Interview with Professor and Poet Meagan Marshall

 Q: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background? What are you passionate about? What really frustrates you? Do you dog-ear or write in books?

A: I am a San Diego native. I am a lecturer at SDSU and San Diego City College. I direct the Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series (at SDSU) and I co-coordinate the Early College High School Program (at SDCC). I like long walks on the beach and candlelit dinners, er… okay just kidding. I am passionate about the arts, education, my family and friends, cheese, baked goods, and cats. I am frustrated by injustice, inequity, and prejudice; I am frustrated by the belief that the arts and humanities have no place in higher education. And yes, I compulsively annotate and dog-ear my books—especially if I am teaching them in the classroom.

Q: If you could host a fondue & wine party with three writers/artists (dead or alive), who would you invite and why?

Interview with Activist Aundrey Jones

Considering his freelance writing, activism, hunger for knowledge, and dedicated community work, Aundrey Jones is a multifaceted and ambitious individual. From his hometown in Palmdale, California, he went on to receive his B.A. in African-American Studies in 2014 at the University of California, Riverside, and is currently a Ph.D student in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Although young in age, his mindset and beliefs are sophisticated, firmly grounded, and strongly supported with his constant research in American policing institutions and their relation to Black culture. Half African-American and half Filipino, Aundrey has always taken great interest in ethnic studies and discusses how classic and contemporary literature factors into the realities in America.

Q: When were you inspired to get involved with Ethnic Studies? Did your own ethnic background inspire your studies?

Interview with literary agent Elise Capron

Elise Capron is a literary agent with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. In this Q&A session, Capron sheds light on working in the publishing industry, and she gives us tips and advice for new authors.

Q: Can you give me a brief summary of your career, and explain how you first started working in the industry?

A: I had a keen interest in books (as a reader and writer) and publishing for many years growing up, though I didn’t necessarily think I would get into agenting. Like most young people, I knew little about agents and was mostly focused on becoming an acquisitions editor (where I would, of course, publish the next Great American Novel!). During college (I went to Emerson College in Boston, where I earned a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing—they are one of the few schools offering publishing as part of their undergrad program) I interned at Harcourt and at the Dijkstra Agency during my summers, which were both truly wonderful experiences.

Interview with literary agent Annie Bomke

Annie Bomke is a San Diego-based literary agent who has helped a number of authors take their ideas from inception to completion. From query letters to the importance of social media, Bomke gave us the scoop about the world of publishing in our recent Q&A session.

Q: Can you give me a brief summary of your career, and explain how you first started working in the industry?

A: I was in high school and college, I wanted to be a writer, but I knew I needed a day job.  My last year in college I got an internship at the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story.  Even though 99% of my job was data entry and I didn’t get to read submissions very often, there was just something incredibly exciting about the idea that we were bringing people’s stories to the world.  That was when I decided that I wanted to work in publishing.  I moved back home to San Diego after college, because I had no money, and the only publishing jobs in San Diego were at literary agencies.  So I applied to a whole bunch of them, and got an internship at Margret McBride Agency.  I interned there for two years.  Then I was their Royalties and Foreign Rights Agent for about five-and-a-half years, before I opened my own agency.