We ♥ Our Interns: Carleigh Baker

February 4, 2013 at 5:06 pm  •  Posted in Articles by

Imagine our delight when we heard that Carleigh Baker, one of our very own EVENT interns, had won the subTerrain magazine 2012 Lush Triumphant writing contest for her fiction entry “Last Call.” Let’s hand over the mic and let Carleigh tell you a bit about herself, and give you a peek into the glamorous world of working for a literary journal…

Image“This is my first win—my first journal submission actually—but don’t let that give you the impression of a Cinderella story. I’d been sitting on a pile of material, endlessly preening and polishing, because I didn’t have the balls to send anything out…

Which is where EVENT comes in…

Any writer who is having trouble working up the bottle to send their work out needs to put in some volunteer time at a journal. Before I started at EVENT, I had no idea what would happen to my poor little stories once I’d pushed them out of the nest. I think a lot of us get kind of melodramatic about it, picturing a bunch of editors in a sleek boardroom somewhere, holding up manuscripts and proclaiming them unfit for any and all viewing. Maybe they’re hooking back flaming Sambuca too. Maybe they use the flaming Sambucas to light the particularly crappy manuscripts on fire!

I spent several months at EVENT, and I can assure you, that never happened. The atmosphere was professional and respectful, and honestly, everyone is too damn busy to worry about anything other than doing their jobs. So give these poor suckers a break: stuff some envelopes for them a few times a week, and demystify the submission process a bit for yourself. Also, being sincerely thanked for your efforts once a week feels great!”

Carleigh just graduated from the Writer’s Studio at SFU, and although she’s currently basking in 40-degree weather in Thailand, she’ll be back at SFU this spring, assisting Timothy Taylor in the fiction cohort. She’s currently working on a novel about honeybees and crystal meth—“NOT honeybees on crystal meth,” she assures us—and some poems about “my badass, hard-drinking, war veteran Métis grandmother.”

We can’t wait! But in the meantime, we’ll have to check in at carleighbaker.com to keep our eye on this talented woman.

4 Comments

  1. Pingback: EVENT magazine interview. | Carleigh Baker

  2. carleigh baker / February 4, 2013 at 8:14 pm /

    And I <3 all the fine folks at EVENT. Thanks for this, and for making my time there fun and informative.

  3. Pingback: Read All Over: Carleigh Baker — Vancouver Is Awesome

  4. Cullene Bryant / June 21, 2013 at 2:33 pm /

    Congratulations Carleigh -on the win and being an intern!
    Best Wishes for the future
    Cullene

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