| Back to Home > Bulletin Board > Beginner Issues > Topic: Looking to join literati...with lowbrow résumé. |
Topic: Looking to join literati...with lowbrow résumé.
| Author | Message |
| pulp fiction | Posted – 3/9/2008 6:01:40 PM | show profile | email poster I'd like to pursue an editorial job in literary publishing -- either with a book publisher or literary magazine -- but am worried my background won't be up to snuff. I have editorial experience, but none in the type of publishing that interests me. In college, I was fixated with becoming fashion writer. I did a few journalistic internships, including two in fashion publishing, the last of which resulted in my first job after graduation -- a writer/editor/reporter for a small (and, frankly, flaky) fashion magazine. What can I say? It was a phase. But if nothing else, it showed me what I'd truly much rather be doing. Since then, I've tried to refocus my career by working as a personal assistant to a moderately successful author and freelance journalist, managing his website, helping with book research and proposals, etc. But now I'm looking for a publishing job and don't know if I stand a chance. -Problem I: I've never had a bookish internship, and can't forsee having the money to work for free anytime soon. -Problem II: I'm also not sure how to handle my publishing past; I feel as though prospective employers will Google me, see the ridiculously breathy prose from my fashion days, and write me off from the get-go. To be clear, I'm not ashamed or defensive about those days; I feel as though I could coherently and confidently tell an interviewer about how I got to that place, and what I took away from it. But I'm afraid I won't even get to the interview stage because I just don't have the right kind of experience; my single saving grace is the one year I spent as EIC of a campus poetry mag in college. I guess I'm just wondering how to make my résumé more relevant and less laughable. Thanks for listening! |
| pulp fiction | Posted – 3/10/2008 4:14:43 PM | show profile I guess another way to put it is: Should I lie? It seems that by leaving my year in fashion off my résumé and pretending to have graduated a year later, I will appear more focused on literary endeavors... But I was also assistant to the EIC then, and received a promotion... |
