New England Review
Jae Woo Lee, 2011
I decided to apply for the internship after seeing the job posting on MOJO because I was interested in English and American Literature and wanted to explore different career choices. Although I am an economics major, I was very interested in how new writers are published. I expected not only to learn about how a literary magazine is run but also to experience an actual workplace environment.
I had been a part of publishing team my senior year in high school but was surprised to find the internship so much similar to my previous experience. All the jobs-from screening manuscripts to galley proofing and putting the templates together-were distributed among the managing editor and the office manager.
I made sure that I finish the assigned tasks and fully prepare for the meetings with my supervisor. In most occasions, I was a fast learner and had no problem with working in the office.
One of the most difficult parts of the job was copyediting. Although it was not particularly complicated, I found close reading the manuscripts for commonly made spelling and syntax errors tricky. I tried my best to learn the necessary skills for copyediting. I familiarized myself with the New England Review style and perused manuscripts for possible typos and format errors.
The most exciting part of the internship was reading and evaluating submitted manuscripts. I was able to have a look at a wide range of writings and develop a discerning eye. Weekly meeting with the fellow intern and the supervisor about the readings was very helpful in getting a sense of “good” prose. By the end of the internship, we had come up with a smaller pile of candidates for publishing. While reading and evaluating these submissions, the number and range of prose writers submitting manuscripts to the magazine surprised me. Also, I found it interesting to evaluate prose rather than reading a given text for a class and taking its quality for granted.
I enjoyed doing other tasks as well, although they were a little tedious compared to reading manuscripts. About two to three days a week, I was assigned to day-to-day office tasks, such as screening, logging and photocopying. Also, I was assigned to do research on magazines at Abernathy Collection at the library outside the office to compile information for a literary magazine database. Organizing the information about different literary magazines enabled me to obtain a better understanding of the history of American literary magazines and contemporary literature.
Furthermore, assisting my supervisor in every step of the publication of New England Review got me interested in publishing as one of my possible career fields. Although I may not necessarily be interested in editing in the future, the internship experience definitely drew my attention to the publishing industry, especially in marketing.
After the internship, I made up my mind to pursue a double major of English and American Literatures and economics. I believe that the internship I had at New England Review has not only trained me necessary skills such as managing InDesign and FileMaker, but it also has broadened my perspective that would help me greatly in the future.
I found it enjoyable working in a relaxed and friendly environment. My overall reflections on the experience are that it was more than just an interesting one-time experience. I learned so much more than I would have in a classroom. I feel very lucky to have had such a great supervisor who helped me have such a great learning experience this January Term.
Elisse Ota, 2011
I believe I performed well throughout this internship by completing everything thoroughly and to the best of my ability. I read each submission carefully until I finished it, or until it became utterly apparent that its quality did not match the standards of New England Review. After each reading, I wrote down a couple of sentences to a paragraph of the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the submissions and cited evidence to back up my opinions. In creating the literary magazine database, I tried to read through several issues of the magazines I was researching in order to get a feeling of the goals and characteristics of a particular magazine, and in the office, I did my best to work quickly and efficiently.
Carolyn did a wonderful job of exposing us to the whole production process of a literary magazine. I am very grateful that we did everything from the basic office tasks of logging and sorting manuscripts, to reading through the submissions to copyediting, and to working on InDesign; we truly explored all aspects of producing a magazine, which enabled me to formulate a holistic view of the process and impacted the direction of my career.
Before the internship, I had toyed with the idea of pursuing a career in literary magazines. After going through the experience, I realize how difficult it is to run a small magazine. Money is always a problem and there are thousands of literary magazines with new ones being created all the time and only a few that survive. It is not as glorious a career as one imagines; the editors who discover a famous writer early in their career are few. In the meantime, the deluge of sub-par manuscripts that you have to sift through is quite wide, and the editor’s job encompasses more than just reading. There are a lot of menial tasks the editor has to perform too, like the layout and managing subscriptions. It seems that more and more, the editors who run the magazine are expected to do everything that is needed. While there was quite a variety of submissions and while I enjoyed reading everything this past month and discussing the selections in the editorial meetings, I have come to a realization that this is not something I could do for extended periods of time; I am not sure I could have a job as an editor at a literary magazine for more than a few years. However, I think being a part-time reader would be not only manageable but also enjoyable. I guess what I had not realized prior to my internship was how much of a desk job being an editor really is. The copyediting was very meticulous and after doing it for the New England Review, I do not think I have the patience to pore over every comma and every dash.
Overall, while editors are exposed to a lot of creative material, most of the tasks editors have to perform are managerial; they are not the one actually creating. If I were to become an editor of some sort, I think I would have work at a more art-centered magazine, where the layout itself involves a lot of design and creativity. At the New England Review, I’m really glad that Carolyn allowed us to work on the computer and try creating the layout; however, because the New England Review has a pretty standard layout which doesn’t allow for much innovation, it was not as exciting as I thought it would be. Layout and design is a big interest for me, so I think that if I could find a magazine where the design is as much of a concern as the writing represented, I would be more comfortable working as an editor.
Even though I have discovered that perhaps being an editor is not as exciting as I had previously imagined, I think the internship was very valuable in another respect; I got to see how the selection process works and what goes on after you submit to a literary magazine. As an aspiring writer this was invaluable to me. Before the internship, I had always been at a loss of how to submit to a magazine, what format the cover letter should be like, what goes on after my manuscript is received, etc. But now, after reading countless cover letters and participating in the editorial meetings with Carolyn, I understand the process a lot better; it is no longer such a daunting mystery to me. Carolyn also gave us a lot of outside readings on literary magazines and their editorial processes, which was helpful in seeing how other magazines are run.
Overall this was a really edifying experience. It gave me a glimpse into the publishing industry which I really needed to determine how to shape the rest of my career plans and, as a writer, I now have an idea of what my own writing is up against when I submit to magazines in the future.
Contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship.