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**Winner of the GOLD Medal in the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.** Read the INDIE-Gold-winning book about how higher education has changed—and learn how you can change with it. When Katie Pryal started her career in higher education, she did everything right—she thought. With a law degree, a doctorate, and a federal clerkship, how could her career go off track? But this is higher ed in the new millennium. “Off track” is the new normal. So, slowly, she made her own career, one she dubbed “the freelance academic.” Five years after leaving academia, Pryal has created a living for herself. In The Freelance Academic, she tells her story and provides accurate (and sometimes blistering) critique of how higher ed has pushed its workforce to the margins. Best of all, she gives plain, practical advice for how to make the career you want, one that uses your strengths, and your creativity, to thrive. “Ultimately, Pryal’s becomes both a cautionary tale and a beacon of hope for frustrated academics in similar positions. The Freelance Academic traces a path out of traditional academia with grace and humor.” –Foreword Reviews “A roadmap that’s as practical as it is hopeful.” –Booktrib Magazine Praise “Ultimately, Pryal’s becomes both a cautionary tale and a beacon of hope for frustrated academics in similar positions. The Freelance Academic traces a path out of traditional academia with grace and humor.” –Foreword Reviews “A roadmap that’s as practical as it is hopeful.” –Booktrib Magazine “An indictment of how the academy squanders talent by embracing the gig economy through contingent labor and the devaluation of teaching. A new, necessary book.” -Catherine J. Prendergast, Ph.D., author of The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle that Shook America “So many academics—current, former, and struggling—will see themselves in Pryal’s story. I hope just as many see all of the possibilities she enumerates, and understand, as she does, that the passions and talents that draw us to the university in the first place are often best used outside it.” -Rebecca Schuman, Ph.D., author of Schadenfreude, A Love Story “With candor and vulnerability, Pryal shares her own experiences and hard-fought wisdom to make a compelling case for a rewarding professional life beyond the walls of traditional academia. And best of all—she’ll show you how.” -Amy Impellizzeri, award-winning novelist and author of Lawyer Interrupted: Successfully Transitioning from the Practice of Law–and Back Again