| We Are Not Alone: LARB Welcomes Its Summer 2013...

7th Jul 2013

We Are Not Alone: LARB Welcomes Its Summer 2013 Internship Class

LARB was founded on the idea that the writing life should not be a solitary endeavor, but an opportunity for connection. The conversations, debate, and dialogue that great writing can inspire are sparked by the writer’s first and most critical contact: the editor.

With the arrival of the LARB’s 2013 intern class, we welcome the next generation of this community – a group of students, writers and editors passionate about books and the conversation around them. Hailing from New York and Austin, San Francisco and Tulsa, and of course Los Angeles, they’ve come for a nine-week seminar series that introduces them to every aspect of what we do at the LARB. In addition to the classes, there is the day-to-day business of running our magazine, which our interns assist with at every stage. The program is a cornerstone of the LARB’s mission to ensure that the art of editing does not disappear.

The great Robert Gottleib (who discovered Catch-22 and has edited, among others, John Cheever, Salman Rushdie, John le Carré and Ray Bradbury) advises that “The editor’s relationship to a book should be an invisible one.” It is the role of the editor to challenge and correct, question and suggest, and ultimately stand down, allowing the work and the author to speak for themselves. Sadly, the “invisible” editors that are flourishing at publishing houses and publications around the country these days are not the ones of whom Gottlieb speaks. More and more, editors are removed from the editorial process: acquisitions take precedence over author development; proofreading replaces editing; and quantity trumps quality.

Which is why the LARB is committed to providing a platform for the editorial art to flourish. Through our internship program, we offer tools, skills and experiences that will help writers and editors begin and succeed at their own projects. Even as the LARB continues to challenge the boundaries of conventional publishing, great writing cannot (and should not be) a solitary endeavor. Our interns are here. And we are not alone!