Have you had any interactions with writers during your internship experience? (Note: It isn't that uncommon for the answer to this question to be no.)
The first exchange I had with my internship contact, AJ Bermudez, was through reading her book of short fiction essays, “Stories No One Hopes Are About Them,” which won the Iowa Prize for Short Fiction. From this, I learned that AJ is a brilliant writer. Chelsea Jackson, the Managing Editor, is also a writer, a poet, and has a book of poetry forthcoming. She’s been candid and transparent in the sharing of her work-life as writer and editor beyond MeR’s boundaries. I’ve “interacted” with dozens of writers through reading their Submittable submissions, along with nearly sixty published MeR nonfiction essays. Many writers I would like to meet in person, to hear more about the essay of their life and what compelled them to write the story they submitted. One writer shares a memory of his slow kill of a slug with table salt, then braids into the essay profound insights about life. Another describes her grief as it resembles the physical artifacts that surround her. And still another writes of her spiritual journey in the form of library index cards. Fascinating takes on the world through the creative lens’ of imaginative writers. How does the writer fit into the publishing setting where you work? Unless a staff member at the MeR has a trust fund or other means of financial support, each is still shlepping a day job outside of MeR to pay their bills (MeR editors earn only $50/publication). AJ Bermudez, the MeR Editor, who lives in Los Angeles, has spent the spring teaching in Boston. Chelsea Jackson, aside from her MeR Managing Editor gig, offers, from her websiteLinks to an external site., “writing, editing, and consulting services to creative writers, professionals, and nonprofits.” During a recent Zoom meeting, Emily Blacker, the Nonfiction Editor, asked the assembled group of readers what we were reading. I mentioned “The Body Keeps the Score” and explained that reading this work has been a way for me to better understand my own writing about trauma. Two other readers were also reading this book for similar purposes. We read, in part, to become better writers. Has your internship experience affected the way you think about your own work or your writing identity? A few of my internship takeaways:
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My initial expectations for my internship experience were broad: that it would be “dynamic, thought-provoking, and fun” and, “my voice and ideas will be fully welcomed by the MeR staff.” So far, the experience has been productive. I was provided with an orientation packet of five documents which I downloaded, printed, and highlighted important information, like the Submittable password. I was initially surprised that the internship experience took a few weeks to get off the ground, but once it lifted, there’s been some positive momentum.
With each week of reading Submittable submissions, I’ve requested more essays to read. I’ve also decided to read each of the Nonfiction essays that have been published by MeR since its inception. It’s a relatively new literary journal, with its first issue published in May, 2020. Right now, I’m about halfway through the eight issues, having read twenty-six essays. By reading through each essay from each issue, I’m getting a good sense of the kinds of writing they decide to publish. I’ve met with both Editor AJ Bermudez and Managing Editor Chelsea Jackson to learn more about Maine Review’s working mechanics. I’ve also Zoomed with the CNF team of readers, lead by CNF Editor Emily Weinstein, and after introductions (‘m the only reader from Maine – that surprised me), learned about what readers look for in the essays that they select, which, if they give the piece a thumbs up, moves to the next level where MeR editorial staff then read the essay. At my supervisor AJ’s request, I’ve reviewed and extracted data from a compelling report on the current state of the U.S. literary arts field and presented that data to her for review. In my initial Zoom meeting with Chelsea, I was surprised by how quickly we developed rapport, expressed through a genuine curiosity about our lives. I learned that she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her partner and seventy-pound rescue pup. Chelsey studied Music Therapy, then she earned a Master’s in Divinity, then an MFA in Poetry. She is now a practicing Pagan. Chelsea was genuine, warm, and authentic, and I welcomed hearing about her writing trajectory, landing as Managing Editor at the Maine Review. Having learned from AJ that the editor roles at MeR were primarily volunteer, I asked her what she did to pay the rent. Chelsea shared that she is developing a new business venture where she provides “…writing, editing, and consulting services to creative writers, professionals, and nonprofits.” She also offers workshops to writers on jumpstarting their writing, including an eclectic “Tarot and Poetry” workshop that piqued my interest. In addition, Chelsey has a book of poetry forthcoming. Her entrepreneurial spirit was evident as we spoke, and I imagine that the circuitous route to her MFA in Poetry has contributed to the breath and depth of her written word. When I learned that most MeR staff are unpaid (another surprise), my respect for the volunteer editors, like Chelsea, along with the dozens of readers who are the bones of the organization, deepened. They’ve chosen to share their time at MeR because they care about writing. My first Submittable reading assignment tickles me. I’m finally a member of the Maine Review team, with orientation materials provided by Chelsea, the Managing Editor and a confirmation email from Adam, the Associate Managing Editor, providing the green light to begin reading Submittable essays. In my first weekly round of reading, I’m assigned just three essays, and because I’m over-the-top ready for my internship experience to begin, I immerse myself in the project with great fervor. One essay receives a thumbs up, the others I passed on. I’m careful to include positive words of encouragement for each of the writers. Although my internship has had a slow start, I’m thrilled to be reading other writer’s work and am hopeful about learning from each piece that I read.
I’m also delighted to have AJ Bermudez as my internship supervisor. She’s a generous soul, wanting to create a positive internship experience for me, curious about what I hope to learn. We’re starting from scratch with what I know about the apparatus that drives a literary journal, so during our first meeting I ask her to begin at the beginning. She’s relatively new to The Maine Review, and connects me with Rosanna, one of the journal’s founders, though she also shares the timing and mechanics that lead to the journal’s biannual publication. I learn that a mere .38% of their writer submissions are accepted for publication. I learn that there are many volunteer readers who ensure the journal’s successful trajectory, and that funding for the journal comes primarily from reader donations. I learn that nearly all the staff are volunteers, though editors receive a miniscule financial token of appreciation at each publication date. They are doing their good work because of a love for words. Beneficence. Then, because I’m curious and want to know more, we discuss AJ’s recently published book, Stories No One Hopes Are About them, a series of essays that won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. I’ve read the book, twice, and loved it. She is humble in discussing her work but shares a few anecdotes about the book’s cover design which she had a say in creating. Octopus arms with exaggerated suckers stretch from the book’s lower edge, reaching through a tiffany blue background. Menacing entitlement, much like the essay's themes throughout the book. I’m in a “hinge moment” right now, a phrase I learned today during a writer interview podcast I was watching. The host asked the writer about a transition point in his personal story, and she used the expression, so I had an idea of what it meant. Still, I Googled it after the interview ended. Poet Catherine Barnett’s curiosity of hinge moments in writing is piqued as she explores the central idea of a hinge as a point of connection between two physical objects, two words that bump up against each other, two moments in time. And like a physical hinge, a hinge moment suggests movement is possible at the connection point(s) between the object, the words, the moment. I’d say I’m in the waiting room of my internship, a hinge moment with The Maine Review, and I rely on patience in this liminal space between now and then, what is and what will be. Hope grounds me and keeps me tethered to my future learning experience at The Maine Review. Hope is now my hinge. Meditative practice also reminds me that each moment is a new beginning, and that paying attention to the breath is what guides me into this exact moment and then to the next. This moment is all I really have. In this practice, I often become distracted by what has past and what is yet to come. I can do nothing about either, I remind myself, so breathing into the moment is what makes sense to me. What I understand now in my life is that beginnings are exciting, filled with possibilities as I breathe into the moment, including the start of my internship with the Maine Review. I feel a sense of anticipation and hope in beginning something new. At sixty-two, I consider myself a life-long learner, and throughout my life, have taken on new adventures – driving across the country and relocating to a new city in my 30’s, taking formal classes in learning how to draw and paint in my 40’s, ending a twenty-five year career in work that I loved but knew I needed to leave in my 50’s, enrolling in graduate school to become a (better) writer in my 60’s. I’ve gained confidence in my ability to navigate new beginnings as I’ve gotten older. When I was younger, however, new beginnings were often challenging. Looking back, leaving home for college in another state was one of the most difficult transitions I’ve ever made, a metamorphosis of sorts, from adolescence into young adulthood, leaving the known and familiar to the unknown of college life (and a first general college student to boot). I hadn’t yet learned ways of successfully navigating change, which seems inherent in starting something new – how to care for myself through the initial hours and days of beginnings, welcoming and seeing the unexpected that comes with anything new as opportunity, understanding that adjustments during any beginning are necessary, and are indeed a series of thresholds leading to new learning, discovery, and growth. https://www.poetry.arizona.edu/blog/brief-poetics-hinge My internship will take place at The Maine Review (MeR), https://mainereview.com/, a literary journal. My supervisor, AJ Bermudez, is the Co-Editor of the journal. I will be working remotely. I don’t believe that MeR has a physical office location.
Having been born and raised in Maine, I became interested in interning here after reading this mission statement excerpt: “We cherish our Maine heritage, which values sustainability and stewardship of vital resources. We’ve modeled MeR after the local farmers who respect the land and feed our communities, and the fishers, lobsterers, wormers, clammers, hunters, conservancies, and environmental non-profits who advocate for and protect our wilderness and wildlife.” What would you like to learn during your internship? I’m interested in learning about and hope to be involved in every aspect of the processes and practices that lead to publication. The journal has recently moved from a triannual to a biannual publication schedule, and I will be curious to see how this shift impacts the timeframe and workload for the staff and my internship experience. What expectations do you have about your work? I’m expecting, based on my initial conversation with AJ, that this internship will be dynamic, thought-provoking, and fun, and that my voice and ideas will be fully welcomed by the MeR staff. Do you have any concerns, worries or nervousness as you contemplate the coming weeks of work and study? Not at this time. The Booktenders at 463 U.S. Route One in York, Maine is a new bookstore which opened in June, 2022. I’d heard about the bookstore from Tom, a friend who’d purchased a gift book there for me and had offered only praise about his experience with the owners. I decided to check them out. They opened at 11a.m. according to their listed business hours on the Facebook page. I arrived at 11:15 to a darkened building and locked front door. I waited about fifteen minutes, hoping that the owners would appear but they never did. While I waited, I took a few pictures, one of the building’s front façade, and then two stickers on opposite corners of the front door window: one stating that the bookstore was a member of the American Independent Booksellers Association, the other the word “Welcome” repeated in a rainbow of colors, and at the sticker’s bottom in black ink, “York, Maine - Combating Racism and Bias.”
I peeked through the front door window to see a neat and well-organized space with bookshelves of books along walls and in varying positions through the small space, then a stairway leading to the 2nd floor, which I assumed held more books. The bookstore is owned by Michelle Clark and her husband Rick, and so far, they have 514 followers on their Facebook page. Their website, thebooktenders.com is not currently functioning. In a blurb about the bookstore that I found online through the website self-awaresness.com, I learned that The Booktenders inventory includes “fiction and nonfiction for children, teens and adults, along with cookbooks and a small selection of donated, gently used books.” The blurb goes on to say that Michelle worked in Publishing for twenty years before opening the bookstore. If I'd had the chance to meet the bookstore owners, I might have asked about what compelled them to open a small bookstore in York, Maine and how business was going. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to take a look around this new bookstore in our community, and though my first impression of their business acumen isn’t a good one, I will give them another chance on another day. I understand there are all kinds of reasons why a small business might not be able to open its doors when its says that it will. "My only (only!) recommendation is to bring yourself more into the scenes physically." This was some feedback I received on a recent piece of writing I submitted for a course I'm taking on family writing. The instructor is awesome, and trustworthy, and her keen suggestion caused me to pause and reflect on her words. She is spot on I think. I do struggle with bringing myself into the scene, both in my writing and in my life. For most of my adult professional life as a counselor, I was a listener to other people's stories. Taking up writing has been intentional in helping me pivot my focus from others' stories to my own. That shift has sometimes been difficult. My learned default is to sit back and listen, quietly using those honed non-verbal gestures in letting another know I care about their story. But what about my own story? What happens when I am the scene? In my writing courses, I've been intentional about speaking up during class. This act has been useful in helping to bring myself into the scene (for now, the classroom). My writing is shifting too, one small bit at a time. As silly (and perhaps self-centered) as it sounds, I'll now, humbly, work on being the scene.
I learn the word Colophon in a recent Publishing class. My first thought is that it’s a homely word, really, and resembles medical terminology, or the name of a persistent, unrelenting, sexually transmitted infection. To me, the word's cadence and phonology make it a 2nd cousin to Chloroform, a toxic substance if inhaled or swallowed, impacting major organs of the body.
A colophon, however, is a work of art. Webster offers two definitions of Colophon: 1.an inscription at the end of a book or manuscript usually with facts about its production 2.an identifying mark used by a printer or a publisher Colophon’s origin is Latin, from Greek kolophōn, meaning summit or finishing touch. The word’s first known use occurred in 1501, and at the time, primarily followed Webster’s first definition of a book’s inscription after a scribe’s final entry, though colophons have been found in books and manuscripts from the 6th century CE. In the painstaking work of book scribes, a colophon provided factual information, including his name (were scribes always men?) and the date and place of the work’s completion. The colophon sometimes included an expression resembling “thank goodness this is done because I’m exhausted,” to acknowledge the scribe’s conclusion of an arduous task. The colophon, (and the work of scribes) evolved during the 15th century with the invention of the printing press. Here, printers added a blank first page to protect it from printing ink. They also included an identifying monogram, emblem, or a brief sentence on the book’s last page. At first, the inscription included only basic information that the book had been printed, including where the printing occurred. Later, colophons became more complex, including the printer’s praise for the book, which often resembled a short essay on the book’s merits. By the end of the 15th century, the colophon was relocated to the first blank page in what is now the book’s title page. The colophon now appears on the page opposite the book’s title page and is usually a simple one-sentence statement that acknowledges the book’s printing by a given printer at a given location. More detailed colophons regarding the typeface, paper, and other production details are sometimes added to the book’s last page. A book’s trademark now defines the colophon. Look for the penguin, the kangaroo, the cat’s eyes, the fish to tell us of the publisher’s ethos, including the kinds of books they typically publish. A colophon represents the publisher’s unique imprint in the world of books. The Knopf publishing house is associated with its borzoi colophon, designed by co-founder Blanche Knopf in 1925, who suggested the Borzoi, a Russian Wolfhound, for the logo as she believed it would imply motion. Indeed, from “An Unofficial Ranking of Publishing Colophons” by Dylan Brown, who writes, “the dog’s lithe silhouette cuts a graceful figure mid-leap from one side of the books spine to the other, as if it were urging the reader on to crack open the book and start turning those pages already.” In today’s publishing world where publishers routinely devour each other, so do their colophons evolve. Look at what is now the HarperCollins colophon, after the 1990 consolidation of Harper & Row and Collins Publishers. The colophon is an amalgamation of the Harper torch and the Collins fountain, now fire and water. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/art/colophon-visual-arts https://lithub.com/an-unofficial-ranking-of-publishing-colophons/ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colophon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colophon_(publishing) |
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