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Open Q&A with Literary Agent and Executive Editor
In the past few weeks, as we get closer and closer to a release day for Villains, I’ve shared a number of conversations with my agent and editor about booklr, the enthusiasm for publishing here, and the lack of inside information available. And they’ve offered to do something amazing (besides providing the great inside snap of the DCL office above): They’re going to answer all your questions about writing, editing, agenting, and the process of publishing If We Were Villains.
Here’s a little bit more about them:
Arielle Datz is a New York transplant from Los Angeles, who started as an intern at Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner Literary Agency in 2011. She then worked in the foreign rights department at WME, followed by the Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency. She returned to DCL full-time in 2015. She is currently obsessed with April the Pregnant Giraffe (aprilthegiraffe.com). Other loves: whales, contemporary chamber music, and noodles in all forms.
Christine Kopprasch is an Executive Editor at Flatiron Books, where she recently published New York Times bestsellers The Dry and Behind Her Eyes. She is publishing the upcoming debuts If We Were Villains and Tornado Weather. Christine previously worked at Crown, where her acquisitions included New York Times bestseller Bittersweet, New York Times bestseller The Little Paris Bookshop, and The Vegetarian, which won the Man Booker International and was a New York Times Top 10 Best Book of 2016.Christine is a terrible but avid gardener and an obsessive reader. She has a baby at home, so she basically hasn’t slept in a year. (Her opinions are her own.)
This is an incredible opportunity to hear from some people (besides me) in the book business firsthand, so please take advantage of it! Here’s how it’s going to work:
- You send a question to me here, indicating that it’s for Agent/Editor Q&A. (This is important, so I know it’s not just a question for me.)
- You indicate who the question is for: Arielle, Christine, me or some combination of the three of us.
- I will post all of our responses here! They’ll be tagged IWWV QA, so if you want to see everybody’s publishing questions–not just your own–that’s the tag to track.
We’ll be accepting and posting questions up until April 4th, which is one week before the Villains release, so go ahead and start sending them in! If you need to find this info again, it lives on this page here.
Can’t wait to hear from you.
Xx M
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*Curtsies* Dear Duke, I'm actually having a quarter-life crisis. I just finished undergrad and am completly lost to what to do now. I'm not even sure in what area I really want to work and whenever someone asks me about my future I get depressed and sad and anxious. I considered taking a year off but have no idea what I would do with my free time. Do you have any advice for this situation? I'm just very lost. Thanks for your time.
*Curtsies* I think your instinct to take a year off is probably the right one, because the last thing you want to do is throw yourself into a career or a graduate degree you’re not even sure you want to pursue. It’s okay if you don’t have a plan nailed down for that gap year. That then just becomes the first thing you sit down and iron out. The first concern is probably going to be getting some sort of job so you can feed and clothe yourself. And here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be a stepping stone to your dream career. All work experience is good and there’s nothing at all wrong with taking a job (or two) with hourly wages. The year after I graduated I worked three and sometimes four of those jobs, and not at any point did I feel like I was wasting my time, partly because I tried to find jobs doing things I was at least interested in. I worked in a bookstore, a wine bar, and for two different theatre companies. Those were all things I enjoyed and jobs I learned a lot from. So that’s the first thing. Don’t expect to be making $60,000 a year, but find a job that’ll keep you engaged and afloat so you can pursue other stuff without starving.
That’s part two, the pursuing other stuff. If you’re feeling lost and like what you don’t know what to do, take the pressure off yourself for a year and experiment. Figure it out. Research career options for someone with your degree. Take a stab at artistic interests you haven’t had the time to explore. Look into different grad school options if that’s something that appeals to you. Do some volunteering. I don’t know. All I know is that a gap year is only a good thing if you do something with it. I’m not saying you have to solve world hunger or paint a masterpiece, but a year down the line you don’t want to look back on it and feel like you just wasted a year of your life. So brainstorm. Talk to friends and family who know you well. Do some soul-searching, and when you find yourself saying, “Maybe I’d like to do that,” learn more. Go try it.
Here’s the last thing I’d say to you: Nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing at age 22, so don’t freak out thinking you’re a failure or any of that, because you’re not. Everybody has some sort of identity crisis in their twenties. It’s scary, yes, but it’s also totally normal. Chin up. You’ll be fine.
I want to add some more thoughts to this answer. I agree with everything The Duke said. My goal after I graduated was to move to Washington, DC to find work in communications or editing. This took about eight months, so if I could go back and do it over again, I would have gotten a part time job at Barnes and Noble sooner than the holiday season. (I had unrealistic expectations about how quickly I’d be able to find a new job and move out of town.) Working a part time job can give you the opportunity to meet people who’ve had all sorts of experiences, and talking to these people could help you find a calling. Making money is also super nice, even if you’re not bringing in a lot.
If you want to try out some more white collar, 9 to 5 opportunities, finding an internship or signing up with a temp agency could be the way to go, since you wouldn’t be making a long-term commitment to any one job and you’d be picking up career skills along the way. My English Major Success Stories page has some ideas for jobs and internships that are out there for English majors. (Disclaimers: it hasn’t been updated in a while, and it’s kind of front-loaded with jobs that combine English and STEM, since I had a bunch of people submit those sorts of stories at one point.) DearEngishMajor.com is also a fantastic resource.
Lastly, feeling anxious and sad and depressed after graduating is a common experience, but you don’t have to cope with these feelings alone. Especially if you have some down time, I highly recommend finding a therapist who can help you work through some of the emotions and help you set some goals. If you’ve never been to therapy before, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
You probably have friends who are in the same boat as you right now. A few months after we graduated, my friends and I started a group chat on Facebook to check in on each other and discuss our post-grad lives, challenges, and job searches. It’s been a great way for all of us to stay connected and have a virtual support group, and we use it almost every day to this day (nearly two years later).
It’s scary suddenly not having an end goal after having end goals your entire life (e.g. graduating high school, graduating college), but things to work out. Start planing some small seeds now, and watch them grow. And remember--the path to success (however you define it) is not linear, so don’t beat yourself up if you’re feeling down or not where you’d like to be in your life.
Essay-writing PSA
Dear Students: as Spinster Aunt of Tumblr and sometime College Writing Instructor, I have unsolicited advice for you. Do sit down and have a cup of tea.
- Writing is a learned skill.
- Writing is hard.
- Writing gets easier with practice.
- The quality of your writing does not automatically reflect the quality of your ideas.
- By the same token, a critique of your writing is not the same thing as a critique of your ideas.
- (I’m putting that in bold because I think it’s very important; I have seen lots of creative, insightful ideas hidden in bland or unclear prose.)
- Essay prompts are designed to help you.
- Office hours are designed to help you. (If your teachers don’t have office hours, it’s probably because they cannot afford to. It’s a long, sad story.)
- Time spent with your own ideas is always worthwhile.
- Time spent revising your own writing is always worthwhile.
Go forth and conquer! Send your ideas out into the world! And remember: writing is a learned skill. Writing is hard. Writing gets easier with practice. Oh, and tea helps.
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So I'm mainly a fantasy author and I'm in a literary fiction class this next semester. I just finished my first short story for it, and it has some magic realism as character background, which highlights some things, but I'm not sure if it will be alright for the class. Any advice on writing more literary minded work?
So, my first piece of advice is: Don’t try to get around the class rules and do things your own way. Because, at the end of the day, that means you’re not actually pushing your boundaries or challenging yourself as a writer, and you won’t actually get anything out of the class. Basically, it’s not more creative; it’s cheating. Writing stuff that’s outside your comfort zone is really, really good for you, and if you never do it you’ll never grow past a certain point. So don’t try to beat the system. I speak from experience, because I did this for a whole semester in college and ended up really regretting it. Because the teacher saw right through it, and she graded me accordingly (and I commend her for that). When I actually stopped trying to be cute and followed the rules, I produced some much better–and much more interesting–stuff that even surprised me. I had to write stream-of-consciousness for one assignment, and I went into it kicking and screaming because there are few things I hate more than stream-of-consciousness. But finally I said, “Look, you need to stop fucking around and bending the rules because you’re not fooling anyone and what you’re writing is crap” and sat down and made myself do it. And it turned into this bizarre internal monologue by a girl freezing to death in her car and it was written in a weird mosaic mash-up that was half her thoughts and half Led Zeppelin lyrics, and people in the class loved it and said it was the best thing I’d written all year. And five years later, it’s actually sort of spawned a whole novel. I’m about 75k through it, it’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had working on a project, and I think it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever done. This is a long way of saying, even if this is not your genre, give it a chance and actually commit to it, because the results might really surprise you. (And if you’re asking the question “Is this all right?” because you kind of not-so-sneakily bent the rules of the class or the assignment, the answer is probably no. Yes, what you write is your prerogative, but that’s not the point of a stylistics class with a specific objective. The objective is to learn to write a certain way, and you’re not going to learn anything if you’re trying to take a shortcut.) That’s the first thing.
Moving on to the second thing: Literary fiction is all about character, and about humans as a species. So, don’t worry too much about ‘what happens’ in the story until you’ve figured out who this story is about. Literary fiction is about turning people inside-out. It’s about who they are, and why they are who they are. Start with a plain human person. Resist the urge to add magic. A person shouldn’t need magic to be interesting, and in the long run you will learn to write much better, more believable characters–whatever the genre–if you learn to write real people before you give them wings or a magic wand. I honestly think the best thing you could do in this scenario is force yourself to put all the magic aside and confine yourself to the real world. As for how to do that: there is no step-by-step manual. But I have a character masterpost here, a list of crowdsourced character questions to get you thinking here, and so much more under the character development tag. If that doesn’t give you what you’re looking for, come back to the inbox with a few more details and I’ll see what I can do to help!
By Tami Orendain
Towards the end of their undergraduate career, many people turn their sights towards higher education and consider getting an M.A. – I know, I was one of those people! While getting a master’s degree seems like a logical step to take after graduating with a B.A., there are some major differences between graduate and undergraduate classes that all students should reflect on before making any commitments.
So after this fall semester I'll have 6 classes left to finish my BA. During the last couple of weeks I've been freaking out over my degree. I've always been excited about doing English .But for some reason, now that I'm pretty close to being done, I'm just worried as hell I won't be able to do anything with it. I've had to defend it to a ton of people as well? So I guess I'm just wondering, since there are so many E majors here, if anyone had advice on how to kind of deal with this? Thanks xxx
First of all, remember that it’s a common experience to be filled with doubt or self-doubt. I say this because sometimes, when we get caught up in these feelings, they feel even larger and more overwhelming because we feel like we’re the only ones experiencing them and forget that others experience them too.
With six classes left, I can’t tell if you’re a junior or a senior, but either way, you still have time be proactive in making decisions that will help you career-wise. If you have a long January break, pick up a winter internship. If you have a lot of flexibility in the six classes you have left, or if you plan on taking classes in addition to those six, consider taking courses that will help prepare you with career skills. Which courses you take depends on your career goals. If you have set career goals, look up entry-level jobs in that field and see what kinds of experience and skills they’re looking for. Identify what skills you already have, or will have by the time you graduate, and then identify what skills you don’t have. Take courses or online classes/certifications/tutorials to learn those things.
If you don’t have particularly specific career goals, check out my English Major Success Stories tag for some inspiration. Dearenglishmajor.com also has a fabulous collection of interviews with people who’ve gone onto some pretty cool careers with their English degrees. Pick a career and search it in the jobs section on LinkedIn and read some job postings for entry-level careers. Figure out what you’d need to learn in order to be a stellar applicant for a job you’d like to have. (My success stories tag and Dear English Major are also great things to show people who think English degrees are pointless.)
I’m currently pursuing communications associate-type jobs (I’d had such a job but chose to leave it for personal reasons), so if I could go back and add courses to the college curriculum I ended up creating for myself, I’d add courses in web development, marketing, or statistics/data analytics. (Other people looking for a career in this field might need to learn more about InDesign, Photoshop, WordPress, or Drupal.) Fortunately, even though I graduated last year, it’s not too late for me to learn these things, since there’s so many resources online.
Have conversations with whoever you can: professors (if you have access to them during office hours), your career center, alumni, and people who have or have had jobs that you’d be interested in pursuing. You’ll learn a lot about what careers are our there, what skills you need, and best practices for applying to jobs. Also, if the feelings of doubt or worry or however you choose to describe them are significantly interfering with your day-to-day life, do not hesitate to seek out whatever mental health counseling services your school offers.
I wish you the best of luck!
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Anonymous asked:
*curtsies* Duke, have/would you ever mention this blog and all the work you put into helping us peasants in something like a CV or personal statement? I mean, I'd hire you in a heartbeat.
*curtsies* Probably not. Most of my friends and family don’t even know about this blog, and unfortunately ‘Tumblring’ isn’t a very marketable skill in the real world unless you actually work in marketing. My agent and editor know about it and are obviously glad to hear it has a bit of a following–because hey, a platform’s a platform–but frankly as much as I enjoy it it’s not really how I want to sell myself to potential employers.
When I was applying for jobs fresh out of college, I frequently included English Major Humor on my resumes, particularly if the job to which I was applying had a significant social media component. People who interviewed me typically wanted to learn more about this project, and letting it be a part of my application has also been a good way to talk about how I’ve been able to attract a large audience and learn to use social media as diplomatically as possible.
So if you do have a quality, successful Tumblr and you do want to work in marketing, seriously consider including this information on your resume. Send me a message if you need help creating language to describe your Tumblr accomplishments.
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*curties* Duke, I'm about to start my fourth and final year of English (bachelor), and I am heartbroken because, once I no longer have access through my university, I am unsure if I will be able to find websites where I can read literary criticism without paying. Do you have any suggestions?
*Curtsies* I’m currently facing the same problem, so I feel you. Some libraries carry major literary journals and a lot of them will have major books out by major scholars. Your other option is to pay for membership to a university library, which is usually only about $25 a year if you’re not a student, i.e. much more affordable and much less illegal than a lot of other options. Besides that, Thriftbooks. Thriftbooks is your friend.
Your own institution might even have discounted library cards/access for alumni.
Google Scholar is another place you might look to find criticism that you can access freely.
(My problem is that while I still have database access as an alum, I don’t have ILL privileges, so I can’t read the article my faculty advisor published this semester 😭 )
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*curtsies* Dear Duke. I have a huge predicament. I'm sure you've probably gotten asks like this before, but I really want to study English literature. My parents, however, are putting huge pressure on my to study a STEM subject because apparently there are no careers for people who major in English. I'd rather die than study engineering, which is what I once THOUGHT I wanted to do (I was wrong), and they won't let it go. I need to know that there's some hope for me after university. Thank you!
*Curtsies* Hi! So, I have gotten a lot of questions along these lines. Stuff about careers for English majors are under the English major tag (start here, here, here, here, and here) and stuff about parents not supporting your long-term goals is imaginatively tagged ‘parents’. You might have to click through a few pages but I promise it’s all there.
My English Major Success Stories tag also has some relevant info, at least in terms of careers. Dearenglishmajor.com also has some fantastic resources.
I’ve also started tagging things with “I want to major in English,” but I haven’t yet gone back and tagged previous posts that would benefit from having this tag.
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Comic Mike Birbiglia on how he stopped procrastinating when he was writing the screenplay for his new movie, Don’t Think Twice:
“I was procrastinating writing the movie. I had the movie in my head, but I wasn’t writing it. But I noticed this trend in my life which was that I was showing up to lunch meetings or business meetings, but I wasn’t showing up to meet myself. So I wrote a note next to my bed — this is so corny — but I wrote “Mike! You have an appointment at Café Pedlar at 7 a.m. with your mind!” It’s so corny, and I would show up! I never didn’t show up and I wrote this movie [in] spurts of essentially three hours, like I’d write from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and the reason why I would do that is because I was essentially barely awake. Because I feel like that moment, at 7 to 10 a.m., you’re not afraid of the world yet.”
More from today’s Fresh Air interview with Birbiglia:
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
Here’s some insightful advice. I’ll often tell people asking me advice for how to get stuff done to set appointments for themselves, but the 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. advice really resonates with me, since my fear often gets in my way.
A constant comment on every academic paper I get back is that my academic register lets me down. I am not entirely sure how to improve on this. Do you have any tips?
I have a few suggestions that you should try collectively. First, if your profs aren’t going into specific detail about what they find “wrong” with your academic register, reach out to them to get more specific feedback.
My biggest tip for anyone trying to learn a new writing style or improve in that style is to read a lot of it. Then, what you’ll want to do is copy down sections of what you’re reading by hand–this will help you wire the style into your brain more. This is particularly useful if grammar and sentence structure are what you’re struggling with.
If your diction is more of an issue, it’s time to brush up on your vocab. I’ll admit that even as an English major, vocabulary isn’t my strong suit; a lot of us have had learning vocab in middle school and high school by means of studying random lists of words that appear in assigned reading. In my case, this wasn’t helpful and I studied the words well enough to pass whatever vocab quiz I had to take, and that was that; not a lot was being committed to my long-term memory. I was recently preparing for the GRE (but not much), and one of the biggest pieces advice a Kaplan prep book gave for getting better at vocab is to study groups of words that have the same roots. I haven’t tried this method yet, but the concept makes a lot of sense to me. Any GRE prep book is going to be filled with college-level vocabulary, so I recommend getting your hands on one of these from the library or looking up GRE vocab lists online to find terms to study.
Lastly, you should definitely make use of your school’s writing center. Writing tutors are trained to guide students through their writing and teach them how to improve it. A core practice of peer writing tutoring is for students to read their work aloud to get a sense of how it sounds. If you hear your work aloud, you’ll probably be able to hear that it needs some added sophistication. When you and your tutor identify a sentence or a section that could benefit from being more elevated, your tutor will ask you questions to help you think about what choices you can make to improve. (If your tutor isn’t doing this things and is just fixing stuff for you, schedule an appointment with a different tutor the next time or talk to the writing center director.)
I hope this helps you and others who might be in need of this sort of advice! Best of luck!
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great advice from eponinesboyfriend:
“I just wanted to say know that you will never be able to read every author or title that is discussed in class. The great thing is all of your classmates have gaps too. You read what you can and never be afraid to say, “I am not familiar with that author/book. Please tell me more.” English majors love to talk about books, writing, and language. My core group from the English department were my closest friends in college because we shared the love of learning and had strong passions. #readsyllabi”
:)
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Anonymous asked:
*Curtsies* When buying books for literature courses, does it matter if I buy the same edition that the uni bookstore stocks, or do you think it's okay to buy a different, cheaper edition? I'd like to save myself a bit of money by buying my books online and most of the books are in different editions online. Hope this makes sense.
*Curtsies* This is a question to ask your professor. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t. If they want you to have a specific translation, that definitely matters. If you’re reading something like Hamlet–where there are multiple different texts floating around–it definitely matters. But if you’re reading something like Bleak House where theoretically the actual text in every edition should be the same, it’s probably okay to buy a cheaper one. I once took a Victorian novel class where I already owned every book on the syllabus so I didn’t buy a damn thing. But it’s always smart to ask. Most professors understand that students aren’t made of money and may prefer cheaper editions, but there’s also probably a reason they chose the edition they did–maybe is has good footnotes or an especially valuable introduction. So just email and ask.
A few additions to the Duke’s good advice:
-It can be helpful to buy the assigned version of a book if it’s hard to keep up with what page the class is on when your page numbers are different than everyone else’s.
-At least in the U.S., professors have to choose an edition that the school bookstore can order for every single person in that class, and [this part I know less about], the bookstore has to be able to get these books from their distributor. This edition is usually the one that publishers are currently publishing, which is why, for example, your bookstore might have the 5th edition of a book when the 4th edition is identical. (I took a class once in which one of the books we read was out of print, so the professor had had to buy ~20 copies of the book used on Amazon to lend to us.)
-Used books, as you know, are generally cheaper than new ones. Works in the public domain are often downloadable for free on e-readers, so if you’re comfortable annotating e-books (I never was), that’s another way to save money.
Hello! So, I need some advice. I'm going to be a senior in high school this year & will be applying to colleges soon. This means I also need to choice a major. At first I thought I should major in something science since I've always been good (1/?)
(2/?) At it and has always been my favorite. Except all science majors have some amount of math in them & I’m not good at math. It makes me cry. So I’m going to major in my 2nd favorite thing which is books/english. I’m just scared cause even though (3/?) I dont really care about the money or what job I’ll end up with I’m still scared I’m going to ruin my life by majoring in something I actually care about and not something practical and something that will get me a job as soon as I’m finished (4/4) With school. How did you know you were sure with your major and what would you say to someone like me? Sorry for so many asks!
Hi there. It sounds like, above all, you need to be having some conversations with your teachers and guidance counselors to get a better sense of what your strengths are, what your likes are, and what you want to do with them. The people who know you best and who know the college admissions process the best are going to be the people who can best help you.
That said, and contrary to popular belief, you absolutely do not have to choose a major prior to matriculating. Unless you want to study something like pre-med or education or anything else with enough requirements that you need to start them as soon as possible in order to finish in four years, you really do not have to decide now. I know it can relieve a lot of anxiety to go in with a plan (i.e.a chosen major), but plans change; people switch majors all the time, and it’s usually not a big deal. Many schools do not require students to choose a major until after their first or second year. That gives you time to take classes in a variety of disciplines (which will make you a smarter, more well-rounded person) to figure out what you like. You might find yourself falling in love with a subject you hadn’t even encountered in high school.
English is not an impractical degree, and you should know that no type of degree guarantees a job right out of college, particularly if you’re relying on a degree alone to earn a job. Folks who major in biology, chemistry, and physics sometimes go months before they find a viable job opportunity. Conversely, lots of English majors (but obviously not all) land jobs right out of college. Your odds of landing a job right out of college will depend on a variety of factors: the state of the job market and the economy, which field you are trying to enter, what geographical area you are looking for work, how early you start applying for jobs, and what other skills and experience you have on your resume.
That “a-ha! – I’ve discovered what my major should be!” moment looks different for every person, though I recognize that individual stories are totally helpful. I knew since my freshman year of high school that I wanted to be an English major (thought I had my periods of self-doubt). I was able to feel very strong in that decision because my school’s block scheduling system made it so that I only had English classes one half of the year. As a result, I had to go every spring without English (because I always managed to get it in the fall somehow), and it was one of those “absence makes the heart grow fonder” scenarios: I missed my English classes and I was sad that I wasn’t taking them.
I wish you the best of luck as you navigate your college admissions process! In time, you’ll figure out what your calling is.
What advice do you have for a high school senior who wants to major in English? I like reading, creative writing, and grammar, but I'm nervous about writing so many papers. I'm also trying to find a college.
I’ll start by saying that there’s a lot you can do now and when you’re in college to feel less nervous about writing papers. In high school, you can work on this by carefully reviewing feedback given to you on papers and essays you’ve been assigned. If feedback is unclear to you, or you’re looking for additional feedback, sit down with your teacher and have a discussion. While I did not have a term paper that semester, I sat down with my teacher to review just about every AP Language and Composition essay I wrote, clarifying (if necessary) why I received the comments/score I did and how I could improve for the next essay. Seeking out this sort of feedback helped me gain confidence as a writer and a thinker.
In college, you will be assigned more papers, but you’ll also spend much less time in class–meaning that you’ll have much more time outside of class to get stuff done. I recommend creating a schedule of times when you’ll do homework/study that you stick to. Treat these blocks of time as appointments to yourself; you likely wouldn’t miss a doctor’s appointment or an appointment with your hairdresser, for example, so why would you skip an appointment with yourself? In college, you’ll also be able to talk to TAs or professors (depending on the size of your college) and go to the writing center for additional help.
I tell everyone who tells me that they’re considering majoring in English to be sure to take courses in a variety of disciplines. You’ll be more well-rounded for having done so, and you might end up discovering new interests. Another upside of taking classes outside of English is that they might not be as reading or writing intensive as English courses. By mixing English and non-English courses each semester, you’ll be able to better balance your workload.
As for finding a college, you need to consider things holistically. You definitely want to look specifically at the English departments of colleges you’re interested. However, if you pick the best damn English department you can find without taking your other needs into consideration, you’re likely to have a sucky time. How big or small do you want your school to be? How far from home would you like to go? Would you rather go to school in a city, a suburb, or a rural area? Do you need ample vegan options at your dining hall? What schools tend to accept students with the same SAT scores as you? Will you qualify for need-based or merit-based financial aid and which schools will best offer these things to you? (Are you willing to go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt for a degree that has good job opportunities but might not land you a six-figure salary? If your answer to this question isn’t “No!”, I urge you to google “millennial college debt” or something along those lines.) These are just a handful of many questions you need to consider when choosing a college. Some factors will be more significant to you than others. I’m not sure what college websites HS students are using these days (I graduated from high school in 2011, so I’m way past searching for an undergraduate institution), but I found sites like Cappex.com and the Princeton Review to be useful. You can use these sites to fill out profiles about yourself, what you want in a college, and how important these factors are to you.
Good luck with your college search!
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Inside Publishing: Interview with Loreal Lingad, Marketing Intern
How did you find out about internship opportunities at Open Road Media?
Fordham College at Lincoln Center offers a class called Publishing Theory and Practice. Mary Bly teaches it. Each class, she brings in established professionals who work in the book and magazine publishing industries. She invited Julie Blattberg from Open Road to be on one of the panels. Later that week, Professor Bly told us about the Book Industry Guild’s event “Anything Is Possible on the Open Road” with Jane Friedman, its CEO, and she posted an internship opportunity on our class Tumblr. After hearing Jane Friedman and Julie Blattberg speak, I knew I wanted to apply.
What does your typical day as an intern look like?
I spend five minutes pestering Julie Blattberg in the morning (just kidding). After that, I make my way through a list of projects that she gives me. Sometimes she’ll send me more projects via email. They mostly pertain to researching and helping to produce drafts of social content posts for sites like BuzzFeed and Tumblr. Every now and then, someone from the marketing team will grab me for another task.
What are some of the projects that you liked working on the most?
Can I say all of them? I haven’t disliked any of the projects.
Which project are you most proud of?
It’s a tie between the BuzzFeed posts I worked on and the “Inside Publishing” series of interviews for Tumblr, because of how much effort I’ve put into those projects. For BuzzFeed, I spent a lot of time researching the science fiction author Octavia Butler, bookish phone apps, and library cards, and going through rounds of edits with Julie and Erin, the marketing copyeditor. It’s kind of like working on a research paper with a professor or submitting work for a creative writing workshop. So seeing them go live is pretty rewarding. With the “Inside Publishing” series, I stepped out of my comfort zone. I’m really shy, so speaking with people I don’t know makes me nervous. It forced me to somewhat get over my fear.
You’ve tweeted a bunch of #internperks. Which was your ultimate favorite “perk”?
I think my overall experience here is my favorite “perk.” In my classes at Fordham, we discussed how women are underrepresented in leadership roles. That’s something that really strikes a chord with me, because I’m about to join a profession that consists of only 33.3% women. So being Julie's–the Executive Director of Consumer Engagement–intern is awesome because she’s an intelligent woman. And the Chief Marketing Officer, Rachel Chou, is an intelligent woman. And the CEO, Jane Friedman, is an intelligent woman. Open Road is filled with them. I find it pretty inspirational.
Also, I think I got lucky with this internship. I know a fair amount of people with internships that sound awful: fetching coffee, cleaning out storage closets, working on the weekends, and things like that. Those aren’t learning experiences. So, when I tweet about #internperks or post a personal Facebook status about how much I adore Open Road, it’s 100% genuine.
You’ve just graduated from college. What’s next?
I’m headed off to law school!
Do you think you’ll be able to apply some of the skills and strategies that you learned at Open Road in law school or in your work as a lawyer?
Definitely! I think I’ve learned how to pay better attention to detail. I’ve also learned that taking the time to thoroughly research a project is better than rushing through it. Julie also challenged me to learn how to speak to people (haha). Every authoritative figure that I’ve met has told me that building connections and reading and writing well are important skills needed to excel in law school and as a lawyer. I’m fairly certain I can win over anyone now—well, as long as they have a social media account for me to look at first.
Do you have a favorite Open Road author?
I have a few favorites, but I’ll mention one: Irene Cao. I would love to write like her.
What are you currently reading?
I’m reading I Feel You by Irene Cao (thanks, Amanda!) and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.
Do you have a favorite place to read?
I love reading underneath the trees by the reflecting pool at Lincoln Center.
Bonus question: Do you have a favorite quote about reading or writing?
About reading: “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” —Jorge Luis Borges
About writing: “I write because I cannot lie still. I write to rue the world. To shake my fist. To be incredulous. I write to uncover the ruins. To ruin the ruins. I write to find the already found.” —Jennifer Militello