My career in publishing began almost fifteen years ago as an editorial assistant for the Alaska Quarterly Review. Since then, I’ve filled many different roles and gained experience in every step of the process, all the way from a publisher’s initial acquisition of a new project to a librarian’s final weeding of the last, worn-out copy.
I currently work as a production associate for Book Buddy Media—a publishing services company specializing in educational products for international K–12 markets. My roles there include project management, developmental and copy editing, fact checking, and layout and design. On my own time, I volunteer as copy editor and a poetry reader for Cordella Magazine and as a poetry reader for Psaltery & Lyre, in addition to editing a forthcoming revised edition of the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Jewish Library Handbook.
Previously, I spent two years at Atla Open Press as scholarly communication coordinator, serving also as the primary copy editor, sensitivity reader, and designer/layout editor for four serials publications and a monographs program producing three books a year. Across these roles, I kept multiple teams on schedule and provided technical training to editors and authors on the use of Editoria, Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Monograph Press (OMP), and other open access publishing tools. As a specialist in this area, I was tasked with evaluating and implementing new digital tools for online publishing and accessibility and served as liaison to the software development team at the Coko Foundation. My technical background also allowed me to lead a transition into direct HTML publication of online journals, as well as initiatives to improve the accessibility of EPUB outputs for monographs—a project I presented on at the Library Publishing Forum. Through close communication with the editorial boards, I distilled all of these working processes into formal, publicly accessible documentation shared back with the larger open source publishing community and helped to identify points for improvement in efficiency and best-practices compliance. Through my position on the association’s DEI Committee, I was also able to advise editorial boards on equity and inclusion issues in Atla’s house style guide.
My freelance, volunteer, and other work over the years has also included work in government, public, and school libraries (I hold a master’s degree in library science), co-founding and editing poetry for P. Q. Leer, an internship with Feminism & Religion, service as a guest editor for various literary magazines, providing manuscript development services for nonfiction and academic works, and translation for projects ranging from French instructional videos to Austrian marketing campaigns.
Though I don’t take as many side jobs as I once did, my freelance shingle remains hung for good causes and interesting challenges. If you have either (or both), do reach out.