Stephanie Engle, Independent Publisher, Girls On Press

Hello and thank you for exploring my publishing imprint, Girls On Press. I am Stephanie Engle, and here is a little of my story:

I grew up in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and after graduating from Martinsburg High School I went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree after attending both Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia (under partial scholarship awarded in SCAD’s International Competition for Student Artists), and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City (under full scholarship). I also studied in the Design Management Graduate Program at Pratt Institute.

I’ve spent the past 25 years producing award-winning work for businesses and institutions including J.Crew catalog, American Express Publishing, New School University, and Chermayeff & Geismar, among others. After an eight-year design career in NYC, I returned to my hometown in West Virginia and in 2004 joined the faculty of Shepherd University as Visiting Assistant Professor of Art in the graphic design concentration. While at Shepherd I completely rewrote the graphic design curriculum, aligning it with industry standard content and methods of contemporary digital production. In 2007 I accepted a federal position in communications.

Over the course of my career I have maintained my own graphic design firm, Stephanie Engle Design Office (SEDO), which I launched in New York City in 1993 and relocated to West Virginia in late 2001. SEDO provides design, copy writing, editing, and production in the areas of advertising, branding, identity, marketing, packaging, publications, and web. In 2011 I established a publishing imprint, Girls On Press, and began offering independent publishing services. 

My first book project, Stories from a Small Town: Remembering My Childhood in Hedgesville, West Virginia, by Roger Engle (my Dad), was released in September 2012. Along with local recognition, it received the 2013 Independent Publisher’s Book Award (IPPY) bronze medal for “Best Non-Fiction Book of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region” and a 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Award (INDIE) finalist medal for “Best Overall Book Design in the United States.”

My second book project—Roger Engle’s sequel—Goodbye Mister Fifteen: A Memoir, was awarded three national book awards in Chicago, May 2016: the INDIE gold medal for “Best Non-Fiction Cover Design in the United States,” an INDIE finalist medal for “Best Non-Fiction Overall Book Design in the United States,” and the IPPY silver medal for “Best Non-Fiction Book of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region.”