Michelle Rosquillo – Editor

As a contract managing editor, I assisted with the acquisition of John F. Blair by Carolina Wren Press and the subsequent merger of those presses into what is now Blair. While many of my duties were administrative and metadata-related, I did provide editorial input on several current and incoming titles before the contract ended.

I began as a contributing editor (under my maiden name, for a short time) for fiction and poetry, as well as technical writing. I then was given primary editorship over several new projects, including a fiction novel, an anthology, and incoming poetry collection submissions. I left the role in 2019 due to time conflicts, but maintain a wonderful relationship with the editors and authors with whom I worked.

In this volunteer role, I was part of a team of editors who individually reviewed submissions to the literary journal. Our individual editorial input was recorded via the content management system (Submittable) and then we would collaboratively review all submissions as a team to decide on acceptances, acceptances with revision, and rejections. Once all editorial changes had taken place, we proofed each issue for copy edits, layout, and style before publication.

As a graduate student in my MFA Creative Writing program, I held the inaugural role of managing editor for this student-run and program-hosted literary journal. I created internal systems for subsequent cohorts of students as to the duties and responsibilities of the managing editor, including acceptance and rejection, the multi-step editorial process, layout of each issue, website content and submission management, proofreading and copy editing, house style, and vendor liaising. I was managing editor for two editions of the journal, which included both short-form literary fiction and literary poetry.