By the time this post becomes public (If you know me at all, you've already figured out that I'm often a couple weeks ahead of writing my "Why I...Wednesday" posts.), I will have been Metamorphosis Literary Agency's newest summer intern for two days. The first thing you might wonder is why somebody with a full-time job would take an unpaid summer internship. For the MFA program I'm working on (SNHU), while many of the classes help me learn to write and understand genre better, several of the classes also work towards helping me understand the publishing world. About three months ago, the University contacted me to say that for my class about copyediting and online content, I had two choices: take a traditional online class or find an internship. Since I live in a remote area, I initially didn't think becoming an intern would be a possibility, but the SNHU advisor assured me that some agencies have online interns. I thought that sounded pretty fun.
The next thing you might wonder, as I did, is what an online intern can do. I know I can't get my bosses coffee or take notes at their meetings or pick up their dry cleaning or do any of the other things that I've seen tons of movie interns doing. (To be fair, I might have gotten most of my ideas from The Devil Wears Prada on this one.) I asked my new boss what I could do as an online intern, and her answer sounds like so much fun that I can't wait to get started.
I will help run the agency's social media. I will find clips about their authors and books and post them. In addition to finding posts, I will also get to create content for their platforms. For example, if the agency wants to publicize a certain fictional book, I might "interview" some of the fictional characters and post those "conversations" (all made up, of course).
I'll probably post more in the next ten weeks of my internship about what I'm doing and why I love it, but for now, have you ever been an intern? What were your favorite parts of learning on the job?