By Meg Matthias
This week on the blog, we’re highlighting Viengsamai Fetters, an intern at literary nonprofit Brink Literacy Project and their literary magazine, F(r)iction. They are a senior Miami Literature major from Columbus, OH, and the editor of the fem, a literary publication through the Center for Student Diversity & Inclusion. Viengsamai talks about how their extracurriculars led to their internship, who they asked for advice and why they love working remotely.
Finding an internship: “I found this internship actually through a number of ways; Miami University has a partnership with Brink, so the information has sort of been floating around, but when I studied abroad in London, the CEO of Brink (and EIC of F(r)iction) actually visited the Literary Marketplace class, so my friends who took that class were excited about how cool she was and the beautiful publication.”
On the job: “I’m able to do so many things! Brink Literacy Project is a literary nonprofit dedicated to bringing underrepresented voices into the literary industry; F(r)iction is a literary magazine published by Brink that seeks to publish new and innovative work which excites and enthralls! As part of the internship, we work with pieces submitted to F(r)iction and have a hand in creating the next issue, as well as: working with authors, writing editorials, reading & reviewing books that are coming out soon, managing social media, editing pieces for publication, and running a group writing project, Dually Noted! Each intern also has a project of our choice that we’ll be working on for the next two months, such as an accessibility review of the websites, creating university partnerships, or, in my case, working in production! Production is the bit of the publishing process that deals with the physical design of the book or magazine, so I’ll be working with InDesign to create mock-ups of F(r)iction. It’s all very exciting, and I’m learning so much.”
Best advice: “Talk to people! Not only your fellow students, but also your professors or any staff members who work in a field you’re interested in. I’ve crossed paths with this internship a number of times, but my friends and professors had a big hand in influencing me to apply–you already know people who can help you find an internship that you’ll enjoy. Also, keep an eye out for remote internships–they aren’t super common, but it’s great that I’m able to do this work from Oxford and still be in school while my coworkers are in Boston and Denver (and Scotland and New Zealand!)”
Prior experience: “I’m the editor-in-chief of the fem, a literary publication through the Center for Student Diversity & Inclusion! My work with the fem last year was what spurred me to look into an editing internship, and F(r)iction does to some extent a lot of the same things the fem does on a much larger, more professional scale. the fem seeks to uplift voices of marginalized people in the Miami University community and speaks to the modalities of knowing that are undervalued. Our publication accepts submissions in conversation with or influenced by lived experiences through March, and people of all or no genders are welcome to submit to mufemellectual@gmail.com.”