Career Area: Publisher

  • Melanie McClellan-Hartnett

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett

    Interview

    Transcript

    Ryleigh Kelley  00:00 

    Hello, my name is Ryleigh, and today we are talking with Melanie McClellan-Hartnett, a professional creative working from and within South Carolina. So, as we get started, can you tell us your current career and where you’re from? 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  00:14 

    Sure, so I grew up in McClellanville, South Carolina, which is the same as my last name. There is a lot of my family there. It’s a very small town, and I did go to school elsewhere, and I’ve lived elsewhere, but that’s my roots, and that’s where I’ve been from most of my career, which has been wonderful.  

    I will always support, when you have a community behind you, no matter how small they are, that’s just a wonderful, wonderful resource. There’s just less, just not as many opportunities in a small place as there are in a city.  

    So, my husband and I are empty nesters now. I have some very wonderful mentors, who said, ‘We love you, you’re doing great work. You’ve got to get out of your zip code. Listen, you can come back. We want you to come back, but you need to be where you can connect with people easily, and that just happens more readily in a city.” You can walk into an art gallery, and you’ll bump into somebody you know. It’s just different. 

    I am in Charleston, South Carolina, right now, and everything is just blown open. It’s incredible. It’s been the best year, and I just want to encourage people to go out on that limb and see what can happen, and especially I think that we feel like we’re extra connected sometimes because of social media, which we can be.  

    My daughter is in Europe, and I get to see her face. I love that, but we miss out on some of the people connections, and you really miss out on what can happen organically when people just come together and it’s not planned or scheduled. Especially because art, whether it’s literary or visual or whatever, means whatever, it’s a larger vision.  

    When you can come together and connect with other people in that larger vision, you’re going to see stuff you never would have thought of before, and so coming to Charleston has been wonderful for me. I just started painting. My husband was in my studio yesterday, and he’s like, “You have three exhibits here.” Which is a lot, because I have one currently hanging, so really, before the paintings were like four exhibits, but it’s because I realized I was so lucky to be in such a pretty place. I always thought of 1920s Paris with the artists. God, I was jealous, and now I’m not jealous, because we have that. 

    You live in a beautiful place. You want to paint it? Do it. You want to draw it? Do it. You want to write about it? Do it, and don’t be afraid to just connect with people who are doing what they love. You don’t have to be a professional. I didn’t start out as a professional by any means. I thought I was going to be a writer.  

    “Melanie, you’re going to be doing oil paintings.” Okay, another life, maybe. I like oil paintings, but I was scared to try, and I think getting over that fear, meeting a lot of people, and so right now I have an exhibit, it’s at the Healing Gallery, which is on Queen Street, and everybody laughs at me, so like, “Of course, this is your solo exhibit,” my debut one.  

    You have to go down a little path between hedges, very hidden, private, covered in vines, just the house I moved from, but it’s the best vibe, and so it has twenty-two oil paintings in it that they’re all full of words and symbols, intentions, mantras, anything I’ve kind of wrangled out, but then I’ll paint it out, or sometimes I will inscribe it with a lit incense stick, so because I feel like if you’re doing that and then you’re using the other end to inscribe, it’s like a prayer.  

    It just puts me in the right place, and people are always like, “Well, how do you know when you’re done when you look at these very abstract paintings?” I think that’s a fair question. I say, “Because I’m struggling with things in the paintings, and so I don’t sign it until I find the light.” I think you can do that with anything.  

    So, with this show, I’m really excited. It posits that if you put positive intentions in something, and then you tell people, because I don’t want to be sneaky, if you tell people and they are open to it, and they want to look for that immediately, your brain triggers positive neurochemistry. It’s psychological priming. It doesn’t even matter if you believe in the metaphysics of what is written, your brain will automatically reward you. So, this show is about what could happen if we just start putting positive things in everything, because I’m tired of microplastics, and all that. If we have to live with all the negativity, we need to learn to do more. It has been amazing, seeing so many different kinds of people come in and just be open.  

    It’s a great experience, and I have found that I was a little nervous moving here because I was very comfortable where I was. I just turned fifty, and you don’t always make friends very quickly, and I don’t know how this is going to go. I have started getting to know artists around here, and they’re wonderful, and we’re doing things together; we’re doing cool things together.  

    I don’t know if this is a little repetitive, if it’s not, but I will say that one of the biggest things that helped me coming to Charleston was somebody connected me with Beeple Studios, and they are so great about supporting artists and connecting artists. I’ve met a bunch of artists through that, and it’s like when you have somebody who’s willing to put that kind of support in, it’s fantastic.  

    Ryleigh Kelley  06:41 

    Yeah, absolutely. Community is so important, and I’m happy to hear that you’re finding that in Charleston, because you’re in your comfort zone for a while. It’s like you feel that peace and security, and then when that change comes, it can be scary, but it sounds like that it’s doing just wonders right now.  

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  07:05 

    It’s wonderful. I am working on the poster, or a competition for the poster for the 2027 Cooper River Bridge Run. I pretty much try to die then after a run, which is not my fate at all, but I have started entering more community competitions like that, because somebody wins, so why not try?  

    Also, I find it makes me really value things about my community, because you have to think about it, if you’re going to do something, have your vision, then you have to really engage with it, and it helps you value what’s there. I’ve started doing more little things like that, because those are all opportunities when you see things like that, I think a lot of artists think, “That’s not ‘angsty’ enough.”  

    Ryleigh Kelley 08:08 

    Yeah, the tortured artist aesthetic. 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  08:10 

    Or serious, or whatever, and I get that, obviously, I want to do serious stuff. When you are forced to think about things through your medium, but they’re different things, that’s great. People [Studios], when he has live painting events, I’ve been lucky enough to paint at two of them. The first one was about crypto punks. I didn’t even know what they were. I had to learn about them. 

    That was fascinating. And then the second one was the future of art, which I was like, well, that’ll be the future of humanity. And for a moment, I was like, “that sounds kind of bleak.” And then I was like, “no, wait a minute, let’s think.” They say we’ll be living on Mars. And so, I spent three months studying Mars. It’s so cool. 

    Do I think that we should solve stuff here first? Heck yeah, but it’s great to give your mind new frontiers. New challenges. It doesn’t matter if it’s not your subject matter. I guess that’s kind of my point. It’s like take that risk, try it, it doesn’t have to define you. 

    Ryleigh Kelley  09:27 

    Yeah, and also, too, it gets into this aspect of play and art, and I love how you’re leaning into that. You said, there could be positivity, there could be play and I love that you explore that. 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  09:48 

    Well, I feel like people need to tell artists that, because we need permission to be humans, and also we need ease. But I don’t know, one of my artist friends, actually, she’s the one that she’s from Japan, and she gave me this little guy, and one day we’re having a show in Japan, so I always wear this to all my art stuff, because it’s like a promise that we’re gonna be that.  

    But she is like one of those ‘extremely talented when you sit next to her’ people, and she told me that my gift to her was teaching her to make art without rules, which there are obvious rules like you can’t put acrylic over oil, like there’s things, yes, you have to pay attention to– 

    Ryleigh Kelley  10:34 

    Yeah, the practical, I guess, yeah. 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  10:37 

    Right. Like, the physics rules, the chemical rules, but the people rules? No, that’s like one of the coolest things about being an artist is my job is to question why those are rules, and think about it,  

    Picasso is a mixed bag for me. Sometimes I don’t want to know about people’s personal lives, people are people, but he said to, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” That is my favorite art quote. That is exactly what you need to do, because you want your work to stand up, but you also don’t want, I mean, if it’s your vision, nobody else can tell you how to do it.  

    I mean, I get our mentors who can say, “Hey, you could do this better.” One thing I did when I moved to Charleston, I joined the Redux Art Gallery, does figure drawing on Sunday nights. It’s expensive, and it’s just a great vibe, and all my lines immediately improved. I never draw naked people, but the human body is very, very beautiful, and if you can draw it, you can draw anything, and being around more artists who are just that’s all there, everyone’s just following their vision.  

    Then you’ll find, “Hey, I’m using this too, or I’ve been thinking about whatever.” I love it, especially, if it’s someone from another country, and you’ll meet, you’ll be playing with some of the very same things, and not from social media. Usually I don’t do a lot of scrolling while I’m thinking about stuff, because I’m afraid of it being too much. I’ll do it after I have an idea, because then I want to see what kind of variations there are, but I, but I think it’s really cool when you’re like, “oh my god, we’re all leaning into something so much bigger.” That’s so cool. 

    Ryleigh Kelley  12:43 

    Yeah, yeah, and especially, too, I love how you talk about that temptation to scroll on social media when you get an idea, because it fulfills our curiosity a little bit, but it’s that fine line of, okay, when it gets too much, and then you lose the idea. Finding and striking that balance in everything.  

    I kind of want to talk a little bit more about, what you just said about how even you’re meeting artists from different countries, and how you’re all collectively working to something kind of bigger, and I’m curious, you kind of already talked about this, but is there anything South Carolina, or maybe even your hometown, or Charleston, in particular, brings to your work, and does it have a unique influence on you compared to people in the same profession in different states, or even different countries? 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  13:42 

    I might be too small to answer that.  I think that water is a huge part. I’m living in downtown Charleston. We feel flooding all the time. Also, where I grew up, McClellanville, South Carolina, was where Hurricane Hugo hit, which was devastating water. So, I’ve seen what water can do, and we know sea levels are rising. That is something – it’s not like everybody is painting water, but everybody’s talking about it.  

    Everybody’s talking about what kind of changes are we going to need to make, like architecturally, which, honestly, I don’t think that’s doom and gloom. I think that’s cool, because the world has been changing forever. That’s what it does. People have been adapting, that’s what we do, and that I honestly think is cool… like, I don’t know if you’ve ever read, they’re very old school, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.  

    Ryleigh Kelley  14:53 

    I feel like I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t read it.  

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  14:55 

    Okay, just skim it, that’s all I’ve honestly done, because they’re dense. But they’re so cool, because science is such a part of art and social stuff. You’re studying all kinds of different stuff. I think it’s exciting, I feel like there are going to be answers made. I think an artist is not afraid to completely fantasize. We fantasize about making it big all the time, but also, well, what do you mean you can’t have a house made out of a sphere?  

    I can, I’m gonna make it work, and that’s a little bit of a jump. I’ve gotten really interested in the fact that MIT has all kinds of open-source courses that you can study. I know a lot of artists and people who are kind of interested, because that was not them in school, but now just want to know more about this. 

    I think the dynamics of where you live, for sure, and South Carolina – it’s really not just coastal South Carolina, because I saw a map the other day, and it was kind of scary, but it was also cool. It was like from space, showing how the currents were changing the coastline again. But okay, we’ll adapt, so however that looks, maybe it’s relocating, maybe it’s completely different housing.  

    When you’re an artist or a writer or a musician, all of that is an opportunity to discuss that and to think about different ways you could do it, and to not really have a budget, like when you’re trying to produce it. Yes, but in your head with your idea, it’s free, so it’s a lot less limits. 

    Ryleigh Kelley  16:55 

    Great sentiments about that too, especially with Charleston, how there’s this issue of rising sea levels. You kind of take as an opportunity to be like, “we need to adapt, like we’re going to adapt.” I love too, about architecture, and how that may change being an artist and the opportunity to be included in that discussion.  

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  17:24 

    If you include artists in that discussion, then they’ll think of something radical, and then the person who knows physics better will say, “But…” I do love all the steam education stuff they’re doing? It’s fantastic. It’s so holistic, and I know that they put that label on some things; they’re like, “Where are you getting that?” But honestly, any connection you can make, you don’t know where that’ll go. So, try it. 

    Ryleigh Kelley  17:57 

    Yeah, speaking of that, kind of little bit of words of advice. Do you have any advice for young adults or students that have an interest, in pursuing a similar career, in your world, in the creative world? And are there any just particular skills, not just like artistry, but like people skills, one should practice or have before stepping fully into this industry? 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  18:26 

    Artists are such a wide range of folks, you know? One thing that helped me become more professional, and because I was just working out of my laundry room-turned-studio, and then I ended up being the director at the McClellan Arts Council for a while, which was really cool, because that really connected me to the network that is in South Carolina. That’s where I saw Arts Commission, that’s where I saw the different universities coming together, and we did stuff with the Smithsonian.  

    That’s where you see people who just don’t know that you have all these resources, and so with that I think getting a working knowledge of the resources that are around you is invaluable. Also, I’ve done a lot of volunteer work with seniors and kids. I think the better your social skills are all across the board, like Queen Victoria said something about beware of artists, because they mix with all types of societies, so therefore they’re the most dangerous and good. 

    I think that that’s true, and I think that the more so, like social studies, a little bit of business sense. What I have done is find somebody who’s better at business than I am who I call my ‘business oracle.’ I think that’s fair, but you still want to have some idea of what the rules are, because I love her – she’s wonderful, but you can’t trust everybody. You need to know. You read stories about people with managers and things going wrong all the time, so get a mentor.  

    I love my mentors, and I think you should switch them up sometimes, because if you get a little too good, too connected, then it becomes more support, which is great, but you still need someone who will tell you if, “Nah, you’re going off kind of weird path, there.” So, get good mentors, and connect with your museums and your universities’ programs. They always need hands. They always need hands. If you’re good at that, doors will open. You’ll meet people.  

    We just had Piccolo and Spolito here in Charleston, and Marion Square is like one of my favorite places to get with all—I had a bunch of friends there. I do not have the stamina to stay in a tent for seventeen days in the heat, but I will come visit them when they do. I was really struck with; I don’t even know how they would do it, but this is such an opportunity for mentorship.  

    If you look at young artists who are just starting, or even not sure they want to do it, but they’re thinking about it, not for the whole time, just for a little bit of that time, it’d be so good for them because they need so much. This is going to sound kind of crazy, but most artists are doing food and bev[erage] anyway to pay their bills. I actually think that working food and bev[erage] was great, because you meet all kinds of people. You just don’t know where that’s going to go.  

    I did an arts program once where I specifically went and hired people from restaurants, because I knew a lot of creatives have that side. I wanted people who couldn’t do that full time, didn’t have room or resources to have it set up, but just still to do their work for a little bit, get into their groove. It was so cool, honestly, you could study anything in the whole wide world, but languages, social time, different age groups, and just plug into all the resources. There’s so many resources, I mean, goodness, and also– 

    Ryleigh Kelley  22:36 

    Emphasis on resources. 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  22:38 

    No, like really, but they can help each other so much, and you can get two for one. If people are working together, there’s so much money. Well, what if we can do more with it? You know, not trying to shortchange people, maybe that same person could get two benefits. 

    I was thinking down here every restaurant should adopt an artist, because they’re so hot out there. Like, name a drink after them, put one of their pieces, so many possibilities. 

    Ryleigh Kelley  23:13 

    Really, there really is. There really is. Yeah. We are running a little bit out of time, but thank you so much for just taking the time to speak with me, and I really appreciate all of your sentiments, and just for you talking and articulating about your experiences. I think this was a lovely, lovely conversation. 

    Melanie McClellan-Hartnett  23:37 

    You’ve been really awesome. Thank you so much. I don’t really like doing interviews, and you have just been so human. 

    Ryleigh Kelley  23:44 

    Well, thank you. That means a lot to me. 

  • Quwana James

    “Continue to be creative in your field by not stopping. Keep writing and performing. That is what makes you a poet, storyteller, writer, and performer. Start by starting.” 

    Quick Facts

    Education: Graduate School

    Years of Experience: 10 Years

    About

    Quwana James started writing and never stopped. That is how she describes it, because simplicity is the point. Her poems are about everything, always from an adult perspective. Every poem and short story rhyme to attempt to make the best sense of the world around her. With a decade of experience, Quwana continues practicing her craft of adult poetry and storytelling. 

    Working as a licensed professional counselor and a poet, Quwana’s two lives are not often in conflict. Counseling adds to her writing a depth of attention and care, coming from spending her days listening with intention to people. She brings that same quality of presence to her craft. 

    She is currently working on her first poetry book, due out in the fall of 2026. It is the next step in a quiet and consistent process that she has been building, which reflects her belief that becoming a storyteller is simple: do not stop. Quwana emphasizes that waiting to feel ready or until everything is polished is a feeling that should be avoided. “Keep writing and performing,” she says. “That is what makes you a poet, storyteller, writer, and performer.” Start by starting and then keep going from there. 

  • Kate McMullen

    Kate McMullen

    Interview

    Transcript

    00:00 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Okay, so to start, can you just introduce yourself a bit? Spell out your name, tell us where you’re from, where you’re located currently, that kind of stuff. 

     00:08 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, I’m Kate McMullen. I am currently in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I am from Greensboro, North Carolina. I lived all over North Carolina before I ended up here. I’ve been here for eight years, which is nuts. Is that everything? Yeah. 

    00:34 Victoria Bartolotto 

    So can you tell us what your position is, what you do for the press, and a little bit of a summary of what you guys do? 

    00:42 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, so I’m the managing editor of Hub City Press. I started out as the assistant director doing mostly social media and some book design. And I worked more for the overarching nonprofit, which is Hub City Writers Project, a bit more. So we are 30 years old this year, and we, as the Writers Project, we operate in Spartanburg, South Carolina. We run a bookshop downtown. We run literacy nonprofit efforts in our communities. So, we give books away to kids. We run writers workshops and conferences.  

    And then where I work, officially, Hub City Press has been around for 30 years. We have been publishing; we started out in 1995, publishing writers in South Carolina and Spartanburg specifically. So, we put out two anthologies of Spartanburg writers in the first two years of the press. 

     01:35 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Oh, wow! That’s exciting. 

     01:37 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah! So we, those are Hub City anthology one and two, essentially. And then since then, we have been in our early years, we were doing a lot of local history. There’s a camp nearby that sent people to World War II, and there’s training and stuff there. We have a book about that. We’re a mill town, so we have a book about the textile industry here. We have two books now. We did one in the aughts, and we did one last year on urban renewal in our Black communities. So, we’ve done a lot of that historical regional interest stuff, and that’s how we got started. And then in the late aughts, we started publishing more traditionally, fiction, poetry, non-fiction.  

    So we started out specifically with novels and poems. Since then, we now do eight to ten books a year; fiction, poetry, non-fiction. We run a few prizes. We run a short story prize. We won a prize for South Carolina novelists, which is the only one of its kind in the country. We work with the Arts Commission to sponsor a South Carolina book every other year from a South Carolina writer. And then we also run two poetry contests. We run a general, it’s called New Southern Voices. So it’s a book prize for a Southern poet that is judged. We run that every other year. The short story prize is also judged. We run that every other year.  

    Then we do what we are calling our BIPOC poetry series, which is essentially every year we choose a book with an editor at large, from a Southern poet that’s not residency based. Our other ones are Virginia to Texas. So, we’re supporting writers who are living in the South. And that, the BIPOC poetry series, is funded by the Poetry Foundation and is a little bit different where you can be anywhere in the country, but as long as you’re writing about Southern themes. 

    So Hub City Press, now we do all of that stuff. We publish Southern writers, essentially, from Virginia to Texas. We really to try to find new and extraordinary voices. We’re also now getting into reprinting old out of print things that we thought could be brought back into the light in terms of Southern, in this case, nonfiction, but across the board, Southern works that could use a second life. So we’re getting into that too.  

    As the managing editor, I am running all of those prizes. I’m opening and closing those things and signing readers. We also receive books from agents year-round. Pitches from agents. We also open for un-agented submissions three times a year, depending on what we need. So that’s a weekend where we’ll open for something specific like short stories outside of the prize years, or poetry. 

    But mostly that’s how we’re opening for novels. It’s the best way to get stuff to us if you don’t have an agent. We really believe not everybody has one and there’s just a lot of gatekeeping in that sense. So, we like to talk directly to writers that way. So, I run all of those. 

    I’m assigning all of those things out to people. We have a group of readers who I work with on a contract basis. We also have an editor who works out of Birmingham who I work with on editing the books that have come in that we’ve picked up. 

    And then I am also a book designer here. So, I am a production manager slash designer. So I run all of those books through the printing process. And that’s the other big heavy lifting part of my job. There’s really only three of us here, so I also do some publicity. We have a sales and marketing manager and then our publisher, Meg Reid is the higher level royalties and contracts. And she also does design. We’re both self-taught book designers. So we do all that stuff together.  

    Then our sales and marketing manager runs social media and all of the book ordering. All of that stuff. I essentially handle acquiring production and then author care in between. We do work with outside publicity now sometimes, which is great. But I mostly am a shepherd, I think, of books from start to finish. 

    It’s fun. It’s really nice to wear a lot of hats because when I was looking for publishing jobs, I wanted a lot of variety because I think otherwise it’s really boring. 

    06:12 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Well, definitely. I feel like, what you said about writers not having a lot of agents. It’s like, I’m currently in school to be a writer and I’m trying to figure out which route I want to take. Trying to get an agent is so overwhelming. And I feel like that’s such a great opportunity that you provide writers who don’t have that, in order to still be published. I think that’s great. That’s awesome! 

    06:32 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, it’s nice and it’s fun to discover things. I hate that we call it a slush pile, but it’s fun to discover things in there. And a lot of smaller presses are doing this.  I think it’s really nice. There’s just, there’s other stuff.  

    Agents want to pick stuff up that is- their clients tend to be this really commercially viable kind of stuff, which is fantastic and great. And they’re going to help you get those big deals if you want. But if you, A, don’t want that or B, can’t get in with an agent, being able to talk directly to a publisher is a really fantastic thing. So, I’m really glad that we do it. It’s really nice. 

    07:11 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Like you said, when the Hub City Press started getting up, you guys are really interested in the history of the area. What about South Carolina specifically do you think brings a unique aspect or unique niche thing to your work or the Press itself that nowhere else gets from? I don’t know where, you know what I’m saying? How does South Carolina influence you? 

    07:34 Kate McMullen 

    This is a great question. Yeah, this is a great question. I think that Hub City, there are some presses around with our model, but I feel we’re one of the earlier ones to do it. And I think the thing about South Carolina, and specifically the semi-rural area that we’re in, feels like a really ripe place to consider history and all its facets in this specific way.  

    I think in the South we are obviously very obsessed with our history and our history is very marked with conflict and differing opinions, I’ll say. So, I think it’s nice to work somewhere here. We’re the books that we were doing early on are like wrestling with some of the complicated Southern history that’s not unique to us, obviously. Like, What was it like to work in these mills? They allowed child labor and it was a very difficult life. And then when the mills left our town, it was rather decimated from the 50s to about the 90s. There was not much going on here after the textile mills left. 

    So, and then you also get our books about urban renewal and all of this stuff where we’re disenfranchising black communities. All of that stuff is really important. It’s nice to work somewhere where we’re contemplating that stuff and we’re not just writing it off because it’s part of our history. It’s something that happened. 

    So of course, it’s important to chew through that and to think about where we’re at now and how that can inform Southern identity going forward. I think that’s the thing about Southern identity too, it’s got some weird contradictions, right? So that’s such good fodder for story. So that’s looking forward into the fiction or non-fiction that we publish and the poetry too. 

    A lot of our non-fiction books, we put out one last year about the Georgia Gullah Geechee community and how difficult it has been for them to continue to thrive and to have that community space. We published a book a number of years ago about the Atlanta airport and all of the neighborhoods that it overturned to be built. So, there’s a lot of- obviously that’s fantastic. The Atlanta airport is the world’s busiest airport, but we did uproot communities to build it, right? 

    There’s all this very fascinating stuff about the growth of the South that I think has a lot of fodder for conflict, not in a bad way, but tension in fiction and nonfiction and prose. 

    We’re in a unique position to be contemplating that stuff. And I think that’s what we look for when we’re looking for books is things that feel like they haven’t been discussed. I have not published a Civil War novel. We’ve not published a novel about the Civil War. I think there’s a lot of that stuff out. You can find that stuff if you want. We don’t want to retread that so much as we want to find other places in Southern history that feel underexplored and learn what they can teach us about, right? And looking ahead by looking behind. I think that that’s kind of the ethos of what we like to publish here. 

    10:57 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Yeah, that’s great. Because, like you said, you can go to any bookstore and find a million books on the Civil War, but you can’t find the niche things that no one else would know about. So that’s awesome. 

    11:07 Kate McMullen 

    More than sweet tea and magnolias in the South is always what we’re telling people. So yeah, that’s a fantastic question. Wow. So good.  

    11:17 Victoria Bartolotto 

    So reflecting a little bit personally, can you describe a moment in your journey throughout your education, throughout just life in general, that made you want to become an editor? Made you want to take on projects in the publishing industry? Was there a defining moment for you? 

    11:33 Kate McMullen 

    It’s interesting. I tell people that I tripped into publishing a little bit. I got my MFA at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Fantastic program, it’s a three-year program. And I was like, “I guess I’m going to teach.” I don’t know. What I wanted to do was just keep writing.  

    I had worked with Ron Rash at Western Carolina University where I did my undergrad. And he was like, “Hey, you should get an MFA.” And I was like, “okay!” Both of my parents have like theater MFAs. And they were like, “Yes, MFAs are like the next step.” And I’m like, “Cool. I guess, let’s do it.” And I did want to keep writing. Everybody had said this is a great opportunity to essentially buy yourself time to write and to give yourself all this space. 

    And I miss it every day. It was so nice to as a writer, to only have that. That was my only job. It’s fantastic. It’s not actually a thing that people can do in real life, unfortunately. But I found out pretty quickly that I didn’t want to teach. I don’t like it very much. And I think that’s maybe for other folks to do. I don’t think I was very good at it. So, it just made me so nervous that I didn’t want to keep doing it.  

    So luckily, Wilmington has a student-run press. They’re a non-profit university press. And they do a book a year usually. It’s been a minute, like some time, there’s been some transition, I think, over there. But usually they do a book of the year. And essentially what happens is it’s a practicum run press. So students make the books and do a lot of the work guided by publishing professionals. So I took a class in book building and then they were like, “Hey, you should take this class in publishing.” And I was like, “Great, sounds fun.” 

    I love books. I love writers. I love this industry stuff. This is new and fun. Then I ended up taking that class the whole time I was there. My last year at Wilmington, I ended up being the TA for that class, essentially. Emily Smith, who’s the publisher there, I was her assistant, which was fantastic. And I was like, “Cool, I think I can do this. This is like what I’m going to do now.” 

    I needed a plan that was not my original plan. So I was like, “Oh this is here, great!” So it was that experience made me realize, this is something that I could keep doing. I wanted to work in the industry, so to speak. I find publishing a lot more suited to me than academia was. So it was really nice. We got to go with authors on tours and stuff. We wrote grants for that, so we had to document a lot of it. So I was driving around and going to bookstores and learning how bookstores were managed. It was very hands-on and something that just really helped me fall in love with it, I think.  

    So then I started applying for jobs as I was finishing my MFA. I was looking around in New York and I was like, “I don’t know if I’m going to be, as a Southern writer myself, just like slide into the job.” And it was not an editing job originally, but I ended up doing some editing. And I think because of my MFA experience doing workshops and that kind of thing. I think that’s always something I really like doing is…giving my opinion. But there’s something about book length editing that I’ve really come to like. I think I’m good at it, but I also really like that big structure stuff. So that was something that, again, that I like slid into here. 

    As I started taking more of it on, I think that’s when the moment I was like; there’s a lot of imposter syndrome because, you’re working with authors who have published like a few books or whatever.  

    Last year I edited Minrose Gwynn, who has published like1000 books and it’s just a consummate storyteller. And I was like, “I feel a little crazy telling you what I think you should do.” But she’s been very grateful and she is always telling me that the book was better after we worked on it together. So that’s very flattering and special. But it’s also just something I really, it’s something I ended up really liking doing. So I’m fortunate to get to do that in the job here. It’s really a nice thing to do, to have this relationship with a writer and to polish something up and put it out. It’s really special. 

    So I do feel I tripped into it a little bit, but I do really like it. As a writer myself, it’s really nice to get the book into that place where it’s ready to go and reviewers and critics are going to read it, and readers in bookstores and stuff. So, it’s special. And I think having done it enough, I’m like, “Okay, like this seems like something I’m allowed to keep doing, I guess.” 

    16:45 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Yeah, no, I completely sympathize and empathize with you on the whole imposter syndrome because even when I’m in workshop in one of my creative writing classes, I’m like, “Who am I to say that your work is bad or it’s good.” 

    16:59 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, like this isn’t working. I don’t know. I just like books and I read a lot of books. It’s funny to have the authority on that, but it’s fine. 

    17:13 Victoria Bartolotto 

    So throughout your whole journey, was there any kind of fear that you might have experienced, as you said, tripping into publishing? Was there any moment that you were like, “Oh, maybe this isn’t going to work out at all?” 

    17:28 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, the publishing industry is a funny place to be because everyone’s like, “It’s dead, it’s dying,” all the time. I was talking to an author whose book we’re reprinting yesterday and she was like, “I don’t know, they’ve been saying this for 50 years, that books are over.” I think there’s a pretty near constant state of panic that something might snap and no one will ever buy a book again. And fewer and fewer people read. 

    So sometimes it feels like you’re in a weird niche industry for sure, which I don’t mind. And I guess, I don’t know. This is always how it is, especially if you’re somebody like me who’s always had a lot of interests. It’s hard to be like, “oh, I’m picking this. I’m doing this. This is happening. I’m going to base my career on this forever.” And it’s not you can’t just jump out and do something else.  

    But I also feel like I’ve really dug in here, and I really like the town. And so there’s just a lot of certainty. As an anxious person, you’re like, “oh, man, did I make the right call?” But I love my job, and I like working with writers. And it’s the best way to do it, I think. If I’m not going to be teaching them, putting their books out into the world is really special. And it feels good to work. 

    We’re a nonprofit. It’s nice that the values of this organization align with my own. It’s nice to be, as a Southerner myself, supporting Southern writers, because I’m one too. In terms of the future of books and the uncertainty now; obviously working on a nonprofit where the NEAs, and kind of this flux with the current administration, recently all of the writers grants have been canceled. So now writers aren’t getting money. 

    So that’s always, that funding stuff is concerning for sure, and definitely something that is not fun. It feels the uncertainty is not a great place to be in, but we’ve been just putting our head down and working really hard. 

    And I think it’s the best we can do, honestly. Because if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. A nonprofit publisher is always not doing the bottom line stuff that a big publisher is. We get to take these kind of wild risks with books as long as we make budget, essentially. So anyway, it’s kind of a weird time to be in publishing. I still really like it. It’s nice. 

    It’s nice to work with writers and to make their dreams come true. It gives you that kind of like, “No, this is the right choice.” 

    20:33 Victoria Bartolotto 

    No, definitely. So as we wrap up, bouncing off of that, can you give us any advice for either current college students or high school students who are thinking about going into college for writing or thinking of getting into publishing? Do you have any advice to give to them? 

    20:51 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, the first thing I’ll say is because I got an MFA and now you don’t need to get an MFA, obviously, to go into publishing. If you’re a writer and you want to do that for you, that’s great. I went in right after undergrad and sometimes I’m like, I should have waited and gone and had a little life or something. Because what I wouldn’t give for that writing time now, now that I’m in my 30s and have more things to write about. 

    You don’t need an MFA. I think the things that are cool are the Denver Publishing Institute at the University of Denver is a summer certificate program for two or three months that is so fantastic and gives you a real leg up in terms of jargon. 

    I meet a lot of people who are coming out of undergrad and they’re like, “Oh God, I think I want to go into publishing. Like what, degree do I need?” And you don’t really. There’s so much, I think generally humanities degrees work in publishing. You need communication skills and critical thinking and you need to be able to write an e-mail and have a phone call. And you need to love books. And you can find jobs, like they’re around. It’s a weird industry and it can be small and it takes forever sometimes, which is never fun. But things like Denver are great. 

    There’s one in Columbia too, which is pricier and but you can specialize in stuff, which is neat. And they also do one where they send you to Oxford in England, which is really cool. 

    22:20 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Oh, wow! 

    22:22 Kate McMullen 

    I know! So there’s all kinds of stuff, like publishing certificate programs, I think are especially cool. Like if you’re like me and you’re like, “I need a little school first,” that’s a great resource to dig in and meet people. And Denver especially has a really high job placement rate. 

    If you are interested in the MFA route, there are a lot of places where you can work with publishers. My other advice is to never take an unpaid internship. I think we’re better at these now in the industry. I don’t think there’s as many of these. I know that New York publishers do this a lot and they tend to go to kids who already live there, whose parents can float them. But if you’re not one of those people, that’s not for you. 

    So there are a lot of cool opportunities at small presses. They can’t always pay for you to come live there or anything. Gray Wolf and Milkweed and a couple of these other kind of big indies have a lot of growth. There’s a lot of really interesting places to go, learn on the job, but just definitely make sure that they’re paying you. 

    And then the other thing is, this is what I always say too, is cold emails. Learn how to do a cold e-mail. Write a press that you’re interested in and say, “Do you need manuscript readers?” If they run a prize, say, “Do you need prize readers?” I have read for these literary journals. That’s a great– and agents need readers too. Again, sometimes this is unpaid, but it’s a little easier to read a book unpaid. 

    So yeah, especially if you’re interested in editing or if you’re interested in being an agent. Just knowing how to do a book report, for the industry is just a great skill to have. It’s also super fun. If you like doing that stuff, it’s a pleasure to do. 

    I always need contract readers, we pay people whenever possible, almost always to read books for us. So there’s always that extra work that we’re like, “Okay, like someone can do that.” So writing a cold e-mail to a press, and just saying like, “Hi, can I jump on a call? Hi, do you have any opportunities?” 

    And just following people on social media. We post our jobs there or any kind of calls that we need. So that stuff is always there. And I think my best advice to not be shy. Just if there’s someone you want to work for, be in their inbox. So that way if something opens up, you could be like, “Hello, we’ve worked together before.” 

    Because at these smaller places, it can be, the jobs don’t come open as much. The teams are smaller. And there are some jobs that do turnover everyone. So like editorial assistant position jobs, those entry level jobs, because people move on. Some places don’t have them. We don’t always have, that would be great, but we don’t always have, that  entry level spot. So for us, it’s that contracting. So that’s always like cold emails are in. 

    I’ll make sure that enthusiasm, I just like to see, and I think other people do too. But agent whose books you love, whose authors they represent, who you love, any of those kind of things, I think is like worth a shot, right? Because sometimes the right job won’t come up for a minute, but you can always be, even at the end of undergrad and stuff, thinking about, where you might want to go. And it just gives you a little bit of an in or some experience, which is always helpful. 

    But definitely. All you got to do is love books, and it comes through. People who are book people, we know each other. 

    26:13 Victoria Bartolotto 

    Yeah, exactly. I know what you mean. 

    26:17 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, like “I see you.” 

    26:20 Victoria Bartolotto 

    But thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I sincerely appreciate it. Would you be open to talking with us again for a potential second interview or we have another opportunity about a podcast that goes on with our press initiatives. So there might be a chance that if you are open to it, you could possibly get on the mic. 

    26:41 Kate McMullen 

    Yeah, anytime! I love doing these kind of things. I think it’s non-profit stuff, it’s important. If I had seen any of this stuff in undergrad, I would have been like, “oh, I know what I’m doing, right?” I’m always open to jumping on anything or zoom-in a class or literally whatever. So yeah, please let me know. 

  • Kate McMullen

    Kate McMullen

    “All you got to do is love books, and it comes through. People who are book people, we know each other.” 

    Quick Facts

    Education: M.F.A. at UNC Wilmington 

    Years of experience: 8 years

    About

    As the managing editor for Hub City Press, Kate McMullen’s role is to smooth out the publication process of every book that comes across her desk. Originally from North Carolina, Kate expanded her roots to Spartanburg, where she has lived and worked for the past eight years. With a love of books and a long-developed passion for publishing, Kate and Hub City play an important role in uplifting the untold stories of the American South.  

    Kate’s interest in publishing blossomed when she was working toward her M.F.A. at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. During the three-year program, she joined the university’s student-run, nonprofit publishing lab alongside classes in book building and publishing. The love she had for writing evolved into an enthusiasm for supporting writers, and when she realized working in publishing was a career she could pursue full-time, Kate pursued it.  

    Kate advises students interested in publishing to look at different programs, especially those offering publishing certificates. She also urges those interested to look for internships that fairly compensate the work. “Never take an unpaid internship. I think we’re better at these now in the industry,” she says. “There’s a lot of really interesting places to go, learn on the job, but just definitely make sure that they’re paying you.” 

  • Rachel White

    Rachel White

    “Don’t be afraid to pursue your dreams!” 

    Quick Facts

    Education: Coastal Carolina University Undergraduate degree 

    Years of Experience: 16 Years

    About

    Rachel White is a designer, writer, publisher, and storyteller who provides affordable marketing and administrative solutions to businesses through social media, graphic design, and copywriting. She is also a visual artist and photographer, managing her business at her local farmer’s market. For Rachel, “finding work in a creative field where you enjoy what you do is the ultimate fulfillment!” 

    Throughout her life, Rachel had always been an artist and a writer, from creating paintings as a toddler to writing stories in second grade. Within her career, she has turned her love of art and creative writing into a skill she has utilized in her professional life. Rachel recognizes the importance of everyone’s differences and emphasizes the importance of finding what makes you unique. 

  • C. Michelle Bryant Griffin

    C. Michelle Bryant Griffin

    “Be your unique self, and let the world catch up.” 

    Quick Facts

    Level of Education: A.C. Flora High School (Columbia); attended 27 schools across 12 years; some college 

    Years of Experience: 40+ Years

    About

    C. Michelle Bryant Griffin is an artist, author, and entrepreneur based in the Low Country of South Carolina who has spent more than four decades creating, building, and supporting others in doing the same. Her work today centers on helping dreamers, doers, and entrepreneurs bring their visions to life, transforming ideas into brands that shine and make their mark on the world.  

    Her path into photography began during a divorce in her late fifties, born out of vulnerability and a desire to rebuild. As she photographed other women navigating similar turning points, she found herself collecting their remarkable, under-sung stories which deserved a wider audience. That impulse became a magazine with a global readership for over a decade, dedicated to showcasing the overlooked and the underestimated. When the pandemic reduced print circulation, she pivoted to a fully online practice. She launched Fabulous Business Solutions, a practice that blends strategy, design, and hands-on support for writers, artists, and entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey.  

    She expresses her love for her work, saying that “everything I do is done with 100% heart and passion, as if it were my own personal project.”  

    Michelle describes her abundance of talent as both a blessing and a challenge; the question of how much to use, and in which direction, is one she holds lightly. But the answer she keeps returning to is love. Everything she does, she does because she genuinely loves it. And for her, that has always been enough.  

  • Jenny Jimenez-Sullivan

    Jenny Jimenez-Sullivan

    “Creativity doesn’t expire, it deepens with you.” 

    Quick Facts

    Level of Education: High School; 2-year/Technical College

    Years of Experience: Writing since childhood; sharing work since 2016; working professionally for 3 years. 

    About

    Jenny Jimenez-Sullivan is a podcast host, poet, narrative instructor, writer, and storyteller, among other things, based in the PeeDee and Grand Strand region of South Carolina. Through writing, podcasting, and teaching, she creates spaces where everyday thoughts become meaningful reflections, helping people feel seen and more connected to themselves as well as their communities. 

    Writing and journaling were Jenny’s tools for survival long before they became her vocation. From childhood, the page was a place that didn’t judge her, where she could pour out her heaviness and walk away lighter. It wasn’t until her forties that she decided those words needed to be shared more intentionally, so that others would know they were not alone. She started her blog in 2016 and launched her podcast in 2024, and what began as a personal act of courage has grown into something much larger. She now teaches through OLLI at Coastal Carolina University, bringing that same message to people her age and older: it is never too late to step fully into your purpose. She insists upon this, saying, “Our voices matter now more than ever. Our pain should not be diminished, and our stories can help others heal.” 

    Her advice to emerging creatives, especially those who feel they may have started too late, is direct and freeing: begin small, stay consistent, and let curiosity lead instead of pressure to monetize or perfect. You are not starting from scratch. You are starting from a life fully lived, and that experience is your greatest creative asset.

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  • Winnifred Tataw

    Winnifred Tataw

    “Nurture your passion with persistence. Embrace the power of your unique voice, and remember that every story you tell is a bridge that unites us all. When we foster love and creativity, we create a world that thrives on connection and resilience. The world needs your art!” 

    Quick Facts

    Education: College of Charleston 

    Years of Experience: 15 Years of Experience

    About

    Winnifred Tataw is an author, artist, and book publisher based in the Low Country of South Carolina whose work is rooted in the belief that stories have the power to connect, inspire, and celebrate the full spectrum of human experience. As graduate of the College of Charleston with a background in Studio Art and Writing, she has spent fifteen years crafting work that blends personal narratives with universal truths, creating as she describes, “an inviting tapestry where every reader finds a piece of themselves.” 

    Her love for art and storytelling grew side by side from childhood, shaped by the joy of listening to her parents’ stories and the richness of her heritage. The two passions are so intertwined that she cannot say which came first, but both have always been essential. Remarkably, Winnifred began publishing her novels during her first year of college, setting an early tone for a creative life defined by courage and momentum. She notes that she aims to, “create stories and art that connect and inspire action while celebrating the beauty of the human journey.” 

    For emerging creatives, her message is both generous and clear: the world needs your art. Foster your love of craft with persistence, trust the distinctiveness of your voice, and understand that every story you tell is a bridge, one that unites people, builds resilience, and reminds us of our shared humanity. 

  • Angela Thomas Smith

    Angela Thomas Smith

    “Stay true to your authentic voice, and don’t be afraid to share your story even if it feels imperfect or unfinished.” 

    Quick Facts

    Education Level: Graduate School

    Years of Experience: 6-7 Years

    About

    Angela Thomas Smith, CEO and founder of Queen of Collaborations, works across writing, publishing, storytelling, and podcasting to create platforms that empower individuals and amplify underrepresented voices. Her work focuses on connecting people, sharing untold stories, and building spaces where creativity becomes a tool for transformation and community impact. 

    Her journey into this field was shaped by personal experience and resilience. She shares, “Life experience is what truly led me to this work. After overcoming personal challenges and setbacks, I realized I needed a new beginning…that personal transformation inspired me to help others do the same and set me on the path to empowering, uplifting, and connecting people through my platform.” 

    The uniqueness of her work comes from how she blends authorship, advocacy, event production, and community-building. She explains, “I blend authorship, advocacy, event production, and community-building to create spaces where overlooked voices are celebrated and empowered. I don’t just publish books or host events; I intentionally connect people…My process is deeply collaborative, spiritually guided, and centered on leaving a legacy of hope and transformation for generations to come.” 

    Angela emphasizes authenticity and growth in the creative journey. She encourages emerging creatives to stay grounded in their voice, embrace continuous learning, and surround themselves with supportive communities. She highlights the importance of resetting when needed and recognizing that each individual perspective holds value. She also believes strongly in the role of creativity in human expression and development, stating that the arts are essential across all stages of life and that creativity is a fundamental part of who we are.