How to Proceed

Good Afternoon All,

It's great to write to you on this beautiful Summer day. But, I have to admit, I have been running into a few challenges lately.

One of the challenges of changing careers is finding opportunities to freshen up, your repertoire that is. An interesting hiccup of trying to achieve this in publishing is that many of the internship opportunities I am seeking, particularly in the children's editorial field, will only take on "college students" for their internship programs.

Now, this is not because the publishing industry is ageist, nothing like that. It's because there are laws in place to protect workers from being taken advantage of. Laws that say when you work, you need to be compensated. But, since many publisher's don't want to shell out cash to pay their inexperienced interns, they shell out college credit instead. For an undergrad, this is a fantastic solution. However, for an experienced professional like myself, it's quite a road block.

The good news is that there are alternatives like taking on an internship at a literary internship, much like I did, or working for a newspaper or magazine. Again, great options, but my goal is to get IN HOUSE EXPERIENCE WITH A CHILDREN'S BOOK PUBLISHER. Hmmmm. On the one hand I have a great background that lends itself nicely to a career in publishing, however, on the other it's I have gained no in house experience that would make me more appealing to them.

As always, I will have to be creative and resourceful, and eek out ways to get around these silly little rules. If only I had a full-time entry-level position, then I could afford to take graduate-level publishing classes that would allow me to qualify for the internships. But with nearly $40K left in school loan debt from my previous career, it seems unwise to continue stacking on that pile. Perhaps I can find a relevant grant or scholarship? A good idea indeed...

~Michelle In Turn