CHSS Connection Episode 3 S2: Printing Success

  
Sonal: Welcome to CHSS Connection, a podcast where we interview different students and faculty about all things CHSS, from academics to careers to everything in between. If you're wondering who would make a podcast about the game of chess, that's actually not the CHSS we're talking about. We're referring to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences here at Mason. This is a student success podcast for CHSS students, by CHSS students. And even if you aren't a CHSS student, we're happy to have you here. I'm one of your hosts, Sonal Prakash. 
 

Zoe: And I'm your other host, Zoe Nix. This episode is once again hosted by Cadie Junker, so we'll let her take it away! 
 

Cadie: This episode, our guest is a senior English student who's been working at Stillhouse Press for over a year. Please welcome to the show Josie Slayter. Josie, thank you so much for joining. 
 

Josie: Hi, thank you so much for having me. 
 

Cadie: So my very first question for you, although this is the careers episode, I still want to ask you, can you tell us a little bit about your degree program? 
 

Josie: Yeah, absolutely. And I actually think it does kind of relate because, you know, I'm an English major with a concentration in creative writing and a concentration in literature. 
 

Cadie: Very cool. 
 

Josie: And I'm also in the dynamic publishing minor and the editorial track. So yeah, my internship is also giving me credit towards that. 
 

Cadie: Good. That's great. So as this is the careers episode, you work at a place called Stillhouse Press and I want to know so much more about them. So can you give me the rundown? Who are they? What do they do? And everything else. 
 

Josie: Yeah, absolutely. So Stillhouse Press is a book publishing press. It's a craft publisher, which means that we publish about one to two books a year, and we like to spend a lot of time developing individual books. It's run by the students in our MFA program for creative writing, with the support of alumni and undergraduate students. 
 

Cadie: That's really cool. So the MFA, that's the Masters in Fine Arts, right? 
 

Josie: Yes, that's right. 
 

Cadie: Well, just wanted to make sure I had my facts straight. How did you find them and the position that you're currently in? 
 

Josie: So I found out because I enrolled in Professor Scott Berg's Editing for Voice, Audience and Style class. And in that class you learned a lot about copy editing editorial productions, a lot about how just the industry operates. Actually, after taking that class, I volunteered to be a reader for Stillhouse where we would take in all of our submissions because this is good to clarify is Stillhouse is run by students, but we don't publish exclusively like student work or anything like that. Actually, we publish out of house and we do, you know, official contracting with the author and event coordination. We sell books. They're not like just free publication. So I signed in to be an acquisitions reader and I did that for a little bit. 
 

And then I reached out to Professor Berg and asked if I could apply for an internship position and he said that he thought I was going to be a really good fit and asked where I wanted to work. He said, “What department do you want?” 
 

Cadie: Oh my gosh, that's like the dream, isn't it? 
 

Josie: Yeah, it worked out. And I think at that point he had already known me well enough. I think if anybody else is really interested, Stillhouse is always looking for interns. But if you look at our website, which is just stillhousepress.com or yeah it might be .org, so don't quote me on that. 
 

Cadie: OK. It’s either .com or .org, you'll find it. It's fine. Just look up Stillhouse Press, click on a couple of links. What could go wrong with that? 
 

Josie: Right. But we usually publish online on the website when we're looking for interns and then we have like an application area. Also just getting in contact with the professors, if students are interested. I would absolutely recommend just taking the Stillhouse classes. There's two different ones. There's the editing one, and then there's one that teaches you how to be a reader and how you evaluate a manuscript for like quality and just kind of what we look for in marketability. 
 

Cadie: Very cool. And then what is your current position at Stillhouse? 
 

Josie: So at Stillhouse right now, I'm in kind of a cool little situation where I was really interested in publicity and I worked as a publicity assistant for like 6 months and they asked me if I would be interested in taking on a bit of a bigger position because they really like to give students who are really ambitious the opportunities to take on larger roles. So I ended up being the full on publicist for our outcoming book, Women in Marigold. 
 

Cadie: That's like my dream job. 
 

Josie: Yeah, It's been really, really cool. I coordinate with the author, I help plan events. I can breakdown a little bit the different departments at Stillhouse and how that kind of operates. There are sort of like a couple different teams. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, please. 
 

Josie: And the thing about working there is I've discovered and I think this is from my experience been true, the industry at large book publishing is you do a little bit of it all and then you do a lot of some of it. So there is acquisitions, which is the people who are in charge of picking the book right then from acquisitions. Acquisitions will be handed off to an editor, usually somebody who was involved in the acquisitions process who really fought for that book. They will then do like a little bit of developmental edits where we see if we can work with the author to adjust scenes or so forth or different. It depends on the book. It depends on the manuscript. Some manuscripts are really ready to publish as written. Some need a little bit of a little bit of love, a little bit of conversation. 
 

Cadie: TLC. 
 

Josie: Yeah, exactly. In that case, we would handle that off to a developmental editor. Then it moves to standard editorial. That's like copy edits. We send notes back to the author. They go back and make all the changes we request. Once a book is in a pretty good shape to be like the most of the contents there, the chapters are there. We're on to like more minor edits. That's when we have something called an Advanced Reader Copy ready or an ARC. That's when publicity takes over. Publicity is in charge of marketing for one specific book, basically. At least that's how it works. It's still house, so you'll develop a press kit, materials, you'll coordinate events, you'll talk with the author, and you'll also reach out for reviews. 
 

You might notice most books you read, they have like reviews on the cover on the back. And you might wonder, well, the book just got published. It just got released. So how have people already read it and reviewed it? 
 

Cadie: Right? 
 

Josie: If you've ever wondered, I can tell you it's that they send an early copy to places before it goes to print. And that's the ARC. And there will be adjustments between that digital copy to when it's printed. But I'm in charge of kind of reaching out and making sure people really hear and drum up like interest in our book. 
 

Cadie: Do you think they would need a comms person?  
 

Josie: Honestly, always looking for people. We do have a podcast, but there's somebody in charge of that right now.  
 

Cadie: I mean like for publicity, because that PR is exactly those responsibilities that you just detailed. And it's really interesting to me, like how much crossover different majors and different programs have. 
 

Josie: Absolutely. And we actually coordinate with a lot of programs outside of just the English program, which I love. We coordinate with the art program. There's a book design cover class, and we actually work with a student selected by the professor there to design the cover for our books with some professional supervision. But they pretty much take on the lead on that. 
They do the design, they do the typeface, they have to get it approved by us, and then also sometimes they get a couple notes from the author, but overall, like they get a lot of say and that's really cool. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, absolutely. Can you take us through that application and hiring process that you had to get hired at Still House? Sounds like it was more of an untraditional PAP, but. 
 

Josie: Yeah, I think something I would recommend is if you know, like, first of all, stalk your professors online, always see what they're involved in because especially a lot of our professors are involved in independent organizations. A lot of them work for Fall for the Book, which is sponsored by Watershed Lit, which is also what funds us. It's a program that is through the school.  
 

But for a more like traditional like interview process, right, I know a lot of people who work there now who did a more traditional kind of interview. I think what we're looking for usually in publishing across skill sets, we're looking for people who are great writers. But more than anything, and this is something I've heard a lot, is they want people who are social, talkative and high energy. 
 

Cadie: Fascinating. 
 

Josie: You have to really want to know how people think and talk about things to really be in the publishing world. And it's it's a job that you got a lot of work. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of constantly contact and being in events and being with people. It's not like a job where you can sort of just go to your little cubicle, but there there definitely is a certain kind of dynamic they look for. They look for people who have really multifaceted interests, people who are very dedicated to just the writing world and are involved in literary communities.  
 

I know one of our interns who actually is my kind of partner on publicity is Megan, and they are also an editor at The Forge. And I think that was a huge thing, which is a, it's a undergrad, you know? Student..  
 

Cadie: The undergrad literary magazine. I believe..  
 

Josie: No, it's not. 
 

Cadie: Or is it the research? 
 

Josie: This is the creative writing one. It's and I would promo people should submit. It's undergrad, undergrad fantasy and sci-fi writing, speculative fiction. Yeah. Anyway, so any kind of experience you can get involved, just showing how much you really love the literary community and you love writing and you love sharing, then discussing your abilities to be a strong writer and to understand just how people talk about books I think is a huge thing in terms of interviewing for publishing specifically. 
 

Cadie: It's very good to know now Stillhouse is ran with and by Mason students and so going off of that is still house employee positions and internships only open to Mason students? 
 

Josie: Yes, Stillhouse is in house. It's Mason specific press. We're craft publishers, but we're also what we call a student press or a teaching press, which is basically giving our students in the writing program who are interested in getting that editorial experience a really great place to learn and frankly to make a couple of mistakes in a lower stakes environment. But we're constantly growing. We do coordinate with a lot of external groups, co-events. Obviously we publish from authors and writers who are out of house. So that's different. But yes, it is a unique to Mason students. 
 

Cadie: Well that's great to know if you are a Mason student interested in publishing or publicity or literary, anything English related literary then maybe go check them out. 
 

Josie: Even if you're just interested in graphic design or marketing, we do a lot of work with social media. We constantly need designers, yeah. So there's all sorts of skills, technical writers, like some of our people who work here aren't even creative writers. So there's definitely a wide array of possibilities. And we're, they're very interest focused in terms of what you'll what work you end up doing. They want to make sure students are getting the kind of experience they're interested in. 
 

Cadie: What are your main duties at Still House? 
 

Josie: So when it comes to publicity specifically, most of my stuff is developing what we call our like query sheet. So this is for raising kind of interest in the book and getting word out about the book is primarily we do a lot of cataloguing and sort of just recording all the information for outreach where basically we'll send out to specific review outlets. One, for example, is like Electric Lit. They've done a few articles on our books. We have like a bajillion we send out and author also sends out to a lot so my job is also to explain to the author because we especially we don't always work with debut authors or first time authors, but we do.  
 

I think we are attractive for a lot of first time authors because we're so hands on and we do a lot of teaching where a lot of larger publishers, I feel like can be intimidating if you're just starting out, right, right. So a lot of it is also me sort of teaching like, oh, this, these are the materials we send out. This is the kind of promotion we do. This is how we handle social media. So I teach the author, I try to make sure we are on a consistent deadline, that we are making sure to promote things at certain particular points in the development of the book. So for example, when we finally land on a cover, we do a cover reveal and sometimes we'll coordinate with other outlets that want to be a part of that. They want to show like top 10 best covers of 2026 or something like that. I will also be supporting the author and doing outreach for events.  
 

Additionally to that, I do a lot of work developing the actual language of how we sell the book. I did that also for our previous book Necronauts. There are two big documents we send out. 1 is a press release. Press release is a very.. it's a little misleading if you've ever think of like, you know, a news press release is totally different. We mean, it is a book release coming out from our publishing press. It's an industry term, right? Presses and like Stillhouse Press or publishing press, right? And in this case, a press release is a document that has very specific information that has to be contained in the book. These are other things I do. We have to have an ISBN number, so that will be included. We also have a Library Congress number that also has to be applied for. So there's a process for that. Publicity takes care of that. Publicity really takes care of a lot of the nitty gritty information of the book in terms of how it's sold and, like, how it exists in various, like, archives. 
 

You know, we also sell the book to bookstores who take it in bulk. And then we have to do some like coordinating there where we call those like stock requests. But right, those two documents, the 1st is a press release, which has all that nitty gritty information. It also has the little, you know, on the back of the book, there's like a little blurb of text, cover copy, we would call that, right? So we take the cover copy that's developed by editorial, but we take that the cover copy. And then we also put some other language about the book. We decide how we're going to brand the book. That's publicity. So, for example, our book that came out this spring, Necronauts, about this March, it's kind of a kooky book. It's a little, it's a little weird, but we love weird fiction. We love anything that can't get published in a major publisher because we love giving kind of stuff that does something a bit out-of-the-box, a chance. And I think Necronauts is absolutely brilliant. By Ryan Habermeyer.  
 

Cadie: Yeah.  
 

Josie: But his book is.. I'm going to try to to give it to you just in facts and then I'll tell you how we brand it. 
 

Cadie: OK oh this is so much fun for for me as a PR person. Okay, I love this. 
 

Josie: So Necronauts is written in obituaries. So number one, it's written.. It's a story that's sort of written in obituaries about this town in Utah. It's a fictional town called Calypsy. There are photos that are sort of these black and white kind of altered photos, like faces are scribbled out. Things are odd and a little bit cryptic, and they are not every chapter, but they're associated with each of the obituaries, right? The story is also, I'm having like flashbacks to trying to figure out how to brand this book. It's also kind of a sci-fi. So there's a through line where there's a main character who kind of shows up in the various and obituaries as a background character. And then there are little interludes where he has kind of a dialogue, right? And he is called the cosmonaut boy and he wears a cosmonaut helmet. It's sort of a really vintage astronaut helmet. And I'm sure,  
 

Cadie: Oh, okay.  
 

Josie: I'm sure Ryan would be like you're simplifying it, but but to me, it's an old astronaut helmet. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, yeah. So like what Neil Armstrong had on. Just picture that.  
 

Josie: Sure, sure. But well, but it's and this isn't the text, right? It's either a cosmonaut helmet or a fishbowl. And it's left ambiguous. And it plays a lot with whether, you know, this boy in this town is kind of delusional, or maybe he's totally right and he thinks he's part alien and he's trying to launch himself into space. So now I want you to imagine me. First time publicity. I'm sitting in a chair in the dark staring at my laptop eye bags. Yeah, I'm just disassociated. 
 

Cadie: Right, right. 
 

Josie: Because I have, like, 60 words to explain to people what this book is about. So we ended up branding it, like, headline and all the subject lines of our emails, paranormal satire. And I think that does sum up the book quite well. I remember there'd be meetings where somebody in the meeting would go, like a staff meeting. They'd go, oh my gosh, who came up with paranormal satire? I love paranormal satire. And I would just sit silently like I came up with that.  
 

Cadie: It was me.  
 

Josie: It was me. No, but you know, that kind of mental work of like, OK, I read the book, I really analyze the book and I figure out what's really compelling and interesting and different about this book, what makes people want to read it. That's a big part of my job. Thankfully for our book coming out this spring, Women in Marigold, it's a collection of poetry by Mansi Dahal. It's a little bit easier.  
 

Cadie: Just a tad. Sounds like. 
 

Josie: It's it's really beautiful. It's a story, you know, a little bit kind of memoir a little bit not. 
It's about kind of growing up as a an immigrant in the United States and living in sort of two places at once is kind of the crux of the book is that she, you know, regrets leaving the people in Nepal, but also she has all these blossoming ambitions in New York. It’s a really, really beautiful book. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, that sounds beautiful. And both of those sound very interesting for very different reasons for sure. My next question for you is what does an average day at Still House look like? 
 

Josie: It's a lot of independent work and then we have staff meetings every week. So for me, it's a lot of open my laptop, I think about the notes I have in my book, and then I work on that document again. And additionally, for me, it's also just a lot of filling out that query tracker, that spreadsheet. It's a lot of coordinating with other people. We have to make sure that cause editorial and publicity are always a little bit at odds, and that's by design. Editorial wants as long with the book as possible. They want to tweak every little thing and publicity wants it done so they can send it out to many, many people. So it's a lot of checking in on things, a lot of developing language, a lot of graphic design.  
 

For me, I tend to do a lot of the graphics for our promo. We do have like a person who's designated as a graphic designer, but because she is not necessarily tied to one specific book, she's still house kind of the brand as a whole. She's also doing things like advertisements for previous books, events that are still house specific and not book specific. So for things that are tied to the specific book that. I'm the publicist for, I take on a lot of that design work. Oh, the two documents I that's what I was talking about  
 

Cadie: Oh, yes, the two documents, what is the second? 
 

Josie: The second is very text heavy, one's more graphic heavy, and that's how we sell it to bookstores. It's got the cover on it, it's much prettier. It has similar language on it, but it also talks about our marketing techniques and our strategy and the events we're going to look at. The book tours we're doing are availability for interviews, reviews, podcasts, that sort of thing. There we go. But anyway, I designed that as well. So a lot of my work has to do with, oh, we've decided to go for a different concept for the cover. OK, I have to adjust our designs a little bit to match with that. I am also writing a lot of like SOP's because, you know, we have a lot of the students graduating, so we need like, you know, operating procedures that can be handed down. But yeah, I think every day looks a little bit different depending on who, what part of still house you're working with. 
 

You're working with acquisitions. Your everyday is sitting down and reading the 1st 10 pages of a book. Acquisitions, which I that was actually where I started is so cool. When I worked in acquisitions, basically they would just give me a list of 10 manuscripts. 
You read the first 10 pages and based on a very specific set of criteria, you either give it a go on, like to continue consideration or a no, and you just continue whittling, whittling, whittling down until you have just like a certain number of yeses. Then we start going to like a ranking period, and then that's where everything gets a score out of five. Once again, on a very specific criteria.  
 

If you're in marketing, you are constantly trying to figure out what everyone else at the press is doing. So we know our timelines are consistent, so we're able to make sure that we are putting out posts right when we need to, even if in publicity. I might be designing graphics or, or various, you know, social media posts. I'm very rarely the person posting them. That usually is somebody else's in the marketing. They're also in charge of the newsletters. They spend a lot of time working on that. If you're an editorial. I also did developmental edits for a book that's forthcoming. So I won't go too much into that because it's still in development, but I got to read that book and then I would have to take a lot of time taking notes, looking at pacing, looking at the sort of message or conversation that the book is trying to kind of bring up. And I would bring notes to the person who was in charge of that book's, like overall development. 
 

We would meet, we would discuss, and then we would say what changes we believed the author had to make in order for the book to meet kind of our publishing standards. 
And to highlight that, just in case people are curious about how that kind of editorial process works, is very rarely are we saying to an author, you need to make this character do it this way. We think the mother should be this or whatever. What we're more likely to say is this character feels undeveloped and we not understanding why this character is making the choices they're making. We want more context for this. This has an internal inconsistency here. You say they have a relationship for a certain number of years later, it feels like a lot less. We need to make sure that that consistency exists throughout the book. Things like that. 
 

We want more description in these places rather than telling the author, because our job is not to write the book right. Our job is to see where the author can improve and expand on what they've already written. 
 

Cadie: Yeah. What has been your favorite memory of your time at Stillhouse? 
 

Josie: Oh, it's so hard to pick just one, but I will say there is something so special about working on a book and doing all the copy edits for the book and doing publicity and all these things and then actually saying that book printed in your hands. So maybe there was a couple moments, but we did an event at Kramer's. We actually just did one for Ryan. Wasn't able to make it to that one, but for Christina Ten’s Tell Me Yours, I'll Tell You Mine, which was a collection of short horror. Very cool. But there was something about just like seeing all these people wanting to do the reading and listening and just being so wrapped in what her work was and seeing people like lining up to buy the book and seeing her sign copies and looking back and going, wow, I did so much work for that. 
 

Cadie: Yeah. 
 

Josie: It's just there's something that makes you feel really proud. And I've.. I've loved every single one of the books I've worked on, and so it's just really wonderful seeing those get the attention that I really think they deserve. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is a brilliant way to end out act one. We're going to go into our bulletin board now where you'll hear from a resource and hear some CHSS announcements. Play the music. 
 

Rachel Lindsay: Hi everyone. I'm Rachel Lindsay, Assistant Director for Career Education at University Career Services and I'm also a two time alum of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences here at Mason. My work at University Career Services focuses on helping students connect what they're learning at Mason with career opportunities. After graduation, I developed career education resources, collaborate with faculty and staff on career related programming and curriculum, and help students build those skills and experiences they need to move toward their career goals. Today I want to talk about English as a major, the career possibilities it can open up, and some of the resources available to help you make the most of your time at Mason. 
 

One of the strengths of an English degree is that it develops skills employers need across many different industries. As an English student, you're learning how to analyze complex information, conduct research, build an argument right for different audiences, and communicate ideas clearly. Those skills matter anywhere people need to understand information, solve problems, tell stories, or make decisions. You might use those skills in publishing, editing, journalism, marketing, public relations, technical writing, communications, government, nonprofit organizations, education, or research. Some English majors pursue graduate or professional education, while other move. Others move directly into the workforce. There isn't just one career path for English majors, which means you have room to explore different options and find work that fits your interests. 
 

So how do you start connecting your English coursework to these possibilities? First, take advantage of the opportunities your department provides. The English Department's Career Pathways resources outline ways you can apply your degree in different fields, including writing and editing, publishing, technical communications, public relations, government, and education. These resources can help you move from the broad question, what can I do with my degree in English? To a more specific question, such as what does a career in technical writing look like, and what experience would it help me prepare for? Your department's major map is another useful resource because it identifies opportunities to explore throughout your time at Mason. For example, English 3O3 Humanities College to Career is designed to help students connect their humanities education with professional possibilities. 
 

The department also provides information about internships, including English 459, which allows eligible students to earn academic credit for an internship. The department's internship resources can help you explore opportunities, including those related to publishing. You can also look for ways to practice your skills outside the classroom. The department highlights Watershed Lit. as an opportunity to engage with writing and publication. Getting involved with a literary publication, contributing to student media, participating in a student organization, or pursuing an internship can help you develop practical experience while building examples of your work. 
 

And that leads to one of my biggest pieces of advice for English majors. Don't just tell employers that you're a strong writer. Show them. Save examples of the work you do. 
That might include a research paper, an edited article, a piece of creative writing, a publication, a digital project, or writing you completed for an internship or student organization. When appropriate, turn those examples into a portfolio that demonstrates your abilities. Always follow any course, employer, or publication rules about sharing work and remove confidential information. These examples should give you something concrete to discuss with employers. They also help you recognize how your skills are developing and identify the kinds of work you enjoy most. 
 

University career services can help you take the next step. Our career specific resource pages include information about industries and career areas such as media and communications, which is useful if you're exploring writing, editing, journalism, or digital content. Arts and entertainment can be a helpful page if you're interested in creative industries, writing and production, or arts related careers. These pages can help you learn about possible roles, understand what employers look for, and identify ways to build relevant experience. A career advisor can also help you explore options, strengthen your resume, prepare application materials, practice interviewing, and communicate the value of your English degree to employers. 
 

You don't have to settle on one career right away, and you could use advising to explore possibilities and develop a plan for testing them. One idea I want to address is that the English degree only leads to teaching or becoming a professional author. Those are definitely possibilities, but they're far from the only ones. The ability to research, analyze information, write effectively, and adapt messages to different audiences can be valuable in business, government, nonprofits, communications, publishing, and many other settings. The key is learning how to connect those skills to the needs of a particular role. 
 

If you want help exploring career options, finding opportunities, or figuring out how to talk about your experience with an employer, University Career Services can help. You can meet with a career advisor who specializes in your area of interest, schedule an appointment through Patriot Connect, or stop by for Drop in Advising. We offer advising in person and virtually. You can find us in the Student Union Building 1, Suite 3400, directly above Student Health Services. Our regular hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00, with additional virtual advising Sunday through Thursday evenings from 7:00 to 11:00 PM. You can also reach me directly at rlindsey@gmu.edu. Questions about career education? Your English degree gives you a foundation. The experiences you pursue and the way you communicate your skills help you turn that into a foundation for career opportunities. You don't have to figure it out all at once, and you don't have to do it alone. 
 

Zoe: And now it's time for the bulletin board. 
 

Sonal: Don't forget, spooky season is upon us. The Patriot Activities Council is hosting Once Upon a Scream. It'll be at The Ridge from 7:00 to 10:00 PM on October 22nd. Get excited for Halloween themed games, food and a haunted house. 
 

Zoe: And now, back to the episode. 
 

Cadie: And welcome back. This second act is going to be a little bit more of a deeper reflection, pulling more from your personal experiences at Still House and beyond. So our first question, I want to do a little bit of visualizing, manifesting, whatever you want to call it. And I want you to tell us about what your dream job or position would be. 
 

Josie: Oh man, it's so hard because partially I'm still trying to figure out what it is I want to do. 
But if we're talking absolute dream job, I could have exactly what I want, it would probably be project manager for editorial. These are the people who keep all of the different departments running and communicating with each other. And that's something I really, really enjoy doing because it's so fun to work on an individual book. And frankly, people even at that upper level tend to also still do some editorial work. It's not usually exclusive. I would love to help facilitate those conversations to make sure that everything is running and is going in order. You know, as much as I absolutely adore the writing and I adore editing, developmental and copy editing, even even like the kind of nitty gritty stuff, I do enjoy it. But I think just facilitating, making sure all these timelines are being met, making sure we're being in communication with an author and that this book is really getting the attention and love it deserves. I think that's really what I would love to do.  
 

Yeah. That, that's the dream job. I think a lot of people, they go into the editorial world thinking, oh, I'm just going to be able to be the person who does that kind of developmental editing with a book. And it's it's true that just very few people get to do just that because even the people who do that are also doing 10.. 15 other tasks, right? And usually not with just one book, they're working with a couple, but I would really love also to, to develop a kind of that author, writer relationship or reverse that or not author, writer, author and editor relationship where you really help them figure out kind of how they they make their book the best it can be. So being like that kind of editor as well would also be just super cool. 
 

Cadie: Absolutely. Now, with that in mind, how does your experience at Stillhouse set you up for success or to have a future position like that? 
 

Josie: Well, yeah, absolutely. I think what I love about Stillhouse is there was a world where, right. A lot of internships as an undergraduate just don't get a lot of opportunity to just do stuff. You know that you it's, it's a good and bad in that way because you there's very little risk, but you don't necessarily always get all the opportunities you would otherwise get at still house. They let they went all right, you want to know what our publicity budget is and spend our money. Go on there, kid, get ahead. You know, and it was really great. I learned a lot, a lot, a lot about how we operate and the fact that I get to talk with the author and coordinate all this cool stuff. I've learned a ton, a ton of skills and even just be honest that being surrounded by graduate students really helped me learn about applying to to masters and MFA programs. It's absolutely the reason I got the publishing assistantship in Wilmington. They actually of their applicants, they only accept 2 per year and you can only get the publishing assistantship in your first year. 
 

Cadie: Wow. 
 

Josie: Right? And then you carry it all three years. So I really made my resume a lot more competitive, but it also just gave me a lot more insight into the industry and what publishing even really looks like. Because you hear it in movies and see people talk about it and talk around it. And you can kind of guesstimate based on what you hear authors say based on what you read when you read books online. But it's really hard getting that inside information about how these things operate. And what's great about the stuff I learned is I was actually, I wasn't necessarily even going to apply to Wilmington just because, you know, maybe it didn't make it to the list of things, things I was looking at. And somebody one of the older, we actually have alumni positions as well that are like fellowships. 
 

Cadie: Yeah. 
 

Josie: People who graduate from the program. We had our one of our alumni in the fellowship, Taylor, who I love working with, she was like, you should apply here because they have great publishing experience that's linked to their program. And if it literally hadn't been for communicating with these people, I would not have this opportunity and I wouldn't be able to get even more experience. And they're great because they also a lot of professional connections like Wilmington does and still House does as well, especially with a lot of non like creative writing places, which is really cool. 
 

A lot of people think also that they have one track in mind for how they're going to do editing and writing stuff in the future. And a lot of people through that program have realized there's all these other industries and you learn a lot about just like publishing presses for various colleges and stuff. So I think it's prepared me in terms of experience. I've learned a lot about just like how to do the things you need to do, how to write pitch language, how to do queries, how to do research for that kind of thing, how to coordinate, you know, events and so forth. 
 

It's also taught me a lot about just the industry at large, kind of how things operate. And it was just a great networking opportunity as well. We went to AWP this year. It was paid for by the school, which was great. It's.. another thing I would love to highlight is being on the editorial side of things and looking at how editorial works on and develops writing and even like copy editing stuff. I don't write the same as I used to. I write totally different now after getting this experience. So also as a writer, I think it was really helpful for my success. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, absolutely. I want to switch gears just a little bit. I think a lot of us in college have a lot of anxiety surrounding the job market, internships, post grad opportunities because, well, to be honest, it kind of sucks. We apply… I'm not sure you know how many applications you put in other than the current opportunity that you've gotten. But like, I put in 15 different applications, vacations for summer internships just this far. And I've only heard back from like, I don't know, maybe six of them. And out of those six, actually, no, not even that much. I think I've heard back from like four. And out of those four, only one was like, yeah, we want to interview with you. So it's it's rough out here. With that in mind, what advice would you give to an English student struggling to find a job or internship right now? 
 

What I would recommend is talk to people.It's always more likely that you're going to make a connection through networking for these kinds of things then you are just by cold sending a resume somewhere. People want to see a face and know that you exist as a person. It just makes a greater impression. So what I would recommend to students is reaching out to your advisors, reaching out to your professors, and once again, as I said, cyber stock your professors. Find out what projects they're involved in. If you get to know them and you spend time dropping my office hours and you want to talk to them about different opportunities in the industry, look up what they've done before. 
 

Being professors like Professor Scott Berg, he did a ton of writing and editorial work. I believe he still does editorial work, but don't quote me on that, but I kind of asked him. I was like, I would love to know more about the industry and what opportunities exist. And he's actually our internship coordinator. So in general, just a good person to talk to. And they're also a lot of professors are willing to talk about like external things. Like I had a a friend who she ended up talking to one of her professors who had a connection at the Folgers Shakespeare Library. And she ended up getting an internship there because she talked to her professor and her professor knew someone. 
 

I find a lot more of the internship world these days. It's, it's saying, it's who you know, feels very cynical. And it's frankly not totally accurate, but it is who you are a human being with a face to sometimes, you know, catching people for coffee to if they if there's somebody who works at an organization and they, you know, have any kind of connection to the school or, or you can find any kind of reason to, to talk with them, sending them just like an e-mail being like, I'd love to get a coffee to learn about what you do. And that's not the interview and that's not the thing that gets you the job. But a lot of the time it's the thing that gets your name in worlds where people are listening to you or where people kind of go, oh, wait, so and so mentioned you. Oh, right, OK, you're a human being, right? Right. Because we're always going to prefer the thing we know to just, you know, as much as resume building is super important, it's really important to have good experience. When you don't have that initially and you're really not sure how to develop that, really trying to connect with people who can give you that advice and can kind of toss your name around I think is really helpful.  
 

I think that's a big part of also the professorial kind of mentorship that I think gets kind of forgotten or not as you know, as a lot of professors really do want to be there in your corner. They want to help you find work and and also bother your local grad students. That's what I do. That's what I did. Because they've got their foot a little bit closer to out the door to the general career world. And a lot of the time they're already trying to make connections and talking to people and they're usually looking back going, oh, I remember when I was a sad, sad little undergrad who didn't know what I was doing. And then yeah, I would also say if you're just looking to kind of build experience, there's always a ton of like just student volunteer stuff. And I know everyone's like, oh, volunteer, don't get paid, but it helps you in the future develop skill sets that you can put on your resume and then and then talk to people. And it's a great way to make connections all as well. Also because a lot of volunteer places run by people who also work at, you know, all these sorts of different organization. 
 

Cadie: No, I think that's excellent advice. Similar vein, I know that you have a job, but I'm sure there's still anxiety surrounding job market. Luckily you have a position lined up for you during your time at the MFA program. But I, I don't know. But with me, I'm like, I'm very much like a future thinker. And I'm like, if I don't have a solid plan for the next like 10 years of my life, then I'm like constantly worried about next. So like I, I mentioned summer internships earlier and I don't want to speak too soon, but I think the, the interview with the place went really well. So we'll see, we'll see. But like, I was thinking about it like, even if I do get that position, then I just need to start worrying about the fall. So how do you mitigate some of those anxieties? 
 

Josie: I mitigate anxieties by taking things one step at a time, you know, because as much as being a forward thinker is absolutely invaluable, like when I asked for various internships and so forth, you know, earlier in my undergrad, that was me trying to think about how will I, you know, get my name out and get experience early on. But at the end of the day, you can't always predict how things are going to turn out. I take it, take it one application at a time. You know, look at one place and once again, talk to people because you'll probably talk to professors who know you and know your skill set and know what you're good at. And they'll say stop worrying so much. You're going to do fine. And they might even you know.  
 

And the other thing is, I think when it comes to a lot of anxiety about like getting a job in the career field you, you want, sometimes it's OK to try to get a job that's like a little bit different from what you hadn't originally envisioned. Just as like a in between space before you kind of dedicate your time to applying to other places. Like there's no, I feel like a lot of undergrads, we feel like there's this and I'm probably past undergrad, but to graduate students, but it feels like there's this racetrack and you have to get these certain obstacles as fast as possible. And if you're not at this certain point in the race, you've already lost, right? Right. Everyone's too far in front of you. But there is no racetrack. There are no set times for like you are supposed to be by undergrad. If you're thinking about things, you're making an effort, you're talking to people, you're applying to stuff. 
 

You don't have to have a certain set number of internships. You don't have to have a certain kind of experience. You don't have to feel like you're an expert and X Y or Z. You know you're looking for intro level position, right? For a reason, right? And you're doing probably better than you think.  
 

Cadie: And kind of on that, no, I'm curious because you work with a primarily other Mason students, what is your favorite part about working with members of the community? 
 

Josie: Oh my gosh, I could talk about my community at Mason all day long. I love our our English program, who is who I'm mostly familiar with. I would have to come to like get a quick meeting or some with one of the grad students. So I would come up to the little English kind of grad faculty lounge and people would hear that I was applying for schools. And across the room, heads would just turn on a dime and people would run over and be like, oh, an undergrad. A grad would be like giving me like.. coaching me, giving me advice, giving me books I didn't ask for but was appreciative of anyway. Links, giving me their emails, asking me to reach out. I remember one person found out that I was thinking about applying as nonfiction and just had a spreadsheet they had made of every nonfiction MFA in the United States, and they just sent that to me. 
Cadie: Oh my God. I love that.  
 

Josie: So, I think the mentorship aspect is something that is really, really special at Mason. And even though the faculty were similar, like our faculty, when they, you know, you come in, you're friendly and you're just trying to do your best, they remember being in your shoes and they just really want you to do well because they know what it feels like to be where you are. I think sometimes I, I know other people who are actually applying to this internship that I currently have, right? They had a lot of anxiety around, oh my gosh, this professor so and so they don't know who I am. They don't really like me that much or they don't think I'm that funny or I don't know all kinds of silly stuff, right? And we're like, how can I ask for an internship or how can I ask to get coffee? How can I ask to connect? I just don't feel like, you know, I've done enough to to earn that. And first of all, you don't have to do anything to earn these professors literally helping you. It is their job and to they want to. And what I've also discovered is audacity. It never hurts to ask. Ask for everything. That's what I learned. 
 

I remember one of the interns I was working with was like, I don't know that I can ask to like apply for the internship. I'm just not sure. And I went, what are they going to say? No. And then you'll be right back where you started. So who cares? And I know like rejection can seem really daunting, but what I will say is I did not get this internship by not getting any rejections. I got told no. You get told no 100 times before you get told yes. In my case, not too, too many times, thank goodness, because I do. I, I think after a while it probably would have been disheartening. Yeah. But you know, you have to stick yourself out there and go. This is a net gain for me. I don't lose anything other than maybe getting my pride hurt a little bit if this doesn't work out. So definitely try and try and try to connect with people and to like listen to opportunities. 
 

Sometimes people will think I can't apply to this internship because it's really competitive and lots of people want to do it. So apply anyway. Obviously it's different if you're trying to consider things like application fees or what your priorities are. But if it's free, you can or or it's pretty manageable. And I think this is just generally true when it comes to like trying to either talk to people to connect or or even applying to, to jobs and internships is like, do it anyway. Do it even though it's hard and you don't know what you're doing and you don't know if you'll get a response. Because the time it works out is that miracle sometimes. And you'll never know if you don't throw your name, you know, into the ring you know. 
 

Cadie: Exactly. Well, it's interesting what you brought up about failure because I think we can sometimes think like, oh, if I get rejected from this job, then they'll constantly see my name and they'll just remember that I wasn't good enough. But I have, I have an anecdote where last fall I went on a tour of this PR agency called the Brand Guild. And we were able to sit down and interview with their employees. And one of them, you know, one of the questions was like, well, what was your path to get here? And one of the employees actually said, you know, I had applied for an internship here and I didn't get it, but I later applied for another position and I got that one. So like, even if you get a rejection the first time you apply, you don't know. Maybe you were just the runner up. Maybe you were just the silver medal and they only had spots for one person. 
 

Josie: Absolutely. I cannot emphasize what you've said enough. They once again like just talking about the grad students who I've learned so much from. Many of them, they were saying like they were second, third year, like trying to apply, like got rejected from everywhere their first year, got rejected everywhere their second year, applied three times before they got in where they needed to or got the funding they needed to. That doesn't necessarily speak to your skill set. Sometimes it is a numbers game. And if you just keep throwing yourself out there and you keep doing what little you can to improve your resume or prove your cover letter, like absolutely. 
Like it's not. I don't take failure as a reflection of your abilities as a person, right? That's not something that is a reflection of that. And that was something I really had to learn because I, I kept making mistakes or I would, you know, I would apply to a place and get a no or I would try for an opportunity and things just wouldn't work out. And I started to get disheartened. 
 

I think it's really easy to let these things get to you and decide like, no, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not dedicated enough. And it's just not true. A lot of the time it's just picking yourself off of the dust, mope for, you know, a day, get some Ben and Jerry's if it was a really tough rejection. And then, you know, you get back in the saddle. You try again. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, absolutely. The next question for you and our penultimate question, can't believe it is I actually have two that I kind of want to ask you and I'm curious which one you would prefer. 
 

Josie: Okay, let me hear them both. 
 

Cadie: Okay, the first one, what is one misconception about publishing that you would like to shine a light on? And then the second one that I have, what would you say to aspiring authors who may be nervous about publishing with an indie firm? 
 

Josie: Oh, this is so interesting. These are both really good questions. I might do just a little halfsies on each. So misconceptions about publishing. OK, I feel like there's a lot misconception about publishing. I think is that we don't care about the writing. We're just like getting whatever checking a box, right? I think that's not true. Most of us are also fans of our authors. A lot of us, especially an independent, fought for the books amidst like 500 or more applications. But, you know, this is the one I see also that it's a lot more serious than it is at the independent level. It's not that it's not serious, it's just that it doesn't always have to be so formal. You know, what I mean? Is like, the relationship with the author is often really casual. This surprised me a lot when I started getting involved in kind of processes.  
 

And what I would say to authors who are looking at indie presses, there's kind of a couple things. If they're a debut author who's not published before, what I would say is we want to do the best for you. You're not necessarily going to get as big a budget for marketing and so forth, but what we've kind of discovered is even having those kinds of things aren't necessarily an indicator that your book is going to do well. When you're in a smaller literary indie kind of publisher, you're going to have people who want your vision for the book, not their vision for the book. And I think that's rarer to find in the kind of publishing industry at large.  
 

Now, I will say if you're somebody who was published with more traditional publishers and then are thinking about publishing with indie publishers, one difference is you'll get a lot more say and stuff. We had an author who.. We let authors, and this is actually super atypical, like have a say in like which cover designs they prefer. Like we would have different concepts and they get to pick the concepts they really like and then be like, oh, we prefer this typeface versus this type of most authors. You get like two versions of a cover and they're like pick and it's already almost, you know, finished. And you know, in terms of like, oh, this is the interior design. I would really prefer something that looks more handwritten or feels more organic, you know, as opposed to something really like typewriter typeface in the book. Like those are the kinds of things that in an indie publisher, and it's probably not true of every indie publisher. 
 

I don't want to speak to the industry at large, but just generally speaking, authors get a lot more say in these things, which is why I think it's a great place for an author's first book because it's that place where you can feel so proud of what you've worked on and really feel like you had a hands on approach to that. Where I feel like an other, not to knock traditional publishing, I would love to work in traditional publishing. They just have such a only a certain amount of capacity for that kind of things. They work with so many different authors, right? But getting that one-on-one experience, I think is really beautiful. 
 

Cadie: Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful way to end this episode. Josie, thank you again so much for being here. Is there anything or anyone you would like to shout out or promote? Where can listeners find you, either on social media or within CHSS? 
 

Josie: Yeah, always got a shout out. Stillhouse has an Instagram, so definitely check out all of our stuff there. There's I think a singular social media post on there, if you really scroll, that's my photo face reveal. It's got like a little bit of info about me. We, I didn't focus on it today because I really wanted to dive into Stillhouse, but I also have done an internship editorial at In Short, which is a flash nonfiction online magazine. It's In Short Journal, non flash, non fiction. I would absolutely recommend people go check out. They publish really cool stuff, I love working for them. 

Cadie: Well, great. Thank you so much for being here. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to this episode of CHSS Connection. 
 
Sonal: And that brings us to the end of episode 3. And I've noticed you've been real quiet. But don't forget the mic works both ways. We'd love to hear any thoughts or questions you might have for future guests or episodes. Send us your ideas or even request to be in an episode by emailing us at chsspod@GMU.edu. 
 
Zoe: If you enjoyed the show and would like to express your support, there are a few things you can do. You can leave a review wherever you're listening to this podcast. You can help by word of mouth, either by telling someone directly who might be interested in the show or posting about it on social media tagging @CHSSPod. All these things help support the show and we appreciate anyone who has done so or will do so in the future. 
Thank you for listening to this episode of CHSS Connection. This podcast is hosted and written by Sonal Prakash and Zoe Nix. Our audio engineer is Danis Gabitov. Our supervisor is Eleana Velasco. This podcast is produced by George Mason University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Special thanks to the Mason Innovation Exchange for access to the recording studio. This podcast could not happen without them. 
 
Sonal: This project was developed in collaboration with Career Services and the On Campus Internship program. If you love the show and I want to interact with more of our content, follow us on Instagram at CHSSPod or check out the CHSS website where there's an ongoing library of our episodes. 
 
Zoe: Once again, thanks for tuning in and we hope you'll join us next time.