Every year, the Copy Editing II class works hard to produce PCC’s annual literary publication, Fountains. This year, I had the fantastic opportunity to be one of two Senior Editors, and it wasn’t until this year did I realize the awesome process of creating such an incredible product.

This year’s 30th edition bears the theme of “diving deeper” into the experiences of life. With stories of all kinds, Fountains really reflects the culture of our school from year to year, and it was a wonderful project to work on.

The production begins in the fall, nearly two years before the actual publication. Authors are able to spend the entire first semester of the school year submitting to the publication before the Copy Editing II class even looks at them.

But once spring hits, the editing work begins. Through a careful process, folders with manuscript submissions are traded in class for about two weeks. The students read through each submission and “grade” it based on creative language, theme, skill, originality, and other factors.

Once the class goes through several rotations of reading, it’s up to the Senior Editors (Janise Anderson and I) to make the final cut. Each edition has an average of twenty accepted stories, and it can be difficult to weed out stories that won’t fit in the final product. We compare scores from the other editors and work together to come up with a definite list of well rounded, creative submissions.

When the cuts are made, the editors take to the editing. Each story is placed in a colored folder with a routing form that keeps track of where each manuscript is in the editing process. The Senior Editors assign stories to the other editors and come up with strategies for improving the piece. Some of these strategies involve large global edits, while others nitpick at small word choices and sentence structure.

Each editor meets with their given author to go over the strategies and requests the author to make the suggested changes. Over the next few weeks, the manuscript bounces back and forth among the Senior Editor, editor, and author to make sure all parties are happy with the developing edits.

Once the edits are finished, designated fact checkers will comb through the manuscripts to make sure everything is factual and realistic. They double check the footnotes and research any details within the stories. For example, one of our stories originally had a young girl about ten years old sitting in the passenger seat of a car, but by law, children under twelve must ride in the back. Things like that.

While final edits and changes are underway, the Senior Editors compile an order for all the manuscripts, a theme, and titles for section divider pages. They also work together to write the introduction and back cover copy of the book.

Once all the edits are completed, the cover copy and introductions are written, and facts are checked, the project sits until the next spring, when the artists begin their part of the job. This year there were six classes, each with a design team and an illustration team. These classes compete against one another to create the most appealing design and illustrations for the edition.

This year, things got complicated. One class’s design team won the design, while the other class’s illustration team won the illustrations. The result? Combine the two.

The cool thing about this year in particular was that while I was editing the 31st edition of Fountains, my roommate, Crystal Partridge, and her boyfriend, Joseph Peplinski, were illustrating the 30th edition. Joseph assigned illustrations as the Art Director, and Crystal was able to illustrate my story, which you can read a version of here.

The illustration team devoted themselves to perfection. Joseph urged the illustrators to contact the original authors of nonfiction stories to make sure their pictures were accurate. With my story being a personal narrative, it was especially nice for me to see Crystal take my suggestions seriously. What resulted was a beautifully illustrated book released to the student body at the end of April.

The finished files are then sent to the aBeka Print Shop, where they’re printed and bound. That’s when the Copy Editing II class comes back in. By the time the art team gets finished, another year has gone, so a new team of editors helps promote the previous class’s edited work. In other words, our editing class promoted and sold the 2018 class’s edition, Diving Deeper.

Overall, the entire project was a ton of fun, and I really enjoyed working with everyone in the Copy Editing II class. I always wanted to know exactly how Fountains was produced every year, and as a senior, I finally got to experience it all for myself.

So just you wait, professional writing students: your edition is coming, and I can tell you, it’s a blast of a process.