Mara Brashem (’12)

After completing my internship at the Roald Dahl Story company last year, I realized that I wanted to spend my career working with books, and this fall I feel lucky to have had the incredible experience of getting to participate in the Columbia Publishing Course UK! This intensive one-month certificate course that focuses on all aspects book publishing, is run through the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is hosted by Exeter College at the University of Oxford. Not only has living at Exeter College (where author, J.R.R. Tolkien went to school) for the past month felt like a something straight out of a fairy tale, I have been getting to hear lectures from and work with editors, production directors, book cover designers, and more! I credit Eastside Prep for instilling in me a very strong work ethic and teaching me how to write well, otherwise I never would have had this opportunity. And moreover, without the skills I learned in my time at Eastside Prep, I would not have the same confidence I have today in my ability to succeed at anything I set my mind to.