Open Publishing Coordinator, Virginia Tech Publishing & Press
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what did you study? Where are you currently based?
I am a proud Midwesterner—in undergrad, I studied writing, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, and community engagement (among many other things) at Michigan State University before moving to Virginia to dig into museum writing, writing centers, and scholarly publishing at James Madison University. Now, I am based in southwest Virginia, where the roads are very windy.
Describe your current role and organization. What are your main responsibilities? What type of organization do you work for?
I currently work at Virginia Tech Publishing & Press (VTP&P) as the Open Publishing Coordinator. VTP&P began as a library publishing program and has been an open access university press for just under a year. We are a small but mighty team that produces books, journals, OER, and all sorts of digital humanities publications. Most of my work has been on books—reviewing proposals, coordinating peer review, copyediting, typesetting, and chasing down vendors—but I’ve recently started doing more with journal management and accessibility.
Walk us through a typical day in your role. What challenges do you face? What opportunities do you encounter?
Every day is quite different, to be honest. At the time of writing, I’m expecting a couple of new manuscripts, preparing a remediation plan for a multimodal digital humanities project, typesetting a translation of a book we published last year, finalizing a workflow for remediating EPUB files to WCAG standards, researching and writing about peer review, and preparing to take the CPACC certification exam. When I’m not hunched over my desk doing all that stuff, I’m in meetings for the internal and external groups and committees I’m part of, most of them focused on DEIA.
When I started this position, I had fewer, larger projects to work on—it was mostly manuscript editing and typesetting—but I like having variety, especially on days when I don’t have much on my calendar. Whenever there’s an opportunity to work on something different than my usual fare, and (importantly) I have the capacity to take it on, I’ll take it. That does mean that I do feel scattered at times, chasing to-dos across various analog and digital lists, so I’m working on incorporating resets into my schedule: updating and starting new to-do lists regularly, clearing out and reorganizing my mountain of tabs, etc. This position has been as much a learning opportunity as anything else, and I want to make the most of it.
Can you share a memorable project, achievement, or pivotal moment in your career development? Was there a defining moment or influential person who shaped your career?
Since I’m still extremely new to the field, every achievement and every step forward feels pivotal. Getting a Fellowship with SSP, receiving my graduate assistantship, and attending library conferences as an undergraduate have all been so influential in my early career. (Special thanks to Susquehanna University’s library – I wouldn’t be here without you all!)
In your experience, what skills or qualities are essential for success in scholarly communications?
Flexibility! I’m someone who loves routine, but working at an actively growing publisher has meant becoming more comfortable with change. I remember thinking about how much my position changed in my first year, and now, being a few months shy of two years here, I can say that it’s still changing.
What motivates you in your work? What keeps you passionate about your role in scholarly publishing?
As many, many other people would say, I’m passionate about working in publishing because I’ve always been a ravenous reader, but the reason I was drawn to scholarly publishing in particular was because of the learning that’s baked into it. My authors/editors and I always end up learning so much from each other, and then the publications we produce subsequently create opportunities for others to learn. And working for a multimodal open access publisher has further cemented this as my reason for working in this field. That, and I love em dashes.
How do you balance your professional and personal life? Any fun facts or hobbies outside of scholarly communications?
I think my approach to maintaining work-life balance is pretty straightforward: no email or Slack on my phone, my work laptop gets banished every weekend, and I make sure I have at least one “go and talk to people” activity every week. Most weeks, that’s a local knitting group, but I also play D&D somewhat regularly, and I cycle in and out of four different book clubs.
