Reading Between the Lines

was the little fourth grader who set her alarm clock for 5:30 a.m. every morning so I could read “Nancy Drew” before getting ready for school. In fifth grade, I set the school record for the most Accelerated Reader points at my elementary school. So really, it came as no surprise to anyone that I came into Auburn as an English-Literature major and a history minor with the career of publishing in mind. I’d found that words have power and stories change the world, and I wanted to be in on the action.

In college, I often joked that my education taught me a lot of facts I probably couldn’t even use to win trivia. In actuality, as I enrolled in classes like “Medieval England” and “The History of the English Language,” I gained perspective on how important and influential words, poems and narratives have been throughout time. Yet I also discovered something surprising and exciting in my English classes: community. I had English professors who truly cared about me as a person as well as my academic success and classmates that I enjoyed spending time with inside and outside of class. I even met a “forever friend” in a Zoom English class in the aftermath of COVID-19. In the blink of an eye, though, my undergraduate degree drew to a close and I found myself not wanting to surrender my learning experiences in the classroom or my time at Auburn. Fortunately for me, Auburn’s English department had a fantastic master’s program, for which I readily applied and was accepted.

Little did I know how transformative my graduate experience would be in preparing me for my future in publishing. While my degree’s focus was literature, I was also able to earn a Technical Communication certificate that equipped me with the technological and editorial skills needed for the publishing realm. Alongside juggling my responsibilities as a graduate student and graduate teaching assistant (GTA), I also freelanced for Harvey Books, a subcontractor of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. I had begun freelancing during my sophomore year of undergrad after interviewing an acquisitions editor to learn more about how to prepare to enter the publishing realm. He connected me with both a self-publisher and freelancer, with whom I began working for as an editor and proofreader. Over the past four years since that informational interview, I have worked on 30 editing projects.

Joining Harvey Books’s freelancing team was one of the best things that has happened in my professional journey. It has enabled me to participate in the publishing of books by many well-known Christian authors and influencers as a proofreader. The projects have ranged from Louie Giglio’s children’s atlas “Indescribable Atlas Adventures” and Matt Chandler’s “The Overcomers” to former Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Tebow’s book “A Crown that Lasts” and podcaster Jamie Ivey’s devotional “It Starts with Me.” I never get over the thrill of opening my inbox and seeing a project by an author whose books I have on my bookshelf.

My master’s program complemented my side-hustle perfectly, my course load always challenging me and pushing me to be better. Sometimes I tease that my master’s degree was like the English “playground” for me, a place that allowed me to explore areas I’d never traversed and have fun trying new things. I still remember sitting in my Technical & Professional Editing class on the first day with my jaw practically on the floor, flabbergasted that my professor was going to teach me the Chicago Manual of Style. “I had to teach myself when I began freelancing,” I told her. Even my literature classes proved beneficial to my future career ambitions: one professor structured her entire class around finding an academic journal to submit your final paper for publication and working “backwards” to make sure your seminar paper matched the journal’s criteria. The byproduct was a much clearer understanding of authors’ perspectives as they seek publication, as well as a grasp on the importance of revision and clear, constructive feedback.

My GTA position gave me the opportunity to teach incoming freshmen English Composition I & II. It became my platform to train and equip the next generation with the skills necessary to communicate effectively in their respective future careers, whether through my feedback on their projects or creative, interactive activities I incorporated into our class time. Auburn is family, and I have found that to be true a million times over. Thus, it was an honor and privilege to not only create a safe space for the articulation of thoughts and ideas to grow and flourish, but also for friendships to develop.

Most of my students walked into my classroom with the perspective that their core class requirement of English was “stupid” and “not relevant” to their current or future lives. Others also felt insecure about their writing, having been told their whole lives they were terrible writers. These were the lies my students were believing, and I cannot claim I single-handedly transformed every single person into an English lover. I can, however, say with full assurance that many made friends and they all grew to recognize that words have power and that stories matter. That their stories matter–to me, and to the world. Your story matters too. I’m sure you have plenty of your own fun, hilarious, and meaningful stories you could tell from your Auburn experience. Combined, each of our individual stories makes up the Auburn story, and our love for Auburn connects each one of us, no matter how different our stories may be. And to me, that is what publishing is all about: inspiring the world with stories like yours (or those from your imagination) to change it for the better.