital food coverage.
What did you enjoy about the English major?
I took a really great poetry workshop with Sean Bishop. I needed another workshop to meet degree requirements and wasn’t interested in fiction so I took poetry. Creative Nonfiction would have been my first choice, but it wasn’t offered at the time. However, I ended up really enjoying it and learned a lot about myself in the process.
How did your time as an English major prepare you for your current work? What skills do humanities students bring to your industry?
My job is very writing heavy. I’m researching and writing anywhere from 2-5 print stories a month and 2-3 web stories a month. One of the things about UW–Madison’s English major that helped prepare me for this is practicing writing prolifically. Between taking a creative writing workshop and another writing elective each semester, I wrote a lot in college, which helps to break through the mental block that comes at the beginning of writing a piece.
What is one piece of career advice you would offer our English undergraduates?
If you want to write professionally, delve into some of your other interests first. Working in the restaurant industry, on a farm and at a local nonprofit have all definitely made me a better writer because it’s given me the connections and material to write interesting stories.