One of the things I’m finding is that it’s not only what you know but who you know that can get you a job. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago while talking to a friend so I asked her to write me an article, pleasantly surprised to find Jenny had remembered and sent me some words…here they are:

A long, long time ago I started the writing course at the Council of Adult Education. I never finished it, I left to have a baby, probably a far more productive use of my time. I only actually completed two units and I can’t even remember what one of those was. I certainly never got as far as the novel writing unit, which was the whole point of me doing the course – I had some sort of vague idea that this would prompt me to actually finish my second novel. That happened much, much later, when my second child was at kindergarten, and I realised I actually had some time to myself two afternoons a week.

So I may not have got much out of the course, but what I did get was a job! I was doing the copyediting and proofreading unit, and I met a woman who worked in publishing and she offered me a job. I was already working two jobs, (I’m a medical librarian), so I had to make the difficult decision of which one to give up. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. For the next ten months I worked as a picture researcher at a publishing house in Port Melbourne. They were putting together a series of educational children’s picture books. The editors would give me a list of the photos they needed for each book – from the straightforward such as a Great Dane standing, to the seemingly non-existent such as a bird faking a broken leg to entice a fox away from her nest – and I would relay these lists to one or more appropriate photo libraries. Then I would receive exciting packages of slides in the mail (I’m sure these days it’s probably done by low res images via email). The editors would choose which photos they wanted to use and I would negotiate the royalty fee.

In the short time I was there I got the impression that the publishing industry is very high-pressured and frenetic. Of course, in a medical library there’s always a doctor who wants a paper yesterday, but this was much more fast-paced, and everyone always seemed slightly stressed. In the end, it may not have been the job for me, but I’m glad I was given the opportunity to find that out.

Jenny Jones