My name is Sarah Jacoby and I am majoring in Illustration and Printmaking. Random House Children’s Books is the world’s largest English language children’s trade book publisher. Schwartz & Wade is a smaller children’s book imprint at Random House. I was not familiar with Schwartz & Wade until Rachael Cole, Art Director, came to speak to the Illustration Practice Program in the fall of 2012. As an illustrator who is interested in creating picture books, I was just becoming familiar with imprints that I respected at that time. Schwartz & Wade was very high on my list. I made an effort to introduce myself to Rachael the day she spoke at MICA and applied for an internship that winter. After an in person interview at their home office in New York, I was hired.
During the summer I worked closely with Stephanie Pitts, the editorial assistant at Schwartz &
Wade. My general duties were the following:
• Read and report on submissions
• Read unsolicited manuscripts
• Scan and package original art from illustrators
• Attend all relevant department/division meetings
• Maintain our social media presence on Facebook and Flickr
• Administrative, editorial, and design duties as assigned
I particularly enjoyed being in direct contact with authors and illustrators like Sophie Blackall, Stephanie Graegin, Chris Raschka, Red Nose Studio and many others. I was able to contact them, handle their art and give general feedback. This experience truly gave me the sense of what it’s like to create a book with a major publishing industry from the very beginning. It also enabled me to understand the nature of art direction at a children’s book imprint. This experience not only helped me to understand how this industry works, but the nature of working and living in New York itself. I recommend this internship to anyone who is interested in both art direction and the publishing industry.
