bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day

My time at Prometheus is coming to an end. My last day is a week from tomorrow. It’s so bizarre to be thinking of leaving. I finally know where everything is, what I’m doing, and how to do it. I know where the commas go and that quotations go on the outside of the period at the end of the sentence. I’ve learned a lot about myself and so much about publishing. The field no longer has this shield of mystery. I know what to expect from a company that works to produce well-written, and well-designed books that reinforce the morals and ideas by which Prometheus was built.

I’ve learned that I am genuinely interested in becoming an editor. I met with Jade, an assistant editor at Prometheus. She has worked there for a year, and graduated from Ithaca College in 2008. We met to talk about her job, as she is doing exactly what I hope to do in a few years. Talking with her, I realized that in editing books, I would be a life-long student: learning something new from each new book. I never want to fall into a job where I am not using my brain. I never want to stop learning.

I am a writer, or at least that’s what I tell myself, but I am not going to try to build a career around unreliable jobs. I want to work with other writers in making their great ideas better. If I can be part of the process that distributes important discourse to a greater public, I will feel as if I have done my job. Books, in print and online (alright, I’ll acknowledge the e-book phenomenon) are vital to society as a whole. Literature shouldn’t be a hobby available to a pretentious niche. Books, nonfiction and otherwise are important enough for me to feel as though I want to work with them for the greater part of my life.

I have realized the passion I have always felt for literature and book publishing is not unfounded. That is probably the most significant thing I have taken from this internship. Even working with the trivial details of the industry, I appreciate it for the experience I have gained.

Thank you, Prometheus, for teaching me not only to carry the torch of secular understanding and reason with a set of humanistic ideals, but also to continue on the academic path I have started on; to lay the bricks for my future.

A note to the nonexistant people reading this blog: Buy books from Prometheus, they're not all crazy-atheist. Do it!