Helping you take the next step up in your children's publishing career!
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Maya Angelou
by Lisbeth Kaiser; illus. by Leire Salaberria
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- Welcoming Our New Chairperson
- Tips of the Month
- What I Wish I Had Known
- ECC Reads and Recommends
- Day in the Life
- Intern Corner
- Events
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Welcoming Our New Chairperson
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To Our Beloved Readers,
We'd like to take this time to congratulate and welcome Arik Hardin, a Managing Editorial Assistant at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, as the new Chairperson of the Early Career Committee.
Arik has always known that he wanted to pursue a career in publishing. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Michigan State University and graduating from the Denver Publishing Institute, Arik pursued certificates in copyediting and project management in order to find his dream position as a Managing Editorial Assistant with Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. He is grateful and excited about his new role as Chairperson of the ECC, both because he is thrilled to connect with and support new and aspiring publishing professionals, and because he wholeheartedly believes in the ECC’s commitment to promoting and fostering diversity in an industry that has looked far too white and privileged for far too long. He looks forward to meeting and working with as many people as possible during his term.
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Savannah Breckenridge
Marketing Assistant
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
I feel like everyone goes through work slumps every now and then. When I’m feeling unmotivated or uninspired I do the following to lift my spirits:
Chat with a coworker:
Find the time in your day and theirs to speak with a friend from work. Reminisce about past experiences you’ve enjoyed with them and remind yourself about times when you were inspired and excited by a project.
Re-read your favorite book:
Sometimes we need a reminder about why we love children’s literature. Take a step back and reread one of your favorite books from when you were a child. Rediscover the spark that began your love of reading. I always go back to Ronald Dahl’s
The B.F.G
whenever I need a pick me up.
Have a dance party:
With most people’s normal work routines currently disrupted, sometimes you need to take a break from it all. If you’re feeling down or unmotivated, take some time for yourself. Get up and turn on your favorite song and just dance it out. Coming from someone who is a horrible dancer, it’s very freeing to just flounce around my apartment while singing my lungs out. If dancing isn’t your thing, take the time at some point in your day to recenter yourself and calm your mind however you can.
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One of the first things my first boss out of college told me was, “It takes six months to feel comfortable in a job and it takes about a year for the job to really feel like yours.” I think when I heard that I nodded along, but didn’t really take it in. I was so eager to know everything
right away.
Because of that mentality, I often ended up doing everything exactly how the last person who had my job did it—
because I thought that was just how the job was done. But as time wore on, those words started to come back to me, and this time I understood them. A job is more than doing the one designated task after another—
everyone works differently and it takes time to figure out how you can take what’s been done before and adapt it to your own style. But if you’re unafraid to shake things up and find a new way of doing things, you’ll find more success.
—
Alison Romig, Editorial Assistant, Random House Children’s Books
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ECC Reads and Recommends
Find out what the ECC Committee is reading below!
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Name:
Arik Hardin (ECC Chairperson)
Publishing House:
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
Position:
Managing
Editorial Assistant
Thursday, May 14th
6:30 AM - 9:00 AM:
I wake up in the basement of my parents’ home (the glamorous place that I am currently quarantining in) and roll off my cot to start my day. I have dedicated most of my free time during the past few weeks to my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, so after my normal morning routine, I like to use the time that I would have commuted to visit my islanders and hit rocks. It’s a really rewarding morning.
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM:
Work starts promptly at 9, and I spend the first hour of my morning catching up on emails that came in Wednesday evening or early this morning. I also send out approvals for proofs for various books that are getting reprinted so that my colleague in Production can get back to the printers in time.
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM:
The bulk of this hour is spent tuning in to a 45-minute Town Hall with our company’s CEO. He’s been doing regular town halls and company-wide emails since the stay-at-home order started, and I listen in to his answers as I respond to more emails and work on more general administrative tasks for my team.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM:
My team has started doing weekly catch-up meetings to discuss our workloads, how we’re handling working from home, and how the changes to the routing process (which is suddenly 100% digital) are working out for the various departments that we work with. Before the quarantine, this was a monthly meeting, but we don’t have the opportunity to catch up and discuss problems casually at the office these days, so a weekly meeting has made it possible for us all to keep in touch and keep updated about the goings-on of our department.
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM:
This week, after our department-wide catch up, I have another personal catch up with my boss. We discuss my workload, working from home, and generally chat about how things are going.
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Couch Conversations
Casual, Virtual Networking Event
June 17 at 5:30pm EST
We're trying something new! Transitioning to a more remote lifestyle has inspired us to adapt our casual networking series, Café Conversations, into a unique virtual networking event called Couch Conversations. In an effort to replicate the multiple groups of people you would normally be able to meet and chat with face-to-face, we are creating multiple Zoom meetings to serve as "Rooms" for networking. We encourage you to jump between "Rooms" for a more authentic experience.
For our inaugural Couch Conversations event, we're planning a
Hogwarts House Happy Hour
,
where each Zoom ID will represent a different Hogwarts House.
As we try out new ways to network and work out the best way to continue under the current precautionary circumstances, we appreciate your patience, participation, and suggestions.
How:
Different "Zoom Rooms" (IDs) assigned to each of the four Hogwarts Houses from
Harry Potter by JK Rowling. Feel free to jump around if you identify with more than one!
IDs will be sent to those who RSVP.
Ice-Breaker Questions:
- Which character from Harry Potter would you bring back to life?
- Which class would you be most eager to take at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?
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GET INVOLVED!
You could be featured in our next newsletter! Do you work for a
member publisher
? Share your tips about jobs, networking, budgeting, upcoming events, etc. with us
here
.
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Encourage your colleagues to sign up for the ECC Newsletter and CBC Bulletin!
Share
this link
with your co-workers and new hires so they can begin receiving important news from the Children's Book Council.
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The Early Career Committee
Arik Hardin
(Chairperson)
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
Rosie Ahmed
(Secretary)
, Penguin Young Readers
Jena Groshek
(CBC Liaison)
, The Children's Book Council
Savannah Breckenridge
, Simon & Schuster Children's Books
Josie Dallman
, Little Bee Books
Marla Koenigsknecht
, Magination Press
Jordana Kulak
, Scholastic
Cassandra Martinez
, Candlewick
Hannah Milton,
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Gaby Paez
, Abrams Books
Ali Romig
, Random House Children's Books
Jon Simeon
, Charlesbridge
Claire Stetzer,
Bloomsbury Children's Books
Melissa Zahorsky
, Andrews McMeel
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Copyright © 2020 Children's Book Council. All Rights Reserved.
The Children's Book Council, Inc. | Every Child a Reader, Inc.
54 West 39th Street, 14th floor | New York, NY 10018
212.966.1990 | cbc.info@cbcbooks.org
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