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Rita Rosenkranz Literary Agency: Caroline McCulloch
As the heels of my boots clopped against the Upper West Side’s sidewalk, I couldn’t help but feel a bit glamorous. My breath fogging in the crisp New York air, my gloved hands clutching a cross-body satchel, I felt the sort of working-woman swagger I’d attribute to Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon strolling near 30 Rockefeller Plaza. True, a Sex and the City comparison might afford me a bit more elegance, but for an equally geeky, slobbish, and sandwich-loving individual such as myself, Liz Lemon is the epitome of professional sophistication. Though I wasn’t writing for a comedy sketch show, I too had navigated the streets of New York City, passing momentous buildings and crowds, to go to work.
Rita Rosezkranz’s Literary Agency is situated in a brownstone apartment building. Rita, an elegant and well-spoken woman (perhaps a new model of professional sophistication), runs it out of her home office. Representing a variety of non-fiction titles, she advocates for her authors by pitching their projects to potential publishers. Additionally, she reviews proposals that will go to publishers, making suggestions to improve the project’s salability. However, her work doesn’t end once a publisher picks up one of these proposals. I primarily aided Rita in finding avenues to promote her various projects, as well as bolstering her writers’ presences and reputes. This sort of research required a clear marketing strategy and thus a firm grasp on the platforms that would most effectively reach the targeted consumer.
When I arrived, I sat in on a call with Rita and Roxanna, the author of a newly released children’s book. I discussed with Roxanna what kind of leads would be most useful in establishing her platform. From there, it came down to scouring the Internet for pertinent articles and journalists. I continued to compile leads for Roxanna throughout my stay with Rita, but also edited multiple proposals and reviewed query letters.
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Northwestern University Press: Manon Gilmore, Winter Shadow 2016
When I arrived in Chicago to spend a week this January shadowing Anne Gendler, managing editor in design and production at Northwestern University Press, I admit I didn’t know what to expect. I had always thought of the publishing industry as notoriously difficult to infiltrate, a cutthroat business where productivity and ambition were valued in a time where people are fond of saying that print is dying. Yes, this was a small press, but would it be different?
My first hint that I had nothing to worry about was when I matched the street number I had typed into my phone with a small house that had a “Northwestern University Press” sign out front. Inside was toasty warm (outside the temperature was single digits verging into the negatives, but Chicagoans are good at staying warm), and I was followed in by Grace, the other Reed extern who had arrived the week before. When we had tramped upstairs and shed all of our layers, our arrival was greeted with a cheer, and we immediately got to work.
Equipped with a red pencil and a loaner copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, I spent my week at the press checking passes of manuscripts—essentially different rounds of edits—against each other, proofreading e-books and one author-made index, and attending staff meetings, where all aspects of the process were discussed to see what progress had been made in the week between meetings: acquisitions editors introduced their new books, project editors updated the status of manuscripts undergoing editing, sales and marketing people talked about cover design and material, book size, selling points, and likely audiences.
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Liber Editing, Books Behind the Scenes: Grace Moon, Winter Shadow 2016
My Winter Shadow experience did not concern the cold, bright, often terrifying light of real-time social exposure in the offices and labs I’d always imagined as waystations placed along the glistening Career Track, places for making urgent connections. Instead, it was private, personal, almost confidential—indeed, my time spent with Edith Zdunich, a Portland-based freelance book editor, was very much about what happens in the shadows.
The editing Shadow had captured my interest partly because my understanding of the field was so vague. Sure, as an avid reader and writer with a confidence in her own grammatical accuracy, detail-oriented perfectionism, and literary taste, I had a hunch that being paid to polish manuscripts for publication would suit me. But my comprehension of the processes that brought a work from brainchild to print edition was virtually nil, and Internet searches supplied surprisingly little clarity. I knew what an editor’s job was, but I had no idea what editors actually did.
When I met with Edith, one of the first things I learned was this: neither do their clients.
Northwestern University Press, Reed Winter Externship Program, Julia Green
Julia Green, sophomore history major, was a Reed winter externship program participant. The following blog is a reflection of her experience working at the Northwestern University Press with Anne Gendler (class of ’81)