Placement at Luath Press

Cluttered into an attic at the top of several flights of stairs, Luath Press, located only a couple of doors short of Edinburgh Castle, represents a small but impressive publishing house. Luath Press publishes a wide variety of books, including, but not limited to, poetry, travel, fiction, and history. During my time there, with the approaching Scottish referendum looming large on the horizon, they were particularly focuses on their political line.

Their tiny but bustling office frequently plays host to a large number of people over the course of the day – part time staff, interns, deliverymen, authors, and others all hurry in and out of the building. Despite all the apparent chaos, things still manage to get done, and beneath all the hectic hurrying lies a cool determination that allows the staff of Luath Press to pull everything together in the end. Indeed, in my two short weeks there, four books were launched in association with Tradfest, and I watched a number of books continually develop before my eyes.

On my first day in the office the owner, Gavin MacDougall, presented both me and the other intern, Emily, with an extensive checklist of tasks to attempt to complete over the course of my placement. Some of the things I was able to complete included creating AI sheets, press releases, blurbs, and evaluating manuscripts. The staff were so friendly and helpful, and so patient with my frequent questions, that my nerves quickly faded as I fell into the fast pace of the office. I quickly learned to keep a checklist by my elbow at all times, and to multi-task as was required. There was also a handy list on the shared server, updated frequently by the full-time members of staff, of things they needed doing if they hadn’t given us something specifically. Besides my checklist, my other constant companion was a nice cup of tea, which, to dismiss the stereotype of the internship experience, I was not requested to make once, but was offered frequently! I always found myself at the end of the day surprised by what I had accomplished, and what a wide variety of tasks I had managed to work on.

My placement at Luath Press was a great experience, with the friendly staff creating a welcoming environment that allowed me to try things I had no previous experience with, and to gain confidence in a number of areas. It really demonstrated how an actual publishing house functions day-to-day, and put into perspective the theory aspects I had learned through the MSc Publishing course. It was a pleasure to be there! (x)

Right after getting back from Majorca, on Monday, I started my placement at Luath Press Ltd., as well as returning to school, starting two crazy busy weeks for me.

The office was so close to the castle, which gave some lovely views, but did mean that I had to get through hordes of tourists to get into work every day.

The one day however, they sent me out to deliver some copies of the books, and I took a short cut through the Meadows, which were absolutely gorgeous.

My walk home from work that day was also gorgeous - Edinburgh in spring is filled with green grass and blooming flowers.

Real Life (Update)

So last Thursday marked the end of a lovely, if unproductive, two weeks of watching a lot of movies, reading a lot of books, and hanging out with friends (some highlights include the day I did not see a single other human being, the day Melissa and Alix and I had a movie night - watching The Cabin in the Woods, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Bon Cop, Bad, Cop - going to the National Museum of Scotland with Eve, Becky, Melissa, and Alix before going back to Melissa's place for pancakes, where Leanne joined us...

Becky's penguin was enjoying the catapult game

And Alix was giving me sass

... and Melissa, Alix and I getting Starbucks, going shopping, and then having a girls night, complete with wine, facemasks, and painting our nails).

Alix and I split a pair of cool earrings from H&M (my necklace is also from H&M)

Nails! (and wine!)

Face masks ;P

I also had to scrape out the freezer, which was starting to resemble more a glacier than a freezer. David walked into the kitchen when I was scraping ice out onto a towel with a spoon and he just looked at me and asked if I really missed Canada that much.

*just like home*

Thursday was just a quick meeting in which we learned which live publishing projects we would be working on this year. We were divided into two groups, one of which will be coming in all day Tuesday and one of which will be coming in all day Wednesday (my group). I volunteered to be co-Project Manager of my group, so, along with Camille, I will be in charge of managing all of the departments and signing off on any major decisions. While I am kind of nervous, I am also rather excited.

The projects which we are doing were chosen out of all the publishing projects that were proposed (mine was a reprint of The Turn of the Screw, which was not chosen) the board of Merchiston Publishing chose four to go ahead with, though not all four will necessarily end up being published, depending of course on budget and time. Both the groups and the books for each group were assigned, and then we decided on roles. First we choice the project manager, two for each group. Then people choose which department they wanted to be in (they could be in multiple departments but had to also pick their primary department that would take their priority). Camille and I also had to join depts so I joined production (which will include design and digital). The departments were: editorial, production, marketing, finance, and rights. Then people volunteered to be department heads, and we ended up having to vote on the dept heads for editorial and prod.

View of the courtyard (finally no scaffolding in way of the view)

Friday we received our grades for two of our final three assessments from last term (passed both, whoo!). We then attended a rather mind-numbing orientations for both our dissertation and placement modules. I am quite excited for both modules, though our dissertations don't actually start until next trimester, I tentatively am thinking of writing on censorship in YA literature through parents, schools, and publishers (this will need to be better thought out, obviously, and I need to pick a country to focus on).

Friday night I ended up making gingersnaps at like midnight, which was fine, because I also FaceTimed with Logan, Connie, and Brad for three hours. It was Logan's birthday Saturday (happy 21st bro!) so Connie and Brad had gone down for the weekend - Logan and Dad had been skiing that day, so I chatted with them while dinner was cooking, all the way through to dessert (and my final batch of cookies).

Yup. He's an adult.

Gingersnaps (this recipe comes to me from Connie, who got it from Brenda).

3/4 c. of butter
2 c. sugar

Cream together

2 well beaten eggs
1/2 c. molasses
2 tsp. vinegar

Stir in

3 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2-3 tsp. ginger (I go for the full three but I'm a big fan of spicy gingersnaps)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves

Sift and add

Mix ingredients until blended. Form dough into 3/4" balls. Roll in sugar. Bake on a greased cookie sheet (or on parchment paper) about 12 min.

In the UK, they don't typical measure using cups, tsp, tbsp, etc. Instead, they measure everything by weight. While there is a scale that came with my kitchen, I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of converting all my cookie recipes into weight, so I went and bought myself a set of cups and tsp/tbsp measuring spoons. However, when I opened the butter, instead of markers indicating a cup, there were ticks for 50g. *sigh* So I guessed. They also call baking soda bicarbonate of soda and you can't get it at a lot of the smaller grocery stories, which, considering that those are mainly were I shop, caused me to think that you just couldn't get baking soda in the UK. I still complain about it a lot.

Saturday I was supposed to go to the Writers Museum with Kate, but it was raining, so we decided to postpone. I had a lot of people over for Burns Night that night - more on that on my next post.

Yesterday was my first official day of classes, which involved a class for Publishing in Practice (the module in which we are publishing the real live books) which was mostly talking about finances, followed by the Placement module tutorial, in which we just answered any questions we had left about our placements. So Monday I have PIP from 2-3 every fortnight, and then Placement and Dissertation modules from 3-5, on a rotating schedule (so next week on Monday, we will not have PIP, but will then have the Dissertation tutorial). Tuesday I do not have classes, then Wednesday we are in from 9-5, with a board meeting at 10, working on our publishing project. Thursday I have my optional module, Interactive Media, from 10-1. And no classes Friday. So a pretty awesome chill schedule. I have decided not to try for a part time job this semester however, both because it is better to have a more flexible schedule for the placement, and also because I am a Project Manager which will involve more time and responsibility.

So for our placement module, our placement is about ten days, though it can be more or less, and involves self-assessment, making learning goals, and an assessment by our supervisor wherever we go for placement, which we get to choose off a list on the MSc Pub page if you want to check it out. I'm not quite sure what we will be covering for the class on the placement, nor the one for the dissertation, and I haven't had my Interactive Media class yet, so I will keep you updated on all of that!

My hair is getting longer and longer! Also £1 necklace FTW

Induction (Duh Duh Duuuuuuuuuh)

Attended induction at my university today (and doesn't that sound like I'm joining a cult) which was both a lot more and less than I was expecting from the day. I don't actually matriculate until tomorrow, which means that I am still without a matriculation number, student ID, or a class schedule, though I do have a much better idea of what that schedule might look like now.

If you want to go to my programs website, by the way, this is the link. 

I found out that the program does several very cool looking trips over the course of the year, the first being a three day, two night excursion to The Burn in October, with a stopover to tour DC Thomson. The other trips include a Publishing Scotland Conference, the London Book Fair, the Edinburgh International Book Fair, and MagFest. 

First trimester we study Publishing in Context, The Business of Magazine Publishing, Creative Toolkit (whatever that means), and Publishing in Practice: From Concept to Creation.

Second trimester is Publishing in Practice: From Creation to Consumer, Publishing Placement & Professional Development (which I believe would be our internship) and then we get to choose one of New Venture Planning, From Script to Screen, Interactive Media, and Magazine Publishing.

Third trimester we don't actually have any classes (so if anyone wants to come visit me, come during the third trimester) but instead just work on our dissertation for the duration of the trimester. Depending on your internship, that may also stretch into the third trimester. 

Total, we only have three days of classes a week, which is nice. 

Today, we met up at noon for induction (basically welcome and introduction). It was very nice to arrive and see already familiar faces (I briefly considered the benefits of sitting with new people before going to sit with the people I already know - there are only about forty of us, I'm sure we'll all get to know each other quite well). We broke for lunch from 1-2. The campus is quite easy to navigate, I was worried I might have trouble finding our meeting room, but it was quite easy to locate, as was the cafeteria. We didn't actually go to our program rooms today, which are apparently equipped with locks that are opened by swiping our student cards (so only publishing students can go in those rooms - so fancy!). Doing my BA, while lots of other departments had rooms with specific resources that were only open to students in that department, the English department was not quite as lucky. I'm very excited to have our own space! And they use macs (thank god). The Merchiston Campus of Edinburgh Napier, which is where my program is located, also has the main University library and a 24-hour PC Barn with about 500 computers. It is also just finishing renovations, so it is very nice and new. 

After lunch we returned and were introduced to the Scottish Centre for the Book, of which the MSc Publishing students make up a major part. There are several internship positions being offered through SCOB for the first trimester, which I am probably going to try and get one of (the workload only amounts to about one afternoon a week, for 20 weeks). 

Then we were given our first assignment - in randomly assigned groups (the girls in my group seem lovely) we are to, by next Wednesday, research publications of Merchiston Publishing, contact an elementary school which will be assigned to us tomorrow, arrange to deliver a box of free books which we will have chosen from Merchiston Publishing's published works, pack and print a list of outgoing stock, secure authorization from a staff member for stock distribution, compose and print a letter to the school, deliver the books in person, securing a photo of donation and (hopefully) a thank you letter from the school (which is apparently discretionary, as compared to the mandatory photo), and prepare an article for uploading to the school website. 

By Wednesday. When we don't know what our class schedules are (and we could all be in different tutorials). 

Tomorrow morning we start at 9:30, getting more detailed information on the program and module structure, before matriculating at 11:00, with lunch from 12-1, so after we all matriculate, we will need to quickly figure out when works for all of us to go to the school and call the school and arrange that over lunch. 

Its a bit much.

Anyways, we finished off today with a tour of Blackwells, which was really cool and interesting, as it included a behind-the-scenes look at how a bookstore operates, as well as a lot of information about how publishers interact with bookstores. Which got me back from completely overwhelmed to excited (but still spinning a bit). We finished at 7pm, so I was pretty wiped (I think we all were). 

Tomorrow we also attend a lecture on "Personal Goal Setting for Postgraduate Students" and a guest speaker event, finishing at 5pm. Then monday we officially start classes!

In other, non-school news, I rearranged my furniture in my room today, only to discover a built-in-cupboard hidden behind my wardrobe. I need to call my landlord tomorrow night anyways, so I will definitely be asking him about that - because hey, extra storage, always a good thing!

ETA: Just found this in my pocket...

This obviously being the way that my program leaders decided to divide us into random groups... by having us draw numbered mini boxes of raisins out of a bucket.

But hey, no niggling nasties!