Katie 2.0

So the reason I haven’t posted for almost two months is that I suddenly got very busy doing something very important: finishing my college degree! I am now an alumna of Northwestern University with a BA in English Major in Writing–Fiction and a Business Institutions Minor. There was no special ceremony, but I did throw a (Santa) hat under the iconic arch:

Thank you to everyone who has supported me, cheered me on, and believed in me throughout my entire student career. I’ll be honest, I still don’t know what a life is without exams or papers, but I’m looking forward to finding out how it works. For starters, I’m looking for jobs in the publishing industry, ideally as an editorial assistant at one of the publishing houses. If you know of any openings, let me know!

I’m also available for freelance manuscript edits. Check out my new “editing” page for more details on pricing and experience; if you have a novel you want feedback on, I’m your girl!

Finally, I wanted to link to a recent podcast interview I did with my friend Mia. It’s about our experiences as literary agent interns, so a lot of the information is stuff you’ll find in my blog archive, but it’s a good opportunity for a refresher, plus you get to hear what I allegedly sound like!

AWP Conference and PROMPT

I’m off to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ annual conference! With over 9,000 attendees and 270 different panels, it is going to be overwhelmingly awesome. I am focusing on the seminars about changes in publishing, about the Chicago publishing landscape, and about running literary magazines.

My interest in that last one is fueled by my involvement in PROMPT Magazine here at Northwestern. We’re a lit mag and writing community, and in a couple of weeks, I take over as Editor-in-Chief. We’ve been very productive this quarter, so while you wait for me to collect wisdom at the AWP, I highly recommend checking out what PROMPT has to offer–even if you’re not a student at Northwestern.

For example, we hold quarterly contests as well as quarterly submissions, so we’ve been publishing a LOT. It’s amazing how talented writers are at Northwestern.

We also offer tutorials every other week, and this quarter we started filming them. So far we have up “An Introduction to Science Fiction” and “How to Write Query Letters.” You can find them under the “Media” tab, or search on YouTube for “PROMPTlitmag.”

Our current editor-in-chief also started a podcast series this quarter. In the first episode, she interviewed writing professor Brian Bouldrey about writing, teaching writing, and all the other things he’s done with writing in his life. In the second episode, some of our writers read their pieces out loud. And in the third episode, she and I went around Northwestern shoving a microphone at people and asking them questions about what they read. (I don’t actually speak, but you can hear me laughing in the background of a couple of answers). The podcasts are also listed under the “Media” tab on our website, and you can find them also on iTunes if you search “promptpodcast.”

And if that’s not enough, here’s an article discussing the economic role of literary magazines in the writing market. (PROMPT doesn’t pay because we’re a magazine by students for students.)