Literary genius to be!

Hi everyone! I’m Caitlin, a recent college grad who majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and minored in Education. Right now I’m living in the Washington, DC area and working as a summer nanny while searching for jobs in the publishing (or more likely waitressing) field in NYC. I have no previous experience in publishing, unless you count the profanity-laced tirades my academic advisor (an author) shared with me. Publishing is a huge industry, and I’m just now starting to really get a grasp on how many jobs I’m not entirely qualified to perform, and how many different disciplines publishing houses, literary agencies, and publications deal with. My goal is to break into either editing fiction for a major publishing house or working as a literary agent at a prominent literary agency, and in the process to avoid Ryan Reynolds’s route in The Proposal (i.e., slaving away with no hope of a promotion in an executive assistant position for 3+ years before finally achieving editorial fame through blackmail and marrying Sandra Bullock’s fugly Canadian ass).

So after graduation, instead of chasing my dreams/ending up homeless in Manhattan, I took up a former employer on the offer of being a nanny to her three daughters for the second consecutive summer so I could save up some money to move to the NYC area in the fall. In my free time, I’ve been looking into jobs in the publishing field as well as just straight up office and reception work for law firms, financial firms, really any firms that needed phones answered for 30,000 a year and up. I’ve even resorted to responding to craigslist postings at times. The truth is, I am more qualified for clerical work than anything else. My education prepared me to look for themes in literature, and how to teach people to look for themes in literature. Which is a really valuable skill if I can get work as a fiction editor, or the assistant to one, and if the publishing industry wasn’t literally dying right now.

That said, I’ve found a really great resource in mediabistro.com. You have to join to see their job postings, but membership is free and I elected to receive every email they ever send out – which can be kind of annoying at times, but it keeps me abreast of current events in publishing, which might come in handy in interviews later on. Plus, if you’re willing to devote the time and shell out the cash, mediabistro hosts workshops and classes designed to give you the tools to succeed at jobs in publishing. These workshops can be really broad, covering topics such as changing careers, or they can be really specific, like a 12-session self-paced course on learning to copy edit. (These are real seminars, or I guess the term is webinars, that I found on the site today while writing this post. So if you’re interested, check them out!) Because I’m kind of lacking in the cash department, I haven’t tried out these classes for myself, and I tend to be suspicious of things like this. It’s not going to give me work experience, and I’m not sure how seriously prospective employers take applicants who have completed them. I do know, however, that mediabistro is a respected source in the community, and it was pointed out to me by someone who currently works in publishing.

So that’s what I’ve got for now – I’ve spent the last few days revising my resume and rewriting my cover letter, and I’m about to apply for a whole new round of jobs. Wish me luck! And I wish everyone job hunting right now lots and lots of luck – as Erik mentioned before me, a lot of it is about being in the right place at the right time.