When I was 16, my favorite class was creative writing with Judith DeWoskin at Community High School in Ann Arbor. I worked for three years on the school’s literary rag as well as taking a wide range of English classes including Chinese lit. I graduated with seven and a half years of English credits. I was filled with dreams of being a writer. I believed that writing was 90% natural creativity and 10% cool. It didn’t occur to me that writing was work. And craft. That technique could be learned. That ideas were more than natural creativity, they were also the result of life experience.
With those beliefs firmly rooted in my young mind, I looked around me. My friend Natalie was a better writer than I was. Hands down. So was Colin, another classmate. I made the assumption that if I wasn’t the best writer in my high school, I would never “make it.” But I still wanted to work in the writing world. I evaluated my options and decided I would become an editor. I could learn the rules of writing and help others. I could provide feedback about early drafts. I could manage publication schedules. I knew all of that from working on the literary magazine. I wasn’t down-hearted. I was excited. I had a plan for my life!
I went off to MSU and majored in English. To be an editor. To work in publishing. I placed into Honors English my Freshman year and I was ecstatic. For several years I studied and wrote and was never the best in the class! But I liked it. I admired my classmates in the MFA program. I accepted without question that they were just a little bit better than me. Smarter. More creative. Cooler. And that was OK because I was going to be an editor.
Sometime late in my junior year, I learned the hard truth that most publishing happens in big cities. I didn’t realize that plenty of publishing still happens in run of the mill, medium-sized towns. Unwilling to ever live in a big city (I grew up with cows meandering into the backyard, even if my father is a college professor), I changed career goals and applied to archives programs for grad school (that’s a combination library science and history degree). I was derailed for awhile, but eventually I became a librarian.
I’ve been blogging as well as doing a little “real” writing for 15 years, but as a diversion from my occupation. I long ago forgot that carefully planned, carefully cultivated, carefully worked-for, dream. Today, I ran smack into that high school plan when I realized that I can genuinely be called an editor in my current position.
It’s not a fancy-pants literary magazine. It’s not even a trade journal. It’s my library’s bi-monthly newsletter. But it was defunct when I took the idea of re-booting it to management in 2014. I called editors of state library newsletters all over the country to get their advice. I signed up for a dozen of their publications to get ideas. And our readership has grown to over 6,700, almost 3X that of our most popular listserv. There are journalists and editors of Michigan newspapers signed up to receive it as well as staff at other state libraries – who now get ideas from us! And sometimes ask if they can re-publish our material to their own audiences. I have a boss, of course, who OKs every issue before it goes out, but the newsletter is really my baby. I drive the train on theme and content and there is no back-up, it’s essentially a one-woman show. I only write about three articles a year, so that’s not where I come in. It’s in cultivating content and putting it together on time, time after time, as promised. Working with authors. About half the articles are by staff at libraries around the state talking about their struggles and successes, the other half about the goings-on at the state level. This issue we had an article about a pay-it-forward coffee bar in a library. It was really cool. Recently we published about a social justice story hour. And my job as editor gets writing into the hands of staff and citizens who are genuinely interested in libraries.
Realistic, attainable, manageable dreams are sometimes the most fulfilling. I don’t dream about visiting Mecca or the Vatican City. That’s too big a plan for this small town girl. I prefer The Hermitage when I need a spiritual boost. I don’t dream about a bigger house, although I would like to have a more convenient set-up for recycling in my 1950s kitchen. And I’m thrilled to realize that I have fulfilled this 20 year old dream. Because it was real. Then, and now. I am a legit editor of a publication that is genuinely successful for what it sets out to do. Realistic. Attainable. Manageable. And I made it happen. High Five, Natalie!
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