A love of reading led Denae Sawyer to seek — and earn — an internship last spring with Dzanc Books, a non-profit publisher of literary fiction and non-fiction. Sawyer, who is working on a master’s degree in innovation design at Wichita State University, spent the spring semester interning remotely for 20 hours a week.
Her work consisted of reading and researching to determine if the manuscript fit Dzanc’s standards and sensibility. She also evaluated the potential audience and marketing strategies.
“We would sift through and pick one (manuscript) that especially spoke to us,” she said. “We would start developing a really, really generic portfolio of — what is the story about, what makes it good, what is the audience, what is the marketability?”