The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) held its annual conference at FIT February 24–26, offering real-world education and opportunities for students. We asked Allison Kyle Leopold, assistant professor of Marketing Communications, to write about the event.
The FIT community was buzzing last week as a few hundred writers, editors, and publishing professionals convened here for the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, sponsored by the Marketing Communications Department of FIT’s Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology.
The wheels for ASJA, Always in Fashion, NYC 2025, started turning a year ago when Angela Lammers, the savvy managing partner of Cetera Services, ASJA’s new management company, reached out. Seems our new Journalism minor, along with Blush, FIT’s fashion-and-culture mag—the recipient of two Pacemakers, the “Pulitzer Prize of college journalism”—not to mention our super-dedicated journalism faculty, had attracted their notice. Why not celebrate the ASJA’s first in-person conference after a six-year absence right here at FIT?
Thus, on Monday, after a welcome by Dean Shannon Maher and Marketing Communications Chair Loretta Volpe, the conference kicked off with keynote speaker Versha Sharma, editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. A self-described “former nerd,” her story totally resonated with the excited students who populated the front rows of Haft Theater. From there, the conference swung into “$ix Keys to Successful Freelancing in 2025” (“so valuable,” said one attendee), followed by a plethora of events and networking opportunities over the next three days. More than 30 student volunteers, many from Professor Volpe’s Special Events Marketing class, took part, helping the conference run smoothly and impressing everyone with their professionalism.
Other faculty members played a prominent part in the panels, sharing their experience and insights on everything from how journalists work with PR to copywriting to telling stories with pictures. Assistant Professor Emil Wilbekin’s Tuesday morning keynote wowed professionals and students alike. A true talk-show host in the making, he led an engaging discourse on the art of the interview. And, not surprisingly, “Writing With Style: Breaking into Beauty and Fashion Writing” drew a crowd.
A highlight for the professional writers in attendance were the Pitch Slams in which they proposed book and article ideas to editors and agents who offered on-the-spot, often no-holds-barred feedback (hold off on penning those memoirs—they’re just not selling). Not to be outdone, FIT students got a Pitch Clinic of their own. Journalist Christopher Johnston and I paired students with multiple writer-mentors who generously shared pitching pointers, meeting one-on-one with students, hearing their ideas. “She really gets it,” one of the writers told me, singling out one student star as a future editor-in-chief.
And, over and over, I heard accolades about the energy and vitality FIT students brought to the event. That’s something that goes two ways, of course. The industry has morphed, sputtered, and rallied over the last decade, integrating online journalism and social media into its folds, and now, grappling with the implications of AI (a hot topic at the conference, for sure). For students to interact with passionate working writers of all stripes—content creators to Pulitzer Prize winners, all earning their livings as wordsmiths—was an incredibly valuable thing.
“It was great hearing real-life stories from someone who has worked in a space I desire to work in someday,” agreed one student, fingering the stack of business cards she had collected. I came away with a nice stack of cards, too, from writers willing to speak to and inspire my classes.