Project Bookmark Canada Internship Wrap Up

Well, friends, my life as an intern has officially come to an end. My last day of interning at Project Bookmark Canada was June 21 and, truthfully, I wanted to wait to post a final update because I had hoped I might have some exciting job news. No such luck, unfortunately, but I'll get into that more at the end of this post. For now, I'll update you on what I did since my last internship post (which you can read here if you missed it).

As I mentioned before, one of the major things I did for Bookmark was read books set in Calgary to see if any could be potential Bookmarks. I was a one woman reading machine with a goal of building a database! This was probably my favourite part of my internship - and not just because I was allowed to read all day (though that was an awesome bonus). I got to read about a city that I've never been to and visit it through the eyes of the authors. Sometimes there weren't any mentions of the city and sometimes very specific Calgary landmarks popped up (Nose Hill, the Bow River, Stampede grounds, and so on).

There were a few books that mentioned the town of Frank and the massive rock slide that demolished the city years ago (Googling...it happened in 1903). I found this interesting and so sad but I never looked into the history of it (which is why I just had to look up when it happened). The first (and, I admit, only) time I saw a picture of the slide was when author Angie Abdou tweeted a picture of her kids at the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. (If her name sounds familiar it's because I read (and loved) her novel The Bone Cage and mentioned it in my last update.) Isn't that picture crazy? This exchange also makes me love Twitter even more. Thanks for sharing the pictures and info, Angie!

Because I'm sure you're oh so curious, here's the list of books I read over the course of my internship:

419 - Ferguson, Will (good but not my kind of book. I'm not surprised it won the Giller Prize)                                        

Fishing for Bacon - Davie, Michael 

Outcasts of River Falls - Guest, Jacqueline

Feather Brain - Bush, Maureen

Man & Other Natural Disasters - Parry, Nerys

Deadly Fall - Calder, Susan

Cleavage - Bischoff, Theanna

Kalila - Nixon, Rosemary

Roost - Bryan, Ali (great novel for moms, not so much for a 26 year old)

The Shore Girl - Kimmel, Fran

Iced Romance - Boyd, Whitney

Love Minus Zero - Hahnel, Lori (a really neat book about the Calgary punk scene in the 80s)

Swallow - Bischoff, Theanna (great read)

Poltergeeks  - Cummings, Sean

The Enchantment Emporium - Huff, Tanya (if you're a fantasy lover, read this one!)

The Space Between Us - Martinez, Jessica (a really enjoyable YA read)

Queen's Park - Ryan, Garry

Cobalt Blue: Stories - Borsky, Mary

Monoceros - Mayr, Suzette

The Bone Cage - Abdou, Angie (loved loved loved)

Reading these twenty books helped me see how varied Canadian literature can be. I used to always think it was boring and/or confusing literary fiction. Don't get me wrong, some of the above books fell into that category and I struggled to get through them. Others, though, were quite enjoyable. 

Speaking of building a database, if you read any Canadian fiction and think it would be suitable for a Bookmark let me know! I can pass it along to Miranda. Or, if you're really interested in donating or helping out, visit their site and learn more about becoming involved.

During my non-working hours I also tried to read some the books that already have Bookmarks. I only managed to read three of the twelve but I think that's pretty good considering all the other reading I had to do! I read Garbo Laughs by Elizabeth Hay (the Bookmark is in Ottawa. I briefly saw while driving by when I was visiting my friend in April), The Queen of Unforgetting by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (this is the book set in Midland, my hometown), and Sailor Girl by Sheree-Lee Olson (this Bookmark is in Port Colborne, near Niagara Falls). Reading these books, especially the latter two, really made me realize how awesome Project Bookmark Canada is. I was so excited when places I knew popped up in the books. The more Bookmarks we have in place, the more novels, poems, and short stories we can highlight, and the more cities and towns we can celebrate. (Yes, I notice that I'm still using "we"...) When I was reading Sailor Girl, a book that has the main character working on ships, I was really excited when Midland was mentioned. So much so that I had to take pictures:

I went to Port Colborne the weekend after I finished reading the book and knew I had to stop by the Bookmark. I think being able to do that is just so cool!

Another little perk, other than being able to work from home and read books all day, was getting a Bookmark t-shirt!

Don't I look snazzy? :)

Over the last couple of weeks of my internship I did more admin stuff for Miranda (more accounting type things that really made our brains hurt), more researching (I learned about Library Way in New York City), and thought up some ideas for a project Miranda is working on (secretive, I know, but I'll share as soon as she launches it!).

So, where am I now? I've been unemployed for the past week and haven't had much luck jobwise. I had a brief spike of hope when I had a prescreening phone call for the job I really wanted but that seems to be all I was going to get. There are still two other jobs I'm waiting to hear about - one is in publishing and one is back in non-profit. I think it's because I had a few options that I've been able to treat this unemployment as a vacation of sorts. I haven't become too bummed out yet but there are definitely moments that I wonder what the hell I'm doing and if I'll ever be able to find a job I really love. It's been nice, though, that the weather has been hot and I've done lots of reading - since the 21st I've read four books (I really thought it was more, lol). But, I'm trying to stay positive and am looking forward to some more reading time. I'm also going to try to work on my blog a little more - more scheduling posts, more posts that aren't just reviews, and maybe some design changes. And I'm hoping I'll finally have time to read Miranda's book of short stories!

Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me though this crazy journey. My friends have listened to be ramble on about not knowing what I want to do with my life and being worried that I won't find a job...ever. My family has done the same while also providing much needed advice and money. Finally, my poor boyfriend has put up with me when I was super tired from the ridiculous commute to Toronto, he made sure I had food to eat, and also dealt with my super chatty self when I was working at home alone all day (as bunnies don't make for good conversationalists). Thank you to all of you. I couldn't have made it through all this without you! Keep your fingers crossed for me! Hopefully I'll have some good news to share soon. :)

Time for an Internship Update

I'm nearing the end of my internship at Project Bookmark Canada but I wanted to give an update before my final wrap up post. Truth be told, I started this post about two weeks ago but just didn't have the time to finish it. Now instead of six weeks left I have four...maybe. I'm not entirely sure when my last day is! So far, things have been really great. I've been doing a lot of reading and researching, with the odd admin days thrown in. I've got lots of pictures to share that will help tell the story of my internship so far, so let's begin!

So, this is a Bookmark! This is the one that's in my hometown of Midland (bonus points if you're from Canada and know where that is...points not applicable to family and friends) that had recently been graffitied (er, how exactly do you spell that?) The book the excerpt is from is The Queen of Unforgetting, a great read. My sister had given me the heads up that it had been tagged, I told Miranda, and she asked if I would be able to clean it the next time I visited my mom. No problem! We made a family event of it - my mom helped me clean it, my sister took the photos, and my stepdad supervised and pointed out spots we'd missed. As you can see we successfully cleaned it! Yay us!

The main part of my position right now is reading. Specifically, reading books set in Calgary (so if you know of any, let me know!) It's been really interesting and I'm enjoying the fact that I'm recognizing certain landmarks and roads as they come up in multiple novels. It's actually making me want to visit Calgary! My library card is getting quite the workout and so far I've only had one late book. Oops! It was bound to happen with the number of books I have checked out! What I've loved about this is the fact that I'm reading so much great Canadian literature. I went into this internship without much experience reading Can Lit but I've really enjoyed many of the books I've read so far. My favourite definitely has to be The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou. It's about a wrestler and a swimmer who are trying to make it to the Sydney Olympics and is such a good read.

One of the great things about this internship is that I get to work from home. It's a nice change from having to embark on a two hour commute, one way, every day to Toronto. I did have to venture into the big city for a meeting with the lovely Amy from Penguin but it was oh so worth it. I got to pick her brain about social media and then she brought me back to the office and threw some books at me. Not bad for a day of work!

I mentioned having to do some admin stuff. I've gone to Hamilton to work with Miranda at her home office a few times so far. The first couple days I went we organized and shipped off books and Kobos to winners from our recent Page Turner campaign. As you can see from the above pictures, there were a lot of books to mail out! I've also helped her with some bookkeeping stuff (and let me tell you...two bookish people trying to do accounting stuff is pretty funny) and receipting, which I'm used to with my background in nonprofits.

So there we have it. Once I finish my twelve weeks, I'll give you more of my thoughts on the overall experience. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life and I've come close to having a meltdown over the past week but I'll figure it out. Here's hoping I have some good news in my final intern wrap up post!

My Life as an Intern

A lot of you knew that I had been doing an internship for the past twelve weeks. This came about because of the publishing courses I'm taking online through a university in Toronto. I had been thinking for awhile that I wanted to see what the publishing world was all about and I finally decided that it was now or never, applied for a few internships, got hired at Random House (more freaking out about that to come), quit my job, and prepared for the most ridiculous commute ever. 

I had my last day last Friday and, as I write this on Monday night, it still hasn't really sunk in that I'm done. For the last twelve weeks I was working at Random House of Canada. RANDOM HOUSE, PEOPLE! This is a publishing house that even non-obsessive readers recognize. They're a big deal. And I got to work there for twelve weeks. Amazing. 

The RHC imprint sign in the lobby

I had a lot to think about before deciding to do an internship. It wasn't just a matter of quitting my job and working for a ridiculously small amount of money. No, it was quitting my job to work for a small amount of money while spending more than that small amount of money to travel two hours to the internship. I had to drive 45 minutes to catch the train, spend 50 minutes on the train, and then walk 10 minutes to the office. I'm sure I was known around the office as the Insane Intern. Oh, and to get to work on time I had to make sure I was up at 5:30 am. Thank goodness for the Gilmore Girls reruns airing at 5 am. No surprise, I was absolutely exhausted at the end of my internship. Just completely wiped out. But I'm glad I did it. Even if I don't remember what it's like to be fully rested.

So what did my internship involve? A lot of mailing. The bulk of my days were spent sending books to professional reviewers (newspapers, magazines, radio stations). Sometimes they were ARCs, sometimes they were finished books. They could also be cerlox bound manuscripts that my fellow intern and I had to bind. We actually didn't mind binding the odd manuscript because it was oddly relaxing. Except for the 900+ page manuscript the new intern and I had to bind during my last week. I'm pretty sure I'll start twitching when I see that finished book in store!

I also got to help out at a few launches. I admit, I didn't jump at the chance to do as many because I lived so flipping far away. Luckily, the two publicity assistants we were receiving direction from were more than understanding. My first launch was for The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert. I actually got to go to some Indigo stores the day of the launch with the author and one of the assistants so he could sign stock. Very cool. Both that launch and the launch for The Juggler's Children by Carolyn Abraham were held at Ben McNally Books - an awesome indie bookstore in Toronto. These launches consisted of greeting people, pouring wine, and making sure crackers and cheese were always at hand. The third launch I helped out at was for I Am So the Boss of You by Kathy Buckworth and was held at Loblaw's in the old Maple Leaf Gardens. We wore super unattractive uniforms and were on guest list check. BUT I'll always have a soft spot for this night as it was the night I had my first celebrity sighting - David Sutcliffe (aka Christopher from Gilmore Girls) was in the store that night. Very cool.

Stacks of books I had to send to various reviewers

Time to talk about the bookish awesomeness of this internship. I was surrounded by books. Sometimes quite literally (see the above photo)! I felt totally behind sometimes because I was only just learning about some of the spring 2013 books and people were already talking about fall 2013 books. Speaking of talking about books, this was the place to go if you wanted to chat about a book you had read. I did a quick count the other day and I think I took home between 25 and 30 books during my internship. This is not a large number as there was a previous intern who apparently had six boxes of books to cart home when she was done. Of course, I'm not sure where I'm going to put all those books or when I'm going to read them all, but I have them!

The books I was able to take out of the book room on my last day

I mention the book room in the caption in the above picture. That was probably one of the most glorious places in the whole building (though some people had shelves full of books that I would probably hurt someone to get.) Almost all the new releases were kept in the room, organized by publicist. So, if Publicist A  asked me to mail a book to Reviewer B, I would go to A's shelf in the room and pull a book from there.

So, now that I'm all done my internship the big question is...was it worth it? Yes, I think it was. The long days just about killed me and I don't know how my boyfriend was able to put up with me near the end (thank you thank you thank you). But I got to meet SO many people and I really did learn a lot. I think I've discovered that I'm a bit of a passive learner - I learn by watching and doing what I'm asked and I don't always think to ask questions. Note to self: work on asking questions. I definitely didn't want to leave. The people were great and it'll be weird not seeing them every day. Of course, they're used to it. Interns come and go constantly and in all departments, so it was sometimes hard to feel like I totally mattered, you know? At the end of it though, I'm so glad I took a chance. If nothing else, I can now say that I worked at Random House of Canada for 12 weeks. Not many other people can say that.

Last week, a post went up on Retreat by Random House that my fellow intern, Caitie, and I wrote. We each came up with five things we learned as publicity interns. Some of the things I mentioned here are in that article as well, but I hope you'll check out the other points.

Now, you're probably wondering "what's she going to do next?" right? OK, if you weren't, just play along. I was searching for jobs and starting to get a little stressed but as of Monday I am the new intern for Project Bookmark Canada. It's an awesome bookish nonprofit that is putting Canadian literature on the map, literally. They put plaques (bookmarks) in the exact locations where literary scenes take place. Pretty cool, eh? I'm starting with some research this week and then I'll dive right in next week. I'm really excited and can't wait to share what I've learned there. Stay tuned!