In November of last year, I began a publishing internship with Glasgow Women’s Library. Located in Glasgow’s East End, GWL acts as a lending library, historical archive and provider of services and programmes for women across Scotland. The mission of the library is ‘to celebrate the lives and achievements of women, champion their historical, cultural and political contributions and act as a catalyst to eradicate the gender gap that contributes to widespread inequalities in Scotland’. Unique as the only women’s library in Scotland, GWL aims to provide a welcoming and productive space for women from all walks of life; a warm smile and offer of tea is almost guaranteed when you walk through the doors.

My role at the library was to provide publishing related support for a book titled Mixing The Colours: women speaking about sectarianism, an anthology of short stories and poems about women’s experiences with sectarianism in Scotland. More than sixteen writers contributed to the book, including commissioned authors Eleanor Thom, Denise Mina and Magi Gibson. The short stories and poems contained within the publication were collected through a series of creative writing workshops and discussions where women were encouraged to draw on experiences of sectarianism in their lives. The result is a moving narrative that is truly unique: Mixing The Colours: women speaking about sectarianism is the first ever published work written by and about women on the issue of sectarianism. The book was launched with a conference on 20th March that included performances by the contributing writers, discussions and a screening of the accompanying film of the same name. The entire project was spearheaded by the wonderful Rachel Thain-Gray, my internship mentor and the Project Development Worker for Mixing The Colours.

Several of the authors of Mixing The Colours: women speaking about sectarianism posing with the book.

During my time at the library, I worked on various editorial and marketing tasks for the Mixing The Colours publication. These included proofreading the manuscript, contacting book festivals, researching, designing an Advance Information sheet and copyright page, writing a press release and sending it to media outlets, blogging and planning for the conference.

The Mixing The Colours conference at St. Andrew’s in the Square in Glasgow.

I’m grateful to have been trusted with so much responsibility throughout my time at the library and for all the support I was given by Rachel, Rebecca and the rest of the Glasgow Women’s Library staff. The internship served as a broad introduction to the tasks involved in the overall production of a book and it was a privilege to work with an organisation with such strong values while developing my own skills as a publishing student.