Publishing in Education: Interview with Simona Cherubini

PUBLISHING IN EDUCATION: INTERVIEW WITH SIMONA CHERUBINI

By Aaron Klevan, Lauren Turso, and Devon Rushton
Photo courtesy of Simona Cherubini

Ingorda for Florence Campus Publishing oversees the publishing projects of Florence University of the Arts, and is managed by Palazzi, FUA’s non-profit foundation. FUA’s J School teaches students from around the world about the business of writing, editing, journalism, and publishing. In 2008, Ingorda was established in order to provide FUA with a publisher that follows its academic vision. Translating to “greedy” in English, Ingorda was named to refer to “not only food but to all areas of life, culture, and knowledge. Its mission is to put into print infinite topics for voracious readers who are hungry to learn.” Additionally, Ingorda provides a hands-on way for students to observe the production of books.

The first of the Ingorda books published were cookbooks and food guides, which were produced for FUA’s Apicius school. Ingorda has since expanded to many other genres of publishing including travel and design books. Ingorda also offers editorial and publishing services and plays a large role in the curation of FUA’s textbooks. It is responsible for the output of FUA’s newsletters and magazines published as the Blending editorial group.

We interviewed FUA professor, Simona Cherubini, who teaches social media for the J School as well as Digital Marketing for the business department. In addition to teaching at FUA, Simona has experience working in the marketing and communications field. 17 years ago, she founded her agency Studio Effervescenza, which provides digital marketing and communications services to clients such as web marketing, advertising, social media, Google analytics, and community engagement.

She is also an active writer of food and Italian lifestyle. In Simona’s free time, she runs a successful and highly-followed food blog called Simona’s Kitchen. When asked about why she started the blog, she shared, “I started out of curiosity, because I wanted a project...I had developed communication projects for client companies and I then thought to create a blog around one of my interests.”

In addition to her impressive resume, Simona also has experience in the publishing business through her marketing job as marketing manager. This experience helps her collaborate through her teaching with FUA’s publishing activities. Along with FUA staff members, content is pulled from multiple classes taught at the J school. “Our students who participate in the experimental learning, the six credit classes, attend all of the FUA events and take detailed notes and pictures to contribute to our magazine.” This content is then posted to social media including FUA’s Twitter and Instagram accounts, as well as being featured in Blending. “Producing the FUA publications is a team effort,” says Simona, “we wouldn’t be anywhere without the great team we have here at FUA.”