Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Inaugural Post



Welcome to the brand new CALYX blog! (Margarita's apologies; she previously said that we weren't doing any blogging. We are doing some now.)
My name is Kathleen, and as part of my internship for CALYX, I’m starting a blog about what’s going on around CALYX this summer. I traveled from Minnesota to be a part of CALYX for twelve weeks. It’s hard to believe that four have already gone by. So much has already happened while I’ve been here.
Here’s one exciting announcement: CALYX got part of the NEA stimulus grant money for this year! That money goes exclusively toward salaries, which means CALYX will be hiring some new people. So if you’re dying for a job with them (and why wouldn’t you be?) make sure to pay attention to the job announcements.
This summer, there are three interns here at CALYX: Elise, Laura, and I (that’s us at the top of the page). Interns do a lot of things. We’re given long and short-term projects. CALYX depends a lot on volunteer support, and interns are essentially volunteers. Some of our duties are more ‘traditional’ intern duties: office work, mail, addressing, and computer work. The upside of working for a small press is that we get more significant projects as well. For instance, you may have noticed that I’m currently writing the only blog in the history of CALYX.
I’ve also been involved in editorial meetings, marketing and PR while I’ve been here. When one of the interns is put in charge of something, we are definitively put in charge of it. Beverly and Margarita don’t deal with the responses we get for our projects. It’s all up to us. I love that I’m trusted with that much responsibility here, and I love being able to speak on behalf of such an awesome forum for women’s literature.
One of the things I’ve been doing is keeping up with social networking and technology on behalf of CALYX. So we’ve been updating our Facebook and MySpace, and I also created a Twitter. Everyone has been especially wary of the Twitter. I’m the only current Twitter user in the office (besides CALYX!), and the charges leveled against Twitter have been numerous. I’ve heard everything from “It seems really pointless” to “I don’t understand what it’s for” to “I don’t see how anyone can update in only 140 characters”.
Well, one thing that social networking is really good for is disseminating information, quickly and to a large audience. This is especially important for organizations. Things are always happening here. And Twitter is nice because it doesn’t require a lot of time or effort. Like it or not, you only have 140 characters. Not only is it unnecessary to write more than two sentences, it’s impossible! I find it a useful exercise in brevity, and a good way to learn what’s going on in the world. So if you have a Twitter—or want one—make sure to follow @calyxpress.
Periodically, I’ll be updating and letting you all know what’s going on in my life as an intern as well as the important things happening at CALYX. Stay tuned!

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