Hi, blogosphere. I wanted to let you know about some of the projects going on around here this month (and ruminate on interconnectedness)!

Even though we're not always open for submissions, it seems like we're always getting ready for something around here. At the moment, I'm involved with a number of different tasks that will culminate in CALYX events. I'm following up on promotion for our poetry manuscript prize, which will lead to Oregon women writers sending us submissions. Eventually, someone who learns about this contest will be published by CALYX Press... and that's definitely important!
We've also been preparing for the CALYX Glitterati, the annual fundraising event we host every year. Seeing how many different people and businesses get involved in such an endeavor is really amazing. And the somewhat abstract work I'm doing on it now will eventually be put to use in an actual, physical event. (I'll be back in the Midwest when that happens, though, unfortunately. That is one of the strange things about being just a summer intern: I'm planning for all these things that I won't be around to see!)
It's really nice to work in an industry where even small things are big things. Suppose we send out an acceptance letter for a poet in the next journal. Sending this letter out takes a couple minutes, at the most. With technology, everything moves even more quickly. This isn't the nexus of a day at CALYX-- but getting an acceptance letter, maybe a first ever acceptance letter, from a respected and established literary institution could quite easily make someone's day.
See? Interconnectedness. I have no authorial ambitions, but it's so wonderful to be a part of a network of authors and writers. It's a good feeling to know that people can be everywhere, doing different, important things, and still be a part of the same collective experience.

By the way, I mentioned before that there would be a job opening at CALYX because of the stimulus money. The time for that statement to come to fruition is now! Go to http://corvallis.craigslist.org/npo/1320104337.html to see what you would need to do to work for CALYX.

Thanks for listening, e-world!
Kathleen

From the desk of Elise Filka, intern extraordinaire

Oh, the joys of being a CALYX intern! This is my last day (actually last HOUR) of working here and I have been forced by everyone to write up a little thing for our blog, so I hope this will suffice. I remember my first day, I was fresh off the plane from Michigan, had never been farther west than Minnesota, and I was a little shell-shocked. But Beverly and Margarita were very warm and welcoming, they dealt kindly and patiently with my ignorance of just about everything, and since then have taught me so much about feminism, literary journals, and book publishers. As for my daily tasks and projects, though, I remember thinking that working on things like packing letters and other little tasks was like doing a clerical job but actually enjoying it. There is always this underlying sense in you here that what you are doing actually matters somewhere out there in the world. It also helped when you were addressing letters to famous writers/publications. It will, indeed, be weird when I have to go back to another rewardless job and won’t have things to look forward to like emails from authors and bookstores. I think that if you are any decent mix of literary nerd/ feminist/women’s studies person you will absolutely love to work with the marvelous women here at CALYX.