This summer, Syracuse University Press was fortunate to Amanda Kingston as an intern. As she wraps up her time with the press, we took a moment to catch up with her about her experience at the press, seeing university publishing close-up, and expectations about the future.
What drew you to applying to intern at the press?
I have always had an interest in publishing and publishing processes, and as an undergraduate years ago I interned at a literary journal as part of my English degree. Later, in my graduate coursework, I’ve had opportunities to submit book chapters as part of my research and have often wondered what the publishing process looks like from the other side of things. So, when the call for applications for this graduate internship came through my email, I was really excited to build on my previous experiences and explore a corner of both publishing and academia that I had not yet encountered.
Tell me what your day to day work was like at the press. Was there a project that was particularly rewarding or interesting?
What I really loved about interning at the press this summer is that day-to-day work really varied. I had the opportunity to evaluate recently submitted proposals, construct editorial board covers, directly work within manuscript reformatting, research for manuscript readers, compose alt-text for images, and more. I really enjoyed the collaborative atmosphere and generous nature of the acquisitions team as I learned new skills and practices. Of all the projects I worked on, I most enjoyed evaluating recently submitted proposals the most. I loved reading about authors’ vision for their work and being able to research more about their field, contemporary scholarship on their focus, and how they planned to bring their work to life. I think academia and research can often feel lonely at times, and so I continually was encouraged by the way SU Press really nurtures, supports, and believes in authors’ work as collaborators from the beginning.
While your experience at the press were both primarily in one department, are there other areas or aspects of publishing that you would like to explore in the future?
I am really grateful that other departments made time for me to ask questions and learn more about their work. I was really interested in learning more about what makes a strong partnership with an author, the trends and challenges in publishing currently, and current SU Press titles folks are excited about. I really enjoyed talking with marketing about the collaborative work they do to make sure the wider world knows about the work the author and team have done to bring the book to fruition and how they think about the creation of titles and covers as part of that process. I also enjoyed learning from E&P about the process of composing the manuscript into a document ready for publication and the particular skills necessary for the department. I would be really interested in exploring either of these departments and their associated skillsets in future work.
What are you reading? Do you have any books that you would like to recommend?
I’m really drawn to books and work that explore place and land as a key structure or player in research and storytelling. For my dissertation, I recently finished reading Place in Research: Theory, Methodology, Methods by Eve Tuck and Marcia McKenzie which has really challenged my thinking about how land and place are foundational not just to where research takes place but how research happens and how place is part of the inquiry process. For “non-academic” reads, I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel Land which follows an Irish surveyor and his family in the 1800s as they contend with the effects of British colonization, the spiritual meanings of homeland, and how land and people endure. I have also recently reread J. Ryan Stradal’s Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club about the generations of women working in a rural Michigan restaurant and explores how we choose to inherit what’s given to us and the role of place in what we choose to inherit. Truly recommend all of these titles!
What’s on the professional horizon for you?
I am excited to join the Women and Gender Studies department at SU this fall as a teaching assistant and instructor of record for WGS 101 and 201 courses. I’ll also spend this academic year finishing my dissertation project and am moving to a Spring 2027 defense and graduation. This also means I’ll be exploring the job market this fall and spring and what professional next steps might look like.
What would you tell someone interested in pursuing a career in publishing?
I would tell them to be curious, read a lot, and refine their research and communication skills. I would also tell them that because of the collaborative nature of university presses in particular, finding opportunities to ask those questions among a variety of different departments is incredibly helpful for digging deeper into the interconnections of the publishing process. Further, I am learning secondhand how supportive the larger university press industry is as opposed to other publishing fields, so I think for folks interested in publishing, it may be important to sit with the kind of environment you hope to be a part of as there are many possibilities.
I would also add, for folks interested in publishing their work with academic presses, publishing is not as intimidating as we often believe in our graduate coursework. Everyone working at a press wants to see a successful publication and is interested in working with authors to make that happen. So, it’s important to come into the process as an author who is very open-minded and curious!