My volunteer editorial assistant job at Divinations Magazine has come to an end! Here’s how it went…

For the first stage, I was assigned a couple of pieces to read and assess their suitability for the upcoming issue. The magazine kindly provided a document detailing what sort of things to look out for while reading which helped the process along. Having read the previous issues also made things easier, as I knew what sort of tone and style the magazine was already looking for.

I enjoyed picking apart the pieces and writing the feedback for them, but it was tough to reject something. As an author, turning another person’s piece away felt like I was shooting myself in the gut, but it was unavoidable. The piece in question had a great concept and some beautiful description but lacked focus–hopefully the author will refine it and find a home for it in the future.

The magazine agreed with my feedback and conclusions, and we were able to move onto the next stage: editing.

I was given a very short story–100 words–to edit for the magazine. Again, a handy document on what to look for was provided by the magazine. Nonetheless, this was a tricky job because the author (unsurprisingly) hadn’t made a whole lot of obvious errors in such a short piece. However, when I sat down and really combed through it, I was able to make some style and clarity suggestions that I think made the piece flow better overall.

Luckily, the magazine once again agreed with my ideas and the edits were sent back to the author for approval. (They even agreed with my suggestion of using a semi-colon, a piece of punctuation I am only 85% sure that I know how to use correctly…)

Now, we wait for publication! I’m really looking forward to seeing the final product and getting to read all the other pieces that got accepted. This was such a fun and informative experience and Divinations were great to work for–polite, prompt, and encouraging.

I loved the whole thing, and I am so happy I got to do this.