At the beginning of this year, as I was
considering my academic journey so far and where I wanted it to go from there,
I knew I wanted to get some real-life industry work experience in the arts and
literature, which would also be creative and innovative and outside the
classroom scene (much as I truly love it). I had not heard anything about
Corella Press until I was contacted by one of my university academics, Dr. Kim
Wilkins, inviting me to join as an intern for the semester. Being committed to
developing my creative writing and professional editing skills, the prospect of
getting training in a publishing organisation had a strong appeal, especially
as it was a UQ not-for-profit small press “committed to making beautiful,
collectable editions of recovered Australian nineteenth-century crime and
mystery stories”.
It was the bringing together of both my
academic interests with the creative areas I was most passionate about. I
became more thrilled by the opportunity of being trained with the team at
Corella Press, as well as interning and doing research at AustLit for the
duration of my internship (AustLit is a literary bibliographic and research
organisation at the University of Queensland).
My first supervisor meeting, where I
first met with Ms. Kerry Kilner, Dr. Catriona Mills
(of AustLit) and Ms. Meg Vann (of Corella Press), helped me appreciate the
process of cross-organisational collaboration
and partnership on a project. While this was at times a time-management struggle for me during my internship, I
observed and appreciated the professional
respect and consideration shown between AustLit and Corella staff on this
project, based on a mutual love for uncovering great
authors and literary treasures of the past. This
conversation about nineteenth-century feminist women writers inspired me in
investigating these unknown dynamic female authors
but I didn’t know how I was going to do that.
On my first day at the
office, I gained fundamental research skills, such as using the “Advance
Search” on the AustLit database and on the National Library of Australia’s
Trove. It was fulfilling to gain the skills to do more in-depth research, and
learn to dig-up articles, stories, family news and history in digitised
Australian newspapers. There is a vast array and depth of material from
Australia's literary past, and it is just waiting to be uncovered—or as I like
to say it fancily, unearthed!
In the first few weeks of
my internship, I learned about how the AustLit website functions and observed
the intensive bibliographic, research and administration tasks the AustLit team
do on a regular basis. Learning the basic principles of the expression and
manifestation of a work (FBR) gave me insight into the importance of accurate
bibliographic record-keeping and critical analysis of data. This is essential
both for preserving and uncovering Australia’s literary traditions past and
present in their diversity and complexity. An example of a time when I felt
enabled as a contributor to this recording and preserving process was when I
found on Trove the digitised stories and articles published by Leontine Cooper
under her nom de plume Onyx and added external links to all of the AustLit
entries of Onyx’s works connecting them to Trove.
Similarly, there was a
special feeling in contributing to the bibliographic database when I was able
to discover a new unrecorded story for our Corella Press by author, Jeannie
Lockett, called “An Awfully Sudden Death”, and added it as an entry in the
author’s works page.
My experience as an intern
at Corella Press was dynamic but also different from my normal academic work
and studies. Our team met up in weekly meetings held on Thursday from 2:30-5pm
led by our supervisor Meg Vann, where we broke down our production schedule
systematically over thirteen weeks to achieve our goal of transforming a
nineteenth century Australian piece of fiction into a beautiful collectable
book.
I initially struggled to
connect my work at AustLit with the weekly responsibilities and tasks required
at Corella Press. This was largely due to the academic vs. creative and
industry-focused approach each role required. However, eventually I was able to
separate the roles in my mind, and gained insights in my research that aided me
in working on both projects. This enhanced my ability to multi-task and take on
responsibility as a researcher for the Corella team, and writing the first
draft of Jeannie Lockett’s biography.
I was passionate as an
AustLit intern at Corella Press to bring my research skills to the role as an
editor and team member, do my best, and prove my ability as a creative industry
professional.
The Corella Press meetings
each week differed in focus, depending on the work required weekly for the
project, with the aim of developing our practical skills and work ethic. Some
weeks our focus was on learning how to edit and proofread, which we then had to
apply in tasks across the semester through several rounds of editing The Millwood Mystery by Jeannie Lockett (the
second book we are launching this year!). Through this hands-on process I
gained confidence in my ability to transcribe, edit and proofread manuscripts,
finding it a particularly rewarding experience.
In week 4, we learned the
rhetoric of an acquisitions meeting within a bigger publishing house, before
developing our own acquisitions proposal that we delivered to the Acting
Director, Dr. Richard Newsome.
This gave me insight into
the publishing technicalities and also our role in making authors of the past
relevant and engaging for modern readers today. This included the process of
identifying the genre of our manuscript and pitching it for a reading audience
to Dr Newsome.
One of the things I found
beneficial for my development at Corella Press was the opportunity to hear and
connect with professionals from Australia’s wider publishing industry, with
guest speakers from IngramSpark, AustLit and UQ Press.
A particular instance that
had an impact on me was in week nine when Sally Matthews from the Marketing
Team at UQ Press came and shared with us the work involved in marketing and
promoting a new release, with consideration to sales, meeting the vision of the
organisation and supporting their authors. She used a book of poetry, The Lost Arab by Omar Sakr, as a case study of the process
involved in employing social media and contacting influencers and reviewers to
get the book in the hands of the reading public. Hearing her speak of her
professional journey and her work in UQP’s marketing team positively shaped my
attitude about the possibilities I could pursue in publishing. Recognising in
myself a passion for this aspect of the industry, I was able to bring my
personal love of blogging to the team with the idea of hosting a blogtour
launch ahead of our Corella Press book-release—so hey pursue your hobbies,
guys!
Having Meg approve and
assign to me this task of co-organising the blog-tour with the wonderful Eva
encouraged me to take on responsibility in my team and feel empowered as a young
industry professional.
Truthfully, my professional
practice at AustLit and Corella Press has been transformative in helping me
develop my industry skills and confidence as a young writer and publisher in
training. It has provided me with experience to apply my academic and theoretical
knowledge into practical real-world outcomes as a researcher, editor and writer
in the related industries.
I feel privileged alongside
my fellow interns to have been involved in the cultural contribution of AustLit
as a key information resource and record of Australia’s publishing history, and
be a part of the legacy of Corella Press in preserving and uncovering unique
voices from Australia’s literary past. I am beyond thrilled to see these two
nineteenth-century works by some genuinely marvellous Australian female writers
get relived and loved by a new generation of readers.
Joy is a third-year UQ student
majoring in English Literature and History. She is thrilled, as a Corella Press
intern, to see the works of nineteenth-century Aussie female writers like Mary Helena
Fortune and Jeannie Lockett, see the light of day again and be read by
passionate readers like herself.
The books the interns were working on are:
