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1869, Episode 103 with Allegra Martschenko | Otter.ai

1869, Episode 103 with Allegra Martschenko

Cornell University Press12min

Speaker 1

00:10

Welcome to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast. I'm Jonathan Hall. Cornell University Press is proud to be a participant in the Andrew W. Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship Program, which was developed in 2016 to help bring more diversity into academic publishing. The Fellowship Program actively works to address diversity issues by providing underrepresented individuals an opportunity to have real work experience in scholarly publishing, and a network of peers and mentors to assist them in their professional development. We are excited to inform you that the new Mellon diversity fellowship position of the press is officially open for applications. This 14 month position, which begins June 1 is within the Cornell University Press acquisitions department where the Mellon DiversityFellow will provide support to one or more acquisitions editors in acquiring scholarly books. The application deadline is midnight of March 14 2021. You can learn more about this position by visiting the careers and internships page on our website: cornellpress.cornell.edu as well as listening to this episode, as we'll be speaking with our current Mellon DiversityFellow Allegra Martschenko. Allegra Martschenko joined Cornell University Press in June 2020 as an acquisitions assistant. She has a Bachelors of Arts in architecture, with minors in urban studies and creative writing, so she's always looking at the way space shapes people and stories. In her free time, she reads speculative fiction, writes novels, and builds architectural models just for fun. We spoke with Allegra about how she heard about the fellowship position, and what inspired her to apply. What are some of her favorite experiences at the press so far? And what advice would you give to anyone who's interested in applying? Hello, Allegra. Welcome to the podcast.

Unknown Speaker

02:06

Hi, Jonathan. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1

02:08

We it's our pleasure. So we have a new opportunity for the Mellon University Press diversity fellowship, the application is going to be due March 14. And so there's a new opportunity for a new fellow and Allegro you have been our current fellow. So tell us how you heard about the Mellon University Press diversity fellowship, and what most interested you about the position.

Speaker 2

02:33

I heard about the fellowship, originally from my sister, she was working at a different university at the time, and she saw the fellowship listening through all the regular channels, and she said, Oh, I have a vague idea that Allegra might be interested in this. So she forwarded me the email and I thought, well, I guess I will take a chance on it. You know, at the time, I'd had a little bit of experience with publishing with an Academic Press. But I wasn't quite sure that this is what I wanted to do long term and for a career. So in that vein, there were two things that really attracted me to the position. And the first one was that there was an end date to the fellowship, which meant that I had this chance to sort of try things out for a while, and long enough that I knew sort of, certainly whether or not this was something I wanted to continue doing for years down the line. And I got the chance to do it sort of in a fully immersive environment. Internships are great for getting a broad overview of how a field works. But you don't quite do the day to day tasks that you do when you're a full time employee and their full time expectations on you. And I wanted to know sort of what that was, like, I wanted to know what I was getting into before I fully got into it. So I really appreciated the fellowship for that reason, you know, a way to get a foot in the door and try things out. And then the other reason was for the fellowships express interest in sort of attracting marginalized candidates and doing work to sort of broaden and diversify the field, the field of publishing, and that, you know, diversifying, publishing, broadening perspectives, reaching new audiences for something that I had long been interested in, but mainly in the realm of children's trade publishing, when I could think about sort of who children got to see in the books that they were reading and how representation worked, etc. And, in a way, strangely enough, this was the first time that I realized those interests in those themes could translate to academic publishing. And I could keep some proximity to academia that I'd lived without fully being in it, and sort of continuing the work that I'd always thought I would want to do. Excellent,

Unknown Speaker

04:41

excellent. So how is your time been at the press? It's been

Speaker 2

04:45

wonderful, interesting, a little rocky sometimes and that I started here, three to three months after the press had fully gone remote. So all my onboarding, all my training, etc. Well, Was remote. And it was at a time when the sort of the press was adjusting in its own little ways with how to be remote. So things were moving, publishing already moves at a very fast pace, in a way, but things were moving even faster all of a sudden, and I was really fortunate to have sort of the previous fellow to take me under their wing and do all the relevant training. And my editors were great. And the Department of the press as a whole, were really friendly and great. And once I got into the rhythm of things, I realized that this was work I really liked to do. So it's been sort of really wonderful and rewarding in that way. And I would say my best or favorite experience so far has been when the editorial director approached me about updating our peer review guidelines. So the set of questions that we send out to peer reviewers when we're evaluating manuscripts to include language that was more inclusive, and sort of made it clear that Cornell University Press was a place that valued and wanted to foster marginalized voices. So that was a really exciting process of changing something that would stick at the press, even after I left. And then I could reach out to other presses and see what kind of questions they asked and get a feel of the field at large. And then sort of go through an editing process with the acquisitions department at large to implement these.

Speaker 1

06:16

That's great. That's great. Thank you so much for doing that. Are there any stories that you may have that you want to share interesting experiences or things that you enjoy at the press?

Speaker 2

06:26

Sure, it's always fun to me to see the press culture emerge. And a lot of you know, that's on zoom on email on slack. And part of the thing that I was missing and coming into an environment that was fully remote was I wondered if how I would sort of integrate into cross culture, how to get a sense of all of these people. And I found that, you know, Cornell, Cornell's personality pops out. And sort of fun in unexpected ways. Like when I found out that Sage house where we're normally house has bats. And that's just a thing that regularly occurs. And everything everyone, you know, sort of talk about, talk about the bats, and about the sort of quirks of working in Sage house, you know, made clear that this is, this is still a great place to work, even remote. Like there's still a lot of friendly faces around here. Even if there's Zim faces, there's a lot of people with, you know, great personalities that are very friendly, and have been here for a while, and are very welcoming. And I think that it's been a fun thing to hear about bats and carpeting and sage house, and not just like fun, fun things that make me feel like I'm getting a glimpse into the sort of heart of this press.

Speaker 1

07:40

Well, that you're you're lucky in a in a way that we are all remote. So the bats have the whole place to themselves.

Speaker 2

07:46

That's true, they're running, they're running

Speaker 1

07:51

their lives. So maybe maybe they'll publish their own book, when we get back. So now there are other fellows, the fellowship includes an opportunity to interact with fellow small over the United States. What have you learned from the community of fellows that other process,

Speaker 2

08:06

I'll say that that's probably been my favorite part of the fellowship at large that I have a chance to sort of talk to the fellows at the other press who are going through the same experiences as I am, and you know, share my triumphs with people who understand and share my less ideal days with people who understand. And it's also been very enriching in a career sense, because we're all at different sized presses. Which means when we talk about our day to day and we talk about the tasks we have to take on, we are talking about them in different contexts and get a sense, and get to understand sort of how things work in a small press versus how things work in a medium sized press, versus how things work at a larger press. And that has been great for sort of all of us being able to understand how we might translate our current jobs into a different press, or a different size press, and the sort of generally applicable skills that we might want to focus on if we decide to move forward in the field. So they're a wonderful group of people, I very much enjoy talking to them. And it's also been very, you know, it's been very nice to find a community that I know I can move forward with.

Speaker 1

09:13

That's great. That's great. So what advice would you have to someone who is thinking about applying for this upcoming position?

Speaker 2

09:22

as basic as it sounds, my advice is to apply. When I was thinking about this and talking to some of the other fellows, my current year, I know that there were a lot of doubts as to whether or not to apply at all. No, I think and especially in marginalized communities, there's a lot of self selecting out of opportunities, thinking, you know, in a self defeating way, you're not going to get it or you don't have the qualifications for it, or wondering at large if the field you want to enter is for you and will support you etc. And I am glad that I applied. You know, in the most basic sense, I think that if people are Thinking about it or at all interested in publishing, my biggest advice is to sort of take that leap it is to put yourself out there, and take advantage of this opportunity in any way you can and not to sort of knock yourself out before the games have even begun. So apply. And then once you're here, make the most of it. This fellowship is what you want from it, you know, you get out of it, what you put into it, and your mentors will be great, and they can help you curate the experience to get what you need out of it. So it's a wonderful opportunity. And I think people should go for it.

Speaker 1

10:36

Excellent. Well, I think that's great advice. And anyone that's listening to this podcast that's on the fence, please take legras advice, please, please apply. It's been enjoyable working with you. We start many months, even though it'll go by quickly. We have stopped many months. You work in it at Sage house or working remotely at sage. But it's been a pleasure working with you, and appreciate you coming on the podcast and telling us about your experience.

Speaker 2

11:01

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure being here. And I appreciate that you reached out to me to come on the podcast,

Speaker 1

11:06

of course, of course. So thanks, Allegra, and we'll be in touch soon. I'll see you at the next meeting.

Unknown Speaker

11:15

You too.

Speaker 1

11:15

All right. Take care thanks. That was Allegro Marchenko, acquisitions assistant and Mellon University Press diversity fellow. If you are interested in the open fellowship position, please do take a legras advice and apply. Remember, the deadline of March 14 is approaching soon. So please act now. Visit the careers and internships page on our website. Cornell press cornell.edu to learn more. Thank you for listening to 1869 the Cornell University Press podcast.

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