Prof. Craig Seymour has certainly come a long way before becoming a journalism professor at NIU.

Seymour, with a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland, has written for various entertainment magazines including “Vibe” and “Entertainment Weekly,” taught in the English department of Dartmouth, and has published two books, one of which, the memoir “All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C.,” was released last month.

Seymour transferred to NIU this year as an associate professor and teaches newswriting and reporting. The Northern Star caught up with Seymour to interview him about his life, work and time here at NIU.

Northern Star: You’ve stated in other interviews that you were happy at Dartmouth. Why, of all places, come to DeKalb to teach journalism?

Craig Seymour: When I came here for the interview I think that I was really impressed with some of the new ideas people had about transforming the journalism department and I really liked the people I met here. It seemed like there is some really exciting things being done at NIU. I’m the type of person that believes that journalism education should be rooted in teaching people how to be working journalists, especially at an undergrad level, and not all journalism departments are like that, but it seemed to me that people here are very interested in doing that. One thing I talk about in my book is that I think it’s important in life to always take risks and for as good as things are now I always try to live with the theory that things could even be better. In this case I just decided to take a chance on NIU and so far, so good.

NS: What was it that made you want to make the jump from journalist to teacher?

CS: I think it was two things. One of them was just that I came to a point in my career where I was less interested in doing a lot of short pieces and I became more interested in long-form pieces like books. So the academic schedule certainly gives you more time to work on long-form pieces than if you are beat reporter at a daily newspaper. The other thing is that, probably what gives me the greatest pleasure outside of my own work, is working with other writers and teaching allows me to do that. I don’t believe there is any such thing as a student writer. Either you’re a writer or not. So I consider my classes to be conversations among writers and I certainly frame the class and share my expertise but I also learn a lot from the class too because the great thing about journalism is that the audience always changes. So in terms of my own work I’m not just trying to reach people my own age or older than me, I’m also trying to reach younger readers. So I learn about what people of a certain age want to read and what they like about certain things.

NS: Are you still working as a journalist?

CS: Yeah, yeah. I just did a lead review for Pace magazine not that long ago. So I still do various assignments on a freelance basis. I juggle a lot of things when I look at my career, the journalism part of it, and that’s probably the smallest aspect of what I do now. And there’s the book component which takes up a lot of time and energy because I have a current book that I’m promoting now while there are other activities where I’m expanding more into multimedia. I think I’m always juggling three different balls in the air. One might get more attention than the other but they’re all kind of in there.

NS: What has been your impression of NIU and DeKalb so far?

CS: Well, this is only the second week so I don’t think I’ve been here long enough. I certainly haven’t been here long enough to get an impression of DeKalb because basically I haven’t been to many places other than Starbucks or McDonald’s at this point. I live in Chicago, that’s why, but so far, so good.

NS: Now, you’ve been rather open with your homosexuality. Has it ever been a hindrance to you in your career or transition here?

CS: No, not that I know of. I’m just who I am and I don’t make any sort of apologies for it nor do I assume that I’m going to have any problems because of it. I just do what I do and see what happens. If anybody has a problem with it it’s their problem, not mine. It hasn’t been a hindrance to me. And, you know, I’m black as well so there’s always that question too. I mean, whenever I go to any place not knowing whether somebody’s responding to me because of my race or my sexuality. I just have to live my life and not be concerned with that stuff. I never really cared about that.

NS: Is your sexual orientation ever brought up in class what with your book out and all?

CS: No, not really, because we discuss journalism and journalism is related to current events and social issues and things like that. I keep that sort of thing personal, I mean, I wouldn’t want to know something like that about my students. I mean if there was something relevant to what we’re talking about then by all means they can bring it up. I only mentioned my books once as an introduction to what I do, I don’t think I’ve mentioned anything about my books since then, maybe I will if it comes up.

NS: Since you’re a music journalist, what are some of your favorite artists and bands?

CS: Oh my god, that’s such an interesting question. It’s easier for me to talk less about all-time favorite things than things I’m listening to right now. So, like, my favorite CD right now is “The Recession” by Young Jeezy – I’m a big hip-hop fan – so I’m listening to that a lot. I’m listening to The Black Kids’ CD a lot, I still play the Lil Wayne CD a lot, I really look forward to the new T.I. CD. I’m always looking to new things. I’m always on the lookout for who’s the next big singer or artist. And I’m a Young Jeezy fanatic and that’s the first concert I went to in Chicago at the House of Blues.

NS: You’ve described your experience in stripping as a liberating one as well as definitive of you becoming a journalist. How is that?

CS: Well, before I started stripping I was in an academic environment and academic environments are very good for some things but they can kind of become their own little world and it could become hard to see what life might be outside of it. And so I was very much sort of a part of this academic world and I thought that’s what I wanted but what I realized once I took the risky step of starting to strip I realized that there were all sorts of things in life that I really wanted but I never really had the courage to go for them because I was so invested in this small, insular, academic world. So once I took the risk to start stripping, that allowed me to take risks in other aspects of my life, including pursuing journalism because the thing was I was always interested in writing and I found a safe way to do that within academia, but that’s not what I really wanted to do. I didn’t want to really just write to a couple hundred people that understood the stuff I was writing within academia. I really wanted to communicate with a large audience and that’s what going into journalism allowed me to do, but I think had I never taken the risk to start stripping I would have never seen that possibility because I was so adverse to taking risks in my life.

NS: Do you have any thoughts about coming to the campus where the tragedy of Feb. 14 occurred?

CS: No, not at all. I just think that stuff happens anywhere. It’s random. It’s a tragedy. I think less of it myself because I wasn’t here at the time and I don’t think it’s any kind of mark against the school or anything. The school didn’t do anything. This deranged dude did something so why would I hold anything against the school? If anything I just hope that in my interactions with students that I’m able to express the appropriate sensitivities which is a little bit difficult because I wasn’t here so it’s not really a shared experience that I have with the students.

NS: What advice would you give to aspring journalists and writers?

CS: I guess my thing would be don’t compromise your vision of what you want to do. Decide what you want to do and just do that thing. I think too many times writers always seem to have fallback plans and what ends up happening is they end up only doing the fallback plan and they never pursue what they really wanted to do. They never write that novel and end up doing something else. They never try to write for a major New York magazine but they end up doing something else. I think it’s very important to just go for the tip-top thing that you want to go for and don’t settle for anything less. Basically, every single writing goal that I’ve ever set for myself I’ve been able to do.