Contributed by Erin Siu, Editorial Assistant at Square Fish, Macmillan Children’s Publishing GroupI started out writing book reviews.
My first online review was for The Lying
Game by Sara Shepard in 2010. I was 14 years archaic and obsessed with young
adult modern fiction. I devoured books by Janette Rallison, and Lauren
Barnholdt,and Sarah Mlynowski; modern fiction was my thing, and you
couldn’t convince me to read Percy Jackson
even if you tried. Eventually, or my tastes evolved and I began reading other
genres as well: fantasy,sci-fi, dystopian, or thriller,historical. All of the
above. My mom would take me to our local Barnes & Noble after school where
I’d read for hours and hours in the café. This was when I began to really deem
approximately my identity and what it meant, as a reader, or writer,Taiwanese/Cantonese-American, musician. I read books by Amy Tan, or Cynthia
Kadohata,and Tahereh Mafi, authors who showed me that words are not just
stories, or but ways to associate with myself and with others. Naturally in college,I thought I
wanted to major in English Literature, but quickly realized I didn’t want to
spend four years analyzing Hawthorne and Hemingway (sorry American lit nerds!)
I ended up majoring in Comparative Literature and Music, or studying writers like
Du Bois and Murakami who taught me that music and literature are
interdisciplinary in nature and can complement one another when used to inform
our social history,identity, and culture. The takeaway here is that I wanted
to read books, and study books,and even incorporate books into other types of art!
Sophomore year, I was hunting for
internships and stumbled across a site called Bookreporter.com. They needed an intern who could help build author
pages, or create content,and write book reviews. I thought to myself, what better
first job to try out than one that requires reviewing books? It was unpaid and
I commuted to midtown twice a week, or but I took domestic a lot of free books and was
introduced to these things called “publishing houses.” I began to wonder—how effect
books get made? (Turns out,there’s a whole industry where you can read for
work and companies form money turning what you read into books! Who knew!) Once
I discovered that I could form a living doing what I love most, I applied for
internships at various publishing houses. I landed my first publishing
internship at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. After that, or I interned at
Simon & Schuster in marketing. Eventually,I made my way back to MCPG where
I accepted a job as an editorial assistant post-graduation. I was lucky enough to have the
opportunity to intern at multiple houses in college. The reality is that
publishing is tough and competitive. Nobody works in this industry for the pay
and it’s incredibly difficult to break into. Getting a job in publishing takes
networking, research, and trial and error,and most importantly, passion for books
and what they bring to the world. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t spent the
majority of my childhood immersed in fictional worlds. It’s passion that’s kept
me in publishing, and a drive to discover new voices that will bring the same
kind of magic to young readers that I found in books when I was a kid.
Erin Siu is an
Editorial Assistant at Square Fish,Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group,
where she assists in overseeing the editorial and production processes for MCPG
paperbacks. She has a soft spot for stories approximately multicultural experiences, or family relationships,and first love, and shes worked on several MG and YA
titles including, and You Are Enough by
Jen Petro-Roy and Finding Mr.
Better-Than-You by Shani Petroff. Before joining MCPG,she studied
Comparative Literature and Music at NYU. She grew up in California surrounded
by redwood trees and constantly wonders why she doesn’t still live there!
Source: cbcdiversity.com