Throughout the internship I’ve enjoyed the internship and the coworkers I’ve gotten to work alongside with. The Attorney that I work with sublets an office space with another law group. When I first joined we were in an office in Long Island but moved to the new office in queen. The Attorney sublet in both locations but at least in the first location the other law group felt more open and welcoming. When we moved to the new location the Attorney mentioned how it would be helping each other out and have a shared space. However as soon as me and my coworker at the time started there it felt more like we weren’t welcomed. It was felt more on the manger and his wife and kids who also work with the law group. They at first never greeted me and my coworker, at first I just thought they weren’t the type to speak to others. Once a new person started working with us it was weird how they choose to only speak to her and address her. It wasn’t until I started making small chat with the other law groups paralegal and they mentioned how that manager always spoke down on their employees of color. The obstacle of racism was something I knew existed but never full experienced it to this extent. I have been always around people of color and always had bosses who were and weren’t white. Me and my other coworker have learned to just ignore it because at the end of the day there is people who behave that way just because of race and unfortunately its something that is very much alive especially when working in a setting that’s the majority. At least we are our own supporters and we help each other and are able to communicate with the Attorney.

I think the most challenging thing about this semester was juggling my course load with the internship prompts. I think because I was working on a gala this fall in addition to taking classes I totally dropped the ball on the blog posts. I’m really proud of myself for the work I did in my other classes. I do feel like I stayed committed in every other class but I completely forgot about the blog posts. I was busy helping to organize the 25th anniversary gala for Belladonna which just happened this past Friday. It was an amazing experience because I got to see an event through from the planning stage all the way to its fruition. I also got to introduce a poet who I love—LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. It was definitely a stressful process because the Belladonna team is so small so a lot of work was distributed to 3 of us. Again this is why I couldn’t hand in the blog posts on time this semester. I think I underestimated the importance of the check-ins that these posts were supposed to signify. I find the posts to be so helpful when it comes to reflecting on my time at Belladonna. This semester and this internship is really teaching me about time management. If you do not allot your time in a certain way it can be very hard and time can slip away from you.

Abraham Hernandez 

10th December 2024

The past couple of months have been a rollercoaster of emotions. Throughout my time in my internship, I can say that I have learned a lot. One of the biggest things that I have learned is the idea of expectation vs. reality, or better said, ideal vs. real. An ideal situation is one that a person would plan, think and expect. It was these situations that I would find myself in often PRIOR to giving my class. However, these ideal situations were often confronted by reality. Oftentimes, I would plan ahead for my class; lesson plan, notes and a timeline. In the actual class is when I realized that sometimes it’s always best to leave room for error. I would find myself planning to the last detail of how the class would go; possible questions a student may ask, a timeframe for how long I would spend on a subject, etc. These are things that sometimes cannot be planned in detail due to the fact that sometimes the students may have questions that other students may want to build upon. Sometimes it doesn’t go like this and the students are quiet and have no questions. These situations are hard to deal with since often the class ends up finishing earlier than expected and a quiet class is not always in my plans, however, these situations result in being a learning experience for me. I’ve been coming to understand that not always things will go to plan but one must continue. I will continue to plan, continue to strategize, but will always leave room for error, or room for improvement. 

The most frustrating/challenging part of the internship so far has been trying to create an author’s booklet. I have never created a booklet, at least not since I was 12, and I’m only just now realizing the amount of creativity that it takes to form a whole book. I understand now why most books by a publisher have a standardized formatting, coming up with a new one for every book would be hell.

I didn’t expect making a booklet to be easy, but I didn’t expect it to be so difficult either, if that makes sense. I expected to be able to put the information down and then get the formatting to make sense generally easily. That’s not what happened. Firstly, I have to gather information about many organizations, awards/scholarships, and higher education programs, and then concisely summarize the information in one or two sentences. That was really hard to do at first, but I slowly got the hang of it after realizing what was important information and filtering out what wasn’t. It still takes a significant amount of time to do though.

Then there’s the issue of formatting. Some sections look better with one format, since more information is provided, and others look shabby and messy since very little information is needed so the original formatting is a poor fit. I’ve realized that I haven’t been very observant of the structure of the world around me, I just take it for granted. So when I end up in a situation like this, I don’t have any past knowledge to pull from. It’s crazy how much about book production I never noticed (headers and footers are important!).

Despite these challenges and frustrations, I think this experience is rewarding and helpful. Having to create an entire booklet from scratch is beneficial because I am learning through experience how to make a booklet. Having to push through these difficulties has taught me to be more observant in the future and think critically about why things are formatted the way they are. It has also taught me how to concisely and professionally present and summarize information in a way that is helpful to readers. Further, it has taught me to write and think from an informative perspective rather than a creative perspective. For these reasons, I am grateful for this experience since I think it will help me approach future endeavors with a greater skillset.

Most days usually start with checking my email, scan in the mail. Some days we have deposition and if it’s a Spanish speaker I usually am there to translate and prepare the client for the questions that the defendants usually ask. They ask about the accident, how it happened their past ant heir medical treatment. Ive been in on the deposition so many times at this point that I feel like a robot when it comes to translating the questions, in a good way especially since the attorney had gone ver with me the reason they ask all these questions. Some days when there is no deposition for the day it usually consists of going through the cases in the NYSCEF which is the court website, and see if the defendants have answered our demands and/or if we need to send our demands and if we responded to the defendants demands. From there that’s when I assign tasks for myself to draft our demand, or responses. I mentioned earlier that I’m still working on drafting a Bill of Particular, which is the injuries and go into detail of the injuries body parts. The work is relatively simple once you get the hang of it but the constant following up can be a bit hard to keep track of. Some days I work on car accident cases which is this the basic demands but if it’s a new case and we have to do an intake. We have to send out both letters to the the clients insurance for something that’s called no fault insurance and to the person who hit her insurance. In some cases we can do a search of the license plate if no insurance was provided or exchanged. On a regular day the work is usually very calm obviously I’m still learning and the good thing is I keep learning and have great people working with me if I ever have a question.

Something that is an aspiration is eventually going to law school. I don’t have much of an aspiration specifically from the internship but I want to learn as much as I can, and take advantage of the opportunity so far. Ive been able to speak with a coworker who recently passed the Bar. She has been able to give me very useful advice on the LSAT, application, waivers and who I can speak with about recommendation letters. I appreciate all the help and guidance she has given me so far. I guess is some way I aspire to be able to help someone like me when I get to that point in my life, because not everyone has the sources or the knowledge the the specific steps of what to do during this process. Being a bridge to help fill that gap eventually would be kind of a way of repaying that favor she has been able to do for me. I’m currently on the same path as one of the other paralegals who is also starting her journey I the process of applying to law school. It is nice to have someone working on it with you at the same level and helping each-other out and even reminding each other of the important dates. To register and apply for certain things. Even the attorney is also supporting myself and my coworkers’ journey of the application process and has also provided great advice.

From the beginning I’ve hoped that this internship would give me a better insight into the world of publishing. I began this internship with practically no knowledge of the field. And in that regard, my work here has been very fruitful. I have learned very broad strokes of what goes behind publishing, from looking into various distributors and printers to editing and developing the journal. I’ve even gotten more than I expected. Because of SPD suddenly going under, a lot got upset in the small press industry. I got to sit in on a meeting between Nicholas and Emily Cook where I got to see them trying to figure out how to get profits back to what they used to be before SPD failed. One of the most interesting tips I heard was to identify what your audience is and to try to keep that audience. Usually it helps for that audience to be regional, or, as in the case of Bordighera Press, the audience is Italian-American. Apparently, many small presses have tried to expand to a wider audience and have found that it actually hurts their profits. I also learned that various distributors are helpful for different size presses and that upgrading to a larger distributor, if you have larger output, can help to increase profits.

My aspirations have evolved with my time at Bordighera Press. I have begun paying more attention to minute details that at the beginning of my internship I couldn’t hold onto because I had to get the hang of being in the new environment. A dream of mine would be to start my own small press, but a shorter-term goal is to work as an editor at any press, whether it be large like Penguin or small. I want to do this to continue to grow in my knowledge of the publishing industry, since a few months is obviously not enough to learn all I need to know.

A regular day at work is pretty straight forward. I begin the day starting up the incredibly slow computer while Nicholas gets together what I need to do for the day. As the journal’s compilation has progressed, my work has changed. At first I was filtering submissions and writing reader’s reports, then I began drafting rejection letters (I didn’t get the pleasure of drafting acceptance letters sadly), then came editing the accepted pieces, and copyediting the journal a few times while it was nearing completion. The journal is complete now and I’ve been compiling an Author’s Handbook to provide resources like small-press support; scholarships, competitions, and award opportunities; higher-education opportunities in the Italian-American sphere; as well as Italian-American/diaspora organizations. Around one or two in the afternoon I take a lunch break which nicely divides my day into 3-4 hour chunks and allows me to get a breather. As filler for when I get tired of my main assignment, I update the book links on Bordighera Press’ website so that individuals can order books directly from the distributor.

My idea of what working in publishing would be like was airy, ungrounded, and not very specific before this internship. I’m grateful because now I have a realistic understanding of what publishing is. I both had the idea that I would enjoy the work (in a far too easy sense) and others told me that it was an incredibly difficult job. Now that I’ve done it, I see both sides realized themselves. I have a love for the work that makes the job “easy:” I want to do it. It is also incredibly difficult. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, in situations I’ve mentioned in the past like when I have a lot of big edits to make or when I am beginning a project (like the author’s booklet) that I have absolutely no experience with. However I have learned a lot of techniques for managing the stress and my expectations which have made it easier. On top of that, I find the end result of what I do to be very rewarding. I hope in the future to find a job in editing for this reason, I find it good that it challenges me while also rewarding me at the same time.

My hopes for this internship at Belladonna is to make connections and to learn what it takes to run a small press. I’ve always valued small collaboratives that center their ethics. Belladonna has shown me the pros and cons of a company that tries to steer clear of capitalistic exploitative behaviors. I hope the company can show me that you don’t need to exploit labor in order to run a company. Belladonna really tries to take care of everybody—the writers, the workers, and me. It often comes at a monetary cost. Everyday I also learn how vulnerable small presses and collectives can be. But I would love to continue to learn how to plan events and write grants. A lot of the money we acquire comes from grants and I think that’s an invaluable skill to learn. I would also love to learn more about the physical process of printing the book. We’ve halted printing books for right now as the company is going through a transitional stage. But to see the physical process would be dope. 

I also hope Belladonna can show me how to produce a reading. I would like to know what goes into hosting a poetry reading. The process of security readers, promotion, and then publishing the poems in a chaplet. I think this would be great for connecting with other poets and learning how to plan an event in general could look great on a resume. I am already helping to plan their 25th anniversary Gala. I’ve gotten in contact with speakers and I’ve looked at the menu from the caterers. Belladonna has been super transparent when it comes to the event planning so I am already learning so much. Overall, I feel like I am already learning a lot on the job and I am excited for learning more in the upcoming weeks.

Every week at Belladonna is different. But a typical work day at Belladonna would first consist of me doing shipments for the company. I usually look at the orders placed for the books we published, then I search through the office to see if we have copies and then I package and run them through the mail room. I think that is the most expected job of an intern but I’ve also been attached to some big projects. I’ve been helping the company plan their 25th anniversary celebration. This past week I searched for DJs for the event and I’ve been the speaker liaison. The speaker liaison was especially fun because I got to be in direct communication with the poets who are reading at the event. I even got to pick one of the poets who I’ve been such a huge fan of, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. As the company goes through some structural changes, my role becomes more and more flexible. Recently we’ve been having a lot of meetings regarding what my role in the spring will be. I proposed a podcast in which I would interview the poets we’ve published and they said they loved the idea.

Overall, every week is different at Belladonna. It’s a company in transition and although that may come with a lot of uncertainty, there is something really beautiful about helping to build this company back up. I don’t feel like an intern. I don’t feel overworked at all but I also feel like the work that I do matters. I really have grown to appreciate the space that Belladonna crafted for me and I am ready to continue the great work. These next couple of weeks will be dedicated to the Gala and I’m excited to see how it all comes together.