Tuesday through Saturday, she covers events, meetings and other happenings in Franklin County—everything from sexual misconduct allegations to graduations, fires, government meetings and fundraisers. “If it happens, I cover it,” Shelby says. “It’s such a wild ride and I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

On Fridays, Shelby is the Recorder’s night reporter, covering any breaking news and checking the district court for interesting arraignments. Being the only reporter on Saturdays means she ends up writing about fun festivals as well as tragic breaking news. She also writes two articles for the features page each month and especially enjoys when she gets to write about horses.

“This isn’t a 9-to-5 job,” Shelby says.

On election night, Shelby remained at the office from noon to 2 a.m.; she compared the experience to a sleepover—in the newsroom. “Hanging out with all the others, watching the television as the numbers came in, and us all working toward the same mission—it was a great bonding experience for us,” Shelby says.

Shelby interned with Janice in the Spring of 2015 through the University of Massachusetts Amherst, while pursuing a journalism degree. She wrote feature articles for The Daily Hampshire Gazette, developed skills in writing press releases and using WordPress; it all helped get her foot in the door at the newspaper.

Shelby continues to work as an editorial assistant with Janice, writing blogs, helping with select client projects and overseeing the Beetle Press and The Creative newsletters.

Now, as The Recorder’s North County reporter, Shelby covers “anything that happens in Northfield, Leyden, Warwick and Bernardston, as well as the Pioneer Valley Regional School District’s five schools.

Shelby emphasizes the importance of having good time management skills and a handle on her calendar and address book. She acknowledges that it’s hard to just work 40 hours each week and finds herself thinking about her job even when she isn’t there.

Shelby is learning continuously, anything from writing attention-grabbing headlines and leads and reasoning behind certain choices of words and use of detail. She wishes she learned as an undergrad about the resources available to journalists, such as free police scanner apps.

She advises journalism students to develop their listening and note-taking skills rather than relying solely on recordings “because in the real world, there is no way you’re going to have the time to go back later and play back your recording and transcribe it on a 4 p.m. deadline.”

She’s also learned about how editors measure stories by column inches, not word counts, how to adjust the settings on her camera to account for florescent lighting, and that you aren’t ever going to please everyone.

Shelby attributes part of her success to interning with Janice.  “She is such a valuable connection to have, and a beautiful person to know,” Shelby says.

Shelby enjoys covering small town news and sees that part of her work is immersing herself in the community. She says, “It’s an amazing thing to walk into a town meeting and know half the people in the room by name. That’s when you know you’re doing your job right.”

The post Shelby Ashline’s (Other) Dream Job appeared first on Beetle Press.

He was flattered and surprised to be recognized for his contribution to the areas of writing and teaching. Acknowledging his students and colleagues, the Springfield College professor since 1999 also says the award “doesn’t happen without a lot of people doing good work.”

Marty encourages his students “to be inspired by the mission of journalism for it is a mighty responsibility to tell peoples’ stories.” As much as his students force him to be in the present and keep him feeling young, rather than dusty and archaic, he impresses upon them the importance of respecting the leap of faith subjects have with sharing their stories.

Janice recently wrote a piece on Marty’s award for Springfield College’s Triangle magazine. The two formerly worked together at the Daily Hampshire Gazette and enjoyed reconnecting and catching up; Janice especially enjoyed hearing Marty talk about the ways in which he inspires students. She also appreciated his passion for telling stories.

Most of Marty’s stories have represented athletes. In recent years, his focus has been shifting into more civil rights issues and other human interest stories, although he says his “quest for the deep poignant story that goes to the heart” remains the same.

Marty is currently working on a book about the time period between the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, to the signing of the Civil Rights Document on July 2, 1964, drawn into the “shimmering optimism…that contains a lot of darkness in it,” he says.

He chose this focus for it is a “transformative and heartbreaking time period,” and it is one of those cultural moments that are significant enough for people to remember exactly where they were and what was going on when it happened.

Marty has had a lifelong interest in Martin Luther King Jr. and vividly remembers the day he died, even though he was a naive 7-year-old kid, because of the effect his death had on his mother. After a few years at Springfield College, Marty discovered that Martin Luther King Jr. was a commencement speaker there in 1964. He was so fascinated by the story that Marty wrote an article for Triangle in 2004.

“It was the genesis for my book project,” he says. He was “obsessively fascinated” with the topic and couldn’t help but dig further, starting the book project roughly three to four years ago. There are five main characters, including Martin Luther King Jr. The other four had brief but significant interactions with him. Marty continues to publish small parts as a way of doing research to help lay the road work for the book, including a four-part series on Marshall Irving Bloom that was recently published in The Daily Hampshire Gazette. (Read installment one, two, three, and four.)

Teaching during the college semesters is very demanding, making the book a slow process because it isn’t like building a deck, where you can just pick up where you left off the day before. He says he has “to mentally plunge into it.” He dedicates mornings whenever possible to writing as he is most lucid and alive.

In researching, there is continuous reading about the time period, immersing himself in it, as well as talking to people involved. He tries to “authentically connect with people” and seeks poignant stories of people that take risks, live on the edge and where it resonates in his heart.

This summer, Marty is heading to Washington state to interview and spend time with one of the characters, a young southern girl back then who put herself on the line for civil rights and was arrested with Martin Luther King Jr. He has done some phone interviews with her, but his endless curiosity of the world intrigues him to visit for more in-depth interactions.

Marty uses a countdown timer when writing to make sure he focuses and doesn’t get sidetracked. He tells himself, “This day matters. Don’t sell it short. Use it well. The fierce urgency of now,” quoting Martin Luther King Jr. from his “I Have a Dream” speech. The Fierce Urgency of Now is currently a potential working title for his project.

This gratifying yet challenging book is an important and “more ambitious project” than his others, Marty says. It is two years from completion, he hopes. Even though the progress is slow and sometimes he feels like he is slogging away, he has a willingness to keep moving forward to complete this complicated, textured story.

The post The Quest for Poignant Stories appeared first on Beetle Press.

Armed with a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina, Asheville, Amanda, 25, uses her writing skills as a way to both share and process her experience, to help get it out of her system. She said she “hasn’t wanted to write about anything else since it happened” and despite her second-guessing herself with each new entry, Amanda continues to post because “not only do I want to do this, I need to do this.”

Amanda, of Northampton, uses her blog as an “emotional security place,” but also hopes to reach out to others through her posts. She hopes others connect with her or are moved to offer comments on their own experiences and opinions. She wants to share a plethora of perspectives and points of view. Amanda wants to “discourage some fears and irrational thought behaviors” as well as allow more understanding amongst the parties involved, including child and adult perspectives.

Amanda admits that being open is difficult because of how public the blogging world is. Fears of judgement follow each new post, but on the other hand, Amanda says she wants to open up and let people know what she and others have gone through.

Amanda has written close to a dozen posts since she began, publishing a new one every Sunday. With her entries, she tells the story about giving up her daughter, whom she calls Lila to protect the child’s identity, and the painful aftermath that ensued when the adoption transitioned without warning from semi-open to closed.

Now the only contact that Amanda has with her 3-year-old daughter is through a spurt of random and infrequent emails containing pictures. Other than a three-minute Skype conversation, Amanda has had little actual contact with her daughter.

Amanda is a former Beetle Press intern who continues to offer research and writing services on occasion. We support her work as a blogger because we know it will help her to be successful in raising awareness.

Amanda feels that often people know only one side of an adoption story; with her blog, she hopes to show all sides and provide a safe space for birth mothers to connect.

Typically, Amanda chooses to focus on a certain thought or feeling she has been experiencing. She tries her best to describe it, to write about what she is going through, and then allows it to go through an editing stage before publication. She works hard to ensure the posts aren’t cluttered and heavy.

She hopes that as the blog develops and grows a wider readership, it will evolve into something more professional, and less journal-entry-like. She also hopes that one day, the focus will shift from her story to the stories of other birth mothers.

The post The Catch-22 of Blog Writing appeared first on Beetle Press.

I am often that person sitting in the background, absorbing all that I am hearing but not contributing anything of my own. I am a nerd of sorts that enjoys solitude. Things like reading and writing (general English-y things), running, the occasional RPG video game or two, exploring nature, hanging out with my dog and sunbathing on the beach—those are my passions.

My internship with Beetle Press forced me into situations where I had no choice but to communicate with people, a variety of people, through email, phone or in-person, in a number of different situations and tasks. In my last semester at Westfield State University, I was given the opportunity to grow and develop as a person, open myself up more to the public world and to not be afraid of what is out there.

People don’t seem so unapproachable to me anymore.

I was slightly intimated when I first had to interview someone. Well, two someones. Two teenagers taking on an incredible role in the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life of Hampshire County.

Although they were around my height (honestly, probably a little taller), and they had only just begun their high school careers (whereas I was ending my college one), I was nervous while interviewing them. Afterwards, I didn’t understand why I was so anxious beforehand. It was a stupid feeling, but a feeling nonetheless.

Then I began interviewing more people. Adults. Local authors, professors, business owners, past interns.

Each time, the minutes before I dialed the phone number, my nerves increased, my heart fluttered fast and I tried to control my breath. Then I would get on the phone, and it would all be okay, normal even. After I hung up, I would get that same confusion of why I was so nervous, even when it came to talking to people who were my colleagues only a year ago. But each time, the nerves decreased, and I took on each assignment as a personal challenge.

One of my goals when starting this internship was to increase and develop my communications skills since I knew they could be much stronger. And that I did, even inspiring a growth of my own confidence as a nice complement.

But that wasn’t the only thing I got out of my internship with Beetle Press. I was able to demonstrate my organization skills by being in charge of the editorial calendar regarding the blog posts for www.janicebeetle.com, maintaining and updating it each time Janice was inspired with a new idea for a post. Often, I helped Janice publish the blog posts to their respective websites, gaining a comfortable understanding of WordPress and its functions.

I was also privileged to be allowed to read Janice’s romantic fiction manuscript, Unleashing the Sun, still a work in progress. Although the process was longer than I realized (check out my blog about it), it was an experience that created an insight into the long and gruesome process in writing a full-length manuscript and the incredible dedication involved.

Interning at Beetle Press was an invaluable experience. I learned more than I thought I would. I remember being nervous on my first day, unsure of what I was doing or where it would go. Now I know I made the right decision when I decided to stretch out of my comfort zone and apply for an internship. And I have Janice to thank for everything that I learned, the skills I’ve developed and the new insights I have about myself and my writing.

The post Growing Out of Her Comfort Zone appeared first on Beetle Press.

And she is certain that, in her internship this semester with Beetle Press, she will enhance that learning with experience and skill development.

Over the next four months, Molly will work closely with The Creative, a collaboration of three women business owners—Janice, Ruth Griggs and Maureen Scanlon. Molly will conduct research for The Creative and help oversee its efforts in social media and blogging. She will also have her hand in several client book projects, and she will write for the Daily Hampshire Gazette under Janice’s supervision.

At UMass, Molly is part of the communication and education clubs, and she gets involved in missions that are meaningful to her. She helps support victims of domestic violence through a fashion show called Sisters on the Runway, and last year, she helped rebuild houses in New Orleans as part of an alternative spring break trip. “The work in New Orleans definitely opened my eyes to other places and how others live,” Molly says, noting she fell in love with the city and its culture.

Molly plans to pursue a career in public relations or marketing after she graduates in May—ideally with a nonprofit or an organization that serves children—as that would combine her passion for writing with her compassion for community service.

In five years, she sees herself working in PR in Boston. But first, she hopes to travel abroad, to Europe or South Africa, even though that would take her away from family—an important aspect of Molly’s life.

Molly says her family members—her parents and three siblings, Liam, 23, Rian, 17, and Colleen, 19—have always pushed her to work hard to meet her goals, and she attributes much of her success to them. She also deeply admires her grandmother, who is actively engaged in her community and earned a master’s degree in genealogy at age 70.

“My parents both were able to thrive in their careers while managing a large and loud family,” Molly says, reflecting on how they raised four children with two dogs. “Luckily, I have had amazing role models in my own family who continue to support and motivate me towards my goals, and I am forever grateful for that.”

The post Meaningful Missions a Part of Her Education appeared first on Beetle Press.