Editor Q&A with Miriam-Rachel Newman
By Makenna Cook
Starting as a physician’s assistant, Miriam-Rachel Newman always kept writing in her back pocket. Creative writing has been a part of her life as long as she can remember. She wrote her first unpublished book at age ten.
Now an editor for the White Bear, Plymouth and City South magazines, she finds writing in every part of her job. From assigning stories to keeping her writers on deadline to copy editing, Newman talks about how she got the opportunity to write for a large print company, and what a day looks like in that role.
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Q) What drew you to the path of editing and/or writing?
A) When I was a child in grade school, my father would always tell me that I was going to be a journalist. For some reason, it just didn’t click. I followed the path of creative writing; I have a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing. I actually didn’t start doing journalism until two years ago. Although I’ve been writing forever, I was looking for a job, and one of my friends was the editor at Tygro. She asked me if I wanted to do some articles and I said yeah, so I started doing an article or two every month. She left Tygro and then they asked me if I wanted to be the editor, so I became the editor of White Bear Lake, Plymouth, and City South. It wasn’t much of a stretch because of all the writing I had done, but some things were different.
Q) What was your first editing/writing job out of school?
A) My first job out of college was waitressing at restaurants, and then I got a degree as a physician’s assistant. Then I had my kids. It was a super hard schedule to raise them on, so then I moved to writing, which is probably where I should’ve been anyway.
Q) What are your responsibilities as an editor? What is a typical workday like for you?
A) I have to do the line-up based off the themes in that specific magazine. Not every article has to be about that but at least some of them. Then I line-up the writers. We have some staff writers and some freelancers. I assign the writers to their themes. I usually don’t tell them what to write about unless they need help. I make sure they turn their stories in on deadline. I write some of the articles myself.
When the first drafts come in, I do my first look through for editing. It’s a little bit of copy editing and story clarification. I also have to make sure stories have multiple sources. I prefer our writers to use at least two sources. When that’s done, I send my interns the articles to fact check. After that, we send them off to a copy editor and to the art people. They send me back final copies and proofs. Then I have to cut stories and photos to what we have room for in the magazine. We do final copyediting check and finalize the art. At that point, that issue is sent off and out of my hands, so I start the line-up for the next issue.
I also had to learn the whole system of Instagram in order to do social media for the Plymouth and White Bear Lake magazines. I had to learn why you put things out there and what kinds of posts to do at what time.
Q) What are the good things and bad things about being an editor? What do you like about being an editor and what challenges do you face as an editor?
A) It’s very cool to be able to shape the publication. I can make sure that some of the stuff that’s important to me get in the magazine. For example, there’s a huge story right now about Fort Snelling and the head of the Minnesota History Center. He’s doing a lot of stuff for Fort Snelling right now, and I thought that was really interesting, so I got that into our magazine. I get to promote local artists and local businesses, and I love watching them grow. Not to mention I get to talk to the most interesting people. I get to find out all the good restaurants and all the good recipes around town. I get to find all the coolest books and talk to different local bookstores. I’m always learning on the job.
I don’t like keeping on top of people about deadlines. It’s also sometimes hard because you have to write articles that will appeal to the advertisers. Some of the advertisements need really expensive add-ons. I don’t really like shaping what I do around the advertisers.
Q) What are some memorable anecdotes in your time as an editor?
A) I got to meet Michael Twitty. He was a culinary scholar and did a presentation at Fort Snelling about how the enslaved people at Fort Snelling made all the food. The cooking techniques of Africa became “southern cooking.” Every press person there got a few minutes with him so he had some very interesting stories.
The “stand-out scholars” were really fun to meet. They’re so inspiring. Across every publication that I’ve done, I’ve just loved this kind of story. To a large extent, I feel that our country is being flushed down the toilet, but when I talk to these students, it gives me a brighter hope for our country’s future.
Q) What advice would you give to students who are interested in becoming an editor?
A) Write as much as you can, even for crappy publications. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. Don’t wait for a great opportunity; take whatever you can get. All opportunity is good opportunity.
Q) Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years?
A) I don’t want to give up the editing because it’s something different every single day, and there aren’t many jobs that are like that. Ideally I’d like to be editing for more money, but there’s a lot of lifestyle things that compensate for it. In five years, I see myself still editing. Beyond that, I’m hoping my book comes out ,and I’m hoping it’ll be big. I’m hoping that that will lead to more publishing opportunities.
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From the dream of being a ten-year-old author to becoming the editor for three different newspapers, Miriam-Rachel Newman has enough stories to last a lifetime.
