the best RSVP

We received a negative RSVP yesterday from someone who was not invited to the wedding.

And it was the best RSVP ever.

Let me back up [quite] a bit: In the summer of 2008, I worked part-time as an editorial intern at this publishing house. I learned a lot that summer, namely, that I did not want to work as an editor. I like ending sentences with prepositions too much for that.

I wrote a lot about those experiences here on this blog, which was brand new that summer. I wrote about forgetting what time to show up on the first day and rearranging bookstore shelves to showcase our books and proofreading an omnibus and then the end of it all.

I also did a lot of reading that summer. One of my favorites that summer was the book Danny Gospel by David Athey. And then David Athey came to the office one day and I met him. It was a fascinating conversation, one I will never forget, and reminded me how spiritual an experience writing is for me and for others like me.

Back to yesterday: we received an RSVP from David Athey. A negative RSVP to the apple picking afternoon. In the comments he wrote the following, which has blessed me every time I read it:

Hey Maggie, In appreciation for the kind words you wrote about me on your blog, I would like to send you a copy of my new novel for a wedding gift. God bless you and Jon! Kind regards, David Athey

It was remarkable and exciting, and I'm really looking forward to reading (and reviewing!) his new novel.

The First Last

I wish someone had sat me down in May and said, "Hang on tight, this summer will be gone before you know it!" Then again, I probably wouldn't have believed it. I would now, though.

So many things about this summer makes it stand out in my life: The changes, the opportunities, the general feeling of difference. I've never had a summer like this one, and from what I can see of my future, I'll never have another like it. The sheer novelty makes this one worth hanging on to. And it's already wrapping up.

Today was my last day at Bethany. I technically belonged to Sales/Marketing this week, so I got to work on two Internet newsletters and I met with different people in marketing and publicity. It wasn't as thorough as I hoped it would be, but it was only 2.5 days and I still learned about the department. I went to a Creative Team meeting this morning, and while I was a perfectly mute observer, it was surreal to hear them discuss cover options for books. As a consumer, I had no idea so much effort and creative thought goes into a book cover. As an intern, I now understand that a cover can make or break sales in multiple markets.

I still handled some editorial projects on the side, too. I got to do a blue line check on a manuscript I'd read in its original format during my first week. It was a nice way to wrap up my time in Editorial. Look for A Constant Heart to hit shelves this fall - it's a great story about 17th century Elizabethan court life. I think it drops on September 1st.

General highlights from the final week:

This morning I still had a substantial amount of work to do on the newsletters, and was worried I wouldn't get it done, but in true ESFJ-fashion, I pulled it off with 7 minutes to spare.

I received a touching birthday card signed by everyone that I will treasure always. It's truly a blessing to receive support and encouragement from a team such as the Editorial department.

Charlene surprised me with a DQ ice cream cake in honor of my departure. I felt so loved (and my ego felt very puffed up).

I had a delightful conversation with Dave Lewis (one of the higher-ups in another division of Baker Publishing Group) and this morning I sent him an email thanking him for his time and for sharing his wisdom. He responded in kind, and also said if I'm ever in need of another internship I should talk to him! My business-savvy father always said it's not what you know but who you know. I'm building up my connections, Dad!

Luke, one of the line editors, encouraged me in my career aspirations and reminded me that the industry needs true disciples in secular publishing houses, not just in Christian ones. He suggested, "If I were you, in my twenties and newly graduated, I would head straight for Manhattan." And while I'm pretty sure Manhattan would eat me alive, he's got a point. From this summer at BHP, I've discovered a specific and intriguing career path with exponential potential for growth. Book publishing is a place I would feel at home at. (And don't bother trying to correct all the grammatical errors in that sentence, even editorial interns make mistakes.)

In summary, I've learned so much this summer. I've learned that I feel a little claustrophobic at a desk job, but my love for words (and putting them in the correct order with proper punctuation) has only grown. I've learned that my place is certainly in editorial, not in marketing like I'd suspected. I've learned that there is no better place to have a first internship than at Bethany House Publishers, where the people are genuine and the projects bring home the hardware! (2008 Christy Awards? BHP dominated.)

And now, just because I know Dave and Charlene will somehow stumble onto this blog, a HUGE thank you. None of what I learned this summer would have made any sense without your guidance and patience. May God bless you richly for all you've done for me this summer. What a blessing you both are.

Star Sightings...sort of

I took the bus to Chicago 3 weeks ago. The trip was long and horrible, but I brought a good book. A great book, actually. This book: Danny Gospel, by David Athey.

I can't put my finger on what exactly makes it so great, which, I'm sure, is what makes it so great. It feels like a stream of consciousness. I actually reveled in the frustrating subtlety. It was beautiful and frenetic and I was never 100% sure what was going on but it was such a fantastic thing. Good books make you happy while you're reading them. Great books make you feel uncomfortable while reading and exultant afterwards. As Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society said, "What is a song? It is a perfectly expressed emotion. It is words that dance. It is a place one returns to again and again, like a rhyme, like a home. It is a cry to heaven. Danny Gospel is a song. David Athey sings it."

Fast-forward three weeks to today. My boss Dave is standing at my office door saying, "You read Danny Gospel, right?" [I nod.] "The author, David Athey, is going to be in today." [My mouth drops.] Dave continues: "Want me to bring him by so you can meet him?" [I nod my head furiously.]

And then, 10 minutes later, David Athey is sitting in the chair across from my desk, asking me about Professor Stepanek from Wheaton's English department. I was simply stunned. He was so friendly and down-to-earth. We talked for a while about Wheaton and my internship at Bethany, and then I mustered the courage to ask about DG. Amazingly, he was willing to talk about it.

"It took me 18 years to write it," Athey said. "I didn't have an outline for this book, I had a character that talks in first person." Athey's novel certainly is an anomaly among other BHP novels. Most are plot-driven (as opposed to character-driven, like Athey's). And most are written in the third person past tense (Athey's is first person). Today in my office, he told me that his writing process was a lot like acting: he allowed this consuming character of Danny Gospel to do the talking, and Athey wrote it down. "Sometimes I would write two pages of dialogue and then realize it wasn't what he would say at all," Athey told me. "So I would get rid of it and try again."

And then, just like that, our conversation ended. "It was such a privilege to meet you, Mr. Athey," I enthused. I truly cannot ever remember being starstruck before. I've stood behind Meg Ryan in a line for the ladies' bathroom. I've screen-tested with Dennis Quaid. I've met Josh Duhamel at an autograph signing. And not until today did I ever get butterflies in my stomach while meeting someone of relative fame.

I think that says more about where my priorities are: that I would hold a novelist/poet/professor in higher esteem than a Hollywood celebrity assures me that I have my English-major head screwed on straight. Thank the Lord that I kept my wits about me enough to actually listen to what Athey was saying, instead of just marveling that he was actually talking to me.

My one regret? Not having my copy of Danny Gospel on hand to have him sign it.

Thank you, David Athey, for being so down-to-earth, for sitting in my little office and telling me about writing your first novel. Thank you for reminding me that writing is my passion.

And now, just because I love the book so much, read the opening lines then go out and buy it.

"We played our first concert by torchlight near the river. Free of charge, our old-fashioned act attracted a crowd to the hymns and spirituals that most people know by heart....We performed free concerts all over Iowa - at fairs, festivals, and churches. And we became so famous that people began forgetting our family name. Everyone started calling us the Gospel Family."

Accomplishments

Welcome to Internship Heaven, where meetings are not boring, where people thank you for your hard work and assure you of a job well done, where you complete a 699-page proofreading project 6 days before deadline. Welcome to the Best Day Ever.

I've had galleys for an omnibus (4 books in one) of Janette Oke's Seasons of the Heart series on my desk since June 17th, due July 8th. It was a massive brick of blue paper 7 inches high. And after logging an estimated 20+ hours poring over pages (and pages and pages and pages), I finished my first official proofread today.

Granted, it wasn't the most difficult of manuscripts - these 4 books were published years ago and edited many times before going to print - but it's been a while and times have changed. I managed to catch quite a few errors, of which I'm quite proud, including some glaring misspellings and even a politically incorrect phrase. Nota bene: It is no longer appropriate to print the phrase "gypped out" because that is derogatory towards ethnic Gypsies.

I've also been given a new project evaluating proofread manuscripts. It feels so great to have control over this project, so to speak - to set the parameters, establish a system, and weigh the practical value of the project. I'm glad they've entrusted it to me and I'm getting a lot of satisfaction from completing each manuscript.

Today I also sat down for a meeting with Dave, Vice President of Something-Something Fiction (editorial acquisitions, maybe? I can't remember). He encouraged me that I'm doing well as an intern and am actually contributing to the work of the company. Everyone loves a pat on the back, and today was simply glorious.

Unpaid or not, I'm loving this internship.

The Intern's Day of Fun

On my first day of work, Charlene and Dave (my bosses) handed me an Outlook calendar already scheduled with meetings, assignments and projects. The square of June 11th reads "Day of Fun." Today, my friends, was a great day to be an editorial intern.

After a marketing/editorial joint meeting this morning (that Dave and I bailed out of early), the three of us left on a grand adventure to Ridgedale Mall (of Juno fame). We stopped at several bookstores so they could show me how BHP books are marketed in different ways.

Our first stop was the regional chain Northwestern Christian Bookstore. BHP books filled the shelves in competition with brands like Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, WaterBrook, Tyndale, Multnomah, etc. I noticed that as Dave and Charlene moved through the books, analyzing displays and titles and cover art, they were rearranging the shelves. I'm proud to say that the Ridgedale Northwestern fiction section has only Bethany House books facing forward (called face-outs). All other publishers have been turned on their spine!

Next we visited Barnes and Noble (rearranged their shelves, too) and then Target (their displays are already all face-outs, no changes necessary). Finally, we visited a children's bookstore, The Wild Rumpus, in Minneapolis. Its name comes from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - a wild rumpus is a crazy jungle party. There are cats with no tails, ferrets, chinchillas, lizards, and chickens in the store! Also, I walked over a plank of glass, only to realize I was looking down into a cage full of pet rats - that did not go over well with me.

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic day. I learned about many things, like sales and marketing tactics, why books sell, and how the spine is actually important to sales numbers. I also learned some upsetting things about this industry, like the fact that the Christian Book Distributors Association strongly discourages ethnic diversity as cover art (read: book covers show white people).

I'm still reading lots of manuscripts. I cranked through one last night from 11:30pm-1:07am, but still have 5 more on my desk.
I drink coffee religiously (Ashley S, my goal is to be drinking it black by the end of the summer).
I try to be funny or insightful at least once in every meeting I attend (it's working thus far).
I enter editorial corrections, which means transcribing an editor's comments from a paper manuscript to the Word document.
I learn all kinds of things like proofreading codes (# means insert space) and official ways to spell and hyphenate words (dishtowel is one word).
I perform blue-line checks (the final stop before a manuscript goes to the printer) and caught a formatting error! I am not a useless intern!

Here is your Editorial Tip of the Day: When dialogue begins a chapter there are no opening double quotations. Example: not "Mom" but Mom!"

First Internship, First Day

I am a confident person. If you know me even a little, that trait should be obvious. But something about beginning a new job really makes me nervous! I couldn't fall asleep last night, and this morning I tried on about 4 different outfits before I decided on one. I just really wanted to prove myself today - show them they made the right choice when they hired me. My aim: be professional. Never mind that I had no idea when to show up today. Somewhere that essential little detail was left out, don't ask me how.

So I packed my lunch like a schoolgirl and drove the 2.6 miles from my driveway to theirs. I quickly gathered that I arrived just on time. :) My bosses Charlene and Dave met me in the lobby and said, "Follow us; we'll show you your office."

I HAVE MY OWN OFFICE. I honestly never thought the summer intern would get her own office, but alas, the desk, lamp, bookshelf, filing cabinet, computer and 2 chairs are all mine. It's a little bare right now, so I'm putting together some things to make it more home-y. Pictures of Jess, the fam, the best friends, the roomies; pencil cup, kleenex...I'm gonna deck it out like my desk at school.

After the office intro, I got the tour and met everybody. Interestingly, I know a few employees because we go to (or went) to the same church. They were all very friendly in that intimidating sort of way. They weren't trying to be scary, but they didn't have to try, either. So I met everyone in the editorial, production, and marketing departments. I'm excited that I get to spend some time in each department, getting to know department heads and the ins-and-outs of each job.

As it was explained to me today, I'm going to follow a manuscript through all the stages of getting a book published. It's being edited right now, then it will go to proofreaders, then on to...actually I haven't learned that yet. Check back in a couple weeks! :)

Sweetest Job Perk: getting free(!) books that Bethany publishes. I am so excited - I may just have to catch up on all the Christian-historical-romance-fiction books I've missed out on since the 7th grade, because I'm pretty sure all the good ones were published by BHP.

I jumped right in to reading manuscripts and checking corrections made on proofread galleys. I also learned that I'm taking a proofreading test next Tuesday, and I'm only slightly paranoid. Luckily for me, my job is not hinged on whether or not I pass. Still - does anyone want to take it for me?!

My bosses also took me out to lunch - how cool are they?!

So, in conclusion, (and if you've read thus far, congratulations, you get a gold star) I am excited to have something to fill my days now. It'll be a really good look at the publishing world, yes, but also at office dynamics, something completely foreign to me. [For those that aren't aware, this is my first summer working with adults. I've been a nanny for 3 summers and a swimming lesson instructor for the 3 before that - definitely a far cry from business casual and water cooler discussion.] So I'm learning about Christian book publishing, yes, but also about me in the process. I hope to make some helpful discoveries. I'll keep you posted.