In the past 16 of my 20 years in business, I’ve supervised over 30 interns, many of them from Westfield State, my alma mater. The majority of these young and capable students have come to me via Michael Filas, an English professor and the internship coordinator for the English department at the university.

Michael has been involved with the internship program for about 10 years, so we could say he’s sent about 20 of the 30 interns to me. This semester, he referred interns Colleen Looby and Nick St. Pierre to me. I asked Colleen to interview Michael—Professor Filas to her—about what it’s been like for him to work with Beetle Press over the years.

When interns come to me each semester, I teach them about writing press releases and blogs, and editing client’s manuscripts—and sometimes my own, if I have one in the works. Part of this writing work also involves learning what to ask during an interview and interview technique. I also like to take interns to live events as well, so they can learn to interact with professionals.

Michael likes to place students with Beetle Press for this range of experience. “Students do a combination of creative and public relations work with Janice,” he said. “It’s a unique opportunity that the students get to experience. She also gives students the opportunity to write and have their writing published and circulated in a public domain.”

He also values that I often offer students freelance work after the internship is over. Several students—Shannon Grossman and Shelby Ashline—still work for me years after they interned with me.

Mentoring students is very gratifying for Michael. “I like seeing students develop skills that are ‘money skills’ that will take them far,” he said. “I know that I’m helping them in a concrete way to move forward in their career.”

Michael has a bachelor’s degree in business management from California State University at Long Beach, a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing from San Diego State University, and he has a doctoral degree in American literature and culture from the University of Washington.

I didn’t hear much from Michael in the past few years, as he took on the role of interim associate dean of the Westfield State Experience, which helps get first-year students involved on campus and in the community. I collaborated with a colleague of Michael’s instead, George Layng.

In addition to serving as a professor and dean, Michael has also worked for a Fortune 100 company on accounting software, and as a technical writer in the software industry. He has also worked as a carpenter, computer programmer, middle manager in the aerospace industry, a janitor, and even had his own cabinet and furniture making business a couple of years out of high school.

Michael offers a key part of the internship experience. While I help mentor students in growing their skill-set, he is also building their confidence and professionalism. Colleen says Professor Filas has been a huge asset in helping her with her writing minor. “I’m looking forward to taking his Advanced Prose class in my last semester of college this spring,” she says.

My other intern for the fall semester, Nick, holds similar regards towards Professor Filas. “I admire his attention to the minutiae of quality writing,” Nick says. “Professor Filas taught me to slow down and really think about the importance of each sentence.”

At the end of each semester, the students and I sit down with Michael to discuss the learnings, as well as any challenges that arose. We had a great meeting in December with Colleen and Nick. Toward the end, we discussed the intern candidate for spring. That is our cycle of learning.

The post Professor Leads Students to Beetle Press appeared first on Beetle Press.

As an alumna of Westfield State University, I think back to the days when I was trekking across the green from class to class, soaking in knowledge, socializing, and connecting with mentors who helped me find the way forward.

I think of my college days most often when I visit the campus for a meeting with the University staff, with whom I partner to put out two issues of Focus magazine each year. I’ve been the editor of this alumni publication for 17 years, since 2002, so Westfield State remains an important facet of my life.

Kathi Bradford is one of the dozen or so staff members with whom I collaborate to produce the magazine. The director of Alumni Relations, Kathi is someone I have known for decades as a professional. But I met Kathi way back when I was a student in the mid-1980s.

Recently, my intern Nick interviewed Kathi about her tenure at Westfield State. They talked both about Kathi’s work and our longtime relationship, which has evolved over the years.

Kathi has been at my alma mater, which was a college when I attended it, for 38 years. She came on board as a residence director after graduating from the State University of New York at Albany in 1980. Her work in those early years was overseeing the daily happenings in Scanlon Hall, where I lived from 1981 to 1984.  

Kathi told Nick she was not sure if she and I met at Scanlon or in another context on campus. “We can’t determine how we first met because Janice was always involved in everything,” Kathy says.

I think that’s funny, as the same can be said of Kathi! In addition to working as an RD, she was heavily involved as an advisor of the Musical Theatre Guild, in which I spent many semesters singing and dancing in musicals such as “Grease,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and “Mame.” I was also the choreographer for “Cabaret.”

I also wrote for the university newspaper, then called The Owl, and Kathi had her hands in that as well.

My work with Kathi is now solely focused around the magazine. She and I are part of an editorial team that guides the content of each issue by determining who and what we should be writing about. Focus is important to this group because it’s a tool that helps staff raise awareness about positive changes on campus as well as the University’s strengths and fundraising goals.

As Kathi says, “The publication is an important way to help alumni stay connected and feel a part of the University without physically being here.”

She told Nick she enjoys working with me. “Janice is creative and organized,” she says. “She knows what stories are worth fleshing out, and which other ones could use a trimming.”

Kathi writes the News & Notes section of Focus, and she also is integrally involved in suggesting alumni and students for us to interview and feature. Kathi works diligently to maintain relationships with alumni. She travels across the country, planning and hosting outings with alumni groups. Kathi has also led international trips for students.

Students, staff, and alumni all count Kathi among those who inspired them and kept them feeling connected to Westfield State. I am proud of the work she does and appreciate her energy, spirit, and dedication. I hope our University ties will keep us connected for many years.

The post Nurturing a Longtime Relationship appeared first on Beetle Press.

The beginning of the fall semester signaled another beginning for Beetle Press in that two new interns came on board in September. They are Colleen Looby, a senior at Westfield State University, and Nicholas “Nick” St. Pierre, also a senior at my alma mater.

I interviewed both students in the summer. What I usually look for in the interviews is not skill or experience but hutzpah, and I felt they both had it. Nick had a lot of energy and excitement about all facets of the work—from the creative writing and editing pieces to developing press releases and blogs. Colleen had a quiet confidence and a deep interest in several manuscripts I am working on.

Let me introduce Colleen and Nick to you.

Meet Colleen

Colleen is a communication major and writing minor at Westfield State. This is her second internship, having worked last summer as a marketing intern at Building Engines in Boston, where she learned much about the world of software creation.

The Beetle Press internship interested Colleen because she loves to write and hopes to one day develop a series of books. So far, in addition to various broad-scope tasks, she has helped to copyedit a manuscript that is now in the design phase, contribute to social media posts for Beetle Press and JaniceBeetle.com, and she has written a press release for TEDxEasthamptonWomen.

Colleen became interested in being an editor in high school. “I thought this internship would help me learn how to bring a manuscript to life and could also expose me to talking with different people and listening to more of their stories,” she says.

One new learning for Colleen has been interviewing people for blogs and press releases. “It can be a little nerve-wracking when you’re not used to it,” she says, adding, “Although, it’s more likely that the person on the other end of the phone is a lot more nervous.”

Colleen’s dream career is to be an editor at a book publishing company. Once she graduates, she would be interested in a writing job and is considering journalism (my roots) as well.

Meet Nick

Nick originally pursued the idea of teaching English at the secondary level, but his experiences early on in his college career persuaded him to follow a different road.

Focusing now on becoming a better writer—creatively and professionally—Nick has narrowed the concentration of his degree to writing.  Following this path is what led him to become one of my interns.

Nick has experience with business and technical writing, but he says that “the work I’ll be doing for Beetle Press is going to provide me with some serious experience in the professional writing world.”  He also is helping to ready a client manuscript for publication, and he has done several research projects for Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, and written several press releases and blogs based on interviews he conducted.

Nick learned about the Beetle Press internship from Michael Filas, one of Nick’s Westfield State professors. Nick expressed an interest in developing his skills in the realms of public relations and freelance writing, and Michael suggested interning at Beetle Press as the perfect opportunity.

Nick hopes he will gain a variety of knowledge and skills that will prove useful later in his career as a writer, and he knows Beetle Press is the place to cultivate such tools.  “I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to grow as a writer,” he says.

The post New Interns Tackle Copyediting, Writing appeared first on Beetle Press.

My relationships with interns very rarely end when a semester draws to a close.

Some continue to work with me on projects on a freelance basis. Others get in touch when they need a reference, a bit of advice on networking, or a bit of advice about life.

Vanessa Dion falls into this latter category. She reconnected with me via email about six months ago. What she needed was a recommendation, as she was about to make a life change—transitioning from a job managing payroll administration for a hotel to entering academia once again.

Vanessa was applying to graduate school and hoped I would write a letter of recommendation to accompany her application. I said I surely would. I had fond memories of Vanessa and remembered her as a hard worker, well-equipped for graduate studies.

Vanessa began interning at Beetle Press in the fall of 2011, when I was heavily involved in editing my book, Divine Renovations. I remembered well the thoughtful edits and editorial assistance that Vanessa brought to that project. It was Vanessa who penned the first draft of the book’s synopsis on the back cover.

I was happy to help her and am pleased that she was recently accepted to Simmons College, where she’ll begin to study library sciences in the fall. As we exchanged emails about her news, I asked Vanessa if I could write a blog about her experiences as an intern in honor of the 20th anniversary of Beetle Press.

Vanessa was certainly not the first intern I worked with, as I’ve been mentoring students, primarily from Westfield State University, since 2004. But she well represents the very typical, broad-scope experience interns have. Vanessa got to try her hand at everything from book editing to helping seniors tell their stories in a writing workshop.

Gabby Freel—an intern who worked with me this spring and is now assisting me on a freelance basis—interviewed Vanessa recently. I liked the symbolism of the ongoing cycle of my work getting played out via the Intern of Beetle Press Present interviewing the Intern of Beetle Press Past.

Vanessa told Gabby that what she most appreciated about her internship with me was the work she did on Divine Renovations. She enjoyed seeing the writing process unfold and learned that all writers need fresh eyes on their work.

Learning how to interview sources was also a skill Vanessa remembers honing during her internship. As it is for many students, it was a difficult leap out of Vanessa’s comfort zone to call strangers and ask them questions. But practicing gave her the chance to widen her comfort zone, and now interviewing is well inside it.

While Vanessa was an intern with me, I was still leading writing classes at several nursing homes in the area, and Vanessa came with me on one occasion to observe. She tells Gabby that one of her fondest memories was serving as a scribe for one of the seniors in the group who was physically unable to get her thoughts down on paper. Vanessa helped to draw out the woman’s memories, creating a short story in the afternoon’s collaboration. Her compassion impressed me.

At a weekend-long convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, for which I wrote and edited a then-bi-monthly magazine, Vanessa got a taste of reporting on deadline. At the convention, which was attended by hundreds of lay leaders and clergy from the Diocese, Vanessa took photographs, took notes, and wrote several stories for the magazine. She had to hustle.

As they chatted, Vanessa told Gabby that she found it inspiring that I created a business and shaped it around my skills and experience. “She’s really good at what she does,” Vanessa said. “She’s a pretty fantastic person.”

The post Making a Leap into Grad School appeared first on Beetle Press.

By Gabby Freel

My final semester at Westfield State University was made whole by interning with Janice Beetle at Beetle Press. This internship was more fulfilling than I ever thought possible, and I’m truly grateful to have been given this opportunity.

Before coming to work for Janice, I had mainly done creative writing. My forte was poetry, and I had no idea what a press release was supposed to look like. I thought blogging was just talking about your favorite recipes on Pinterest or Tumblr. I had a lot to learn, and Janice had a lot to teach.

One of my first tasks as an intern was to read a client’s manuscript and give any feedback or edits I thought were necessary. This was a new experience, and I learned from Janice some ways in which creative license can be applied.

After the manuscript came blog writing. This is the 20–year anniversary of Beetle Press, so I was tasked with interviewing some of Janice’s first clients and writing blogs on their experiences in working with her. My first phone interview was with Rich Cooper. I was terrified of the phone at the time. I was barely able to muster the courage to enter into an interaction to refill a prescription, never mind interview a stranger.

Nevertheless, I was adamant about facing everything that was thrown at me head on and at full speed. Of course, I wasn’t thrown overboard without a life vest. Janice picked Rich to be first knowing that it would be easy to talk with him. She even did a mock interview with me in the minutes leading up to my phone call with Rich.

After assisting with the blog on Rich, I interviewed Janet Grant and Bonnie Zima Dowd. (Bonnie’s entry will post in two weeks.)

In a not-unusual overlap of relationships in Beetle Press, I continued to work with Rich, but on a project of interest to him and Janice’s colleague at the Springfield Republican, Cynthia Simison. Rich and Cynthia are leaders of the Northampton chapter of Dollars for Scholars, and they were interested in having Janice and I write brief synopses on each of the scholarships, telling the story of the people for whom they are named.

Writing press releases was another skill I was able to hone during this internship. Janice showed me a couple of press releases she had written and then sent me off to try a few myself.

One of the last major tasks that I am still working on is tracking the recent press releases for Beetle Press through an Excel spread sheet. Each time Janice sends a press release to the media for a client, I add it to the Excel file and then indicate where each release is published thereafter. Janice used to be able to track pick-ups using only her memory, but with the volume of press releases she is distributing, that’s now impossible.

I truly valued the experience of being an intern for Beetle Press, and I’m grateful that Janice wants me to continue working with her. I’ve officially graduated from Westfield State University and can put my real-life PR experience to work.

Thank you, Janice. You’re a wonderful mentor, and I’m lucky to also call you my good friend.

The post Life as an Intern at Beetle Press appeared first on Beetle Press.

A few weeks ago, I gave you a glimpse at some of the stories I wrote about local business and nonprofits for the Springfield Republican’s annual, award-winning Outlook business section.

Today, I offer the final three stories on Westfield State University’s The Westfield Promise program; Northstar Pulp & Paper of Springfield; and Mike Schilling and Jordana Starr, the owners of Beerology in Northampton.

The Westfield Promise

Ramon S. Torrecilha, Westfield State University’s 20th president, moved to this country from Brazil 40 years ago, landing a job at an orchard in Washington state. He knew admission into Portland State University would change the trajectory of his life because, as he says, knowledge becomes yours. While he had no idea how to get started, Torrecilha stumbled through the mystery of the college entrance process because he knew it would take him where he wanted to go.

Torrecilha is certain that today’s high school students are equally as unprepared for college and all that enrollment entails—lacking in what he calls “cultural capital.” So, he eagerly got behind The Westfield Promise after he came on board just over two years ago. The program gives high school students in Westfield, Springfield and Holyoke—and their high populations of underrepresented, low-income and first-generation college students—a taste of the academic experience as well as general savvy.

“It’s invaluable,” Torrecilha said. “For many students—especially students of color and first-generation students—the notion of going to college is a mystery. This program helps them bridge that space between high school and college. It’s about building the student’s self-esteem and respecting his or her ability to learn.”

Beerology

Mike Schilling and Jordana Starr met in 2002 as Tufts University freshmen. Their first few dates were over Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at midnight, but they soon evolved into more elegant affairs. “We were always too old for our age,” Schilling said, noting he loved the instant gratification of mixing elaborate cocktails. “When other kids were having keg parties, we were having people over for wine and cheese.”

Belgian beer captured Schilling’s attention, and when the two married in 2010, they received a homebrew kit as a wedding present, but they had to go into a brew shop to pick up the ingredients. Once inside, they were hooked.

Schilling earned an international diploma in brewing technology from the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago and Doemens Akademie in Munich in 2013. Three years later, in November 2016, he and Starr opened Beerology in downtown Northampton. They’ve been feeding the craft beer movement in the Valley ever since, providing malted grains, yeast, and hops to home brewers of beer, cider, wine, and mead as well as to local brewmasters.

Northstar Pulp & Paper

Thirty years ago, when Lori Goodman Novak was a teenager, she worked in the office for the family business, Northstar Pulp & Paper, answering the phone, weighing trucks on the scale and sorting mail. Nearly two decades later, while Novak was teaching kindergarten, her half-brother, Aaron Goodman, was old enough to work at the plant as a forklift operator, before he launched his college education and commercial banking career.

After making radical professional moves in recent decades, the two siblings—Novak, 49, and Goodman, 31, have committed to Northstar. With their father David, they serve as its key leaders.

These fourth- and fifth-generation operators run a recycling business that was founded 119 years ago, in 1898, in Worcester by Hyman Goodman, David Goodman’s great-grandfather. “It’s a privilege,” Novak said, noting that one of her sons is a senior in high school and will be building pallets at Northstar for the first time this summer. Before he starts college, Sam Byrne will work alongside his grandfather, David Goodman, chief executive officer; his mother, the company president; and his uncle, Goodman, chief operating officer.

Northstar Pulp & Paper, now located in Springfield, is not your everyday recycling company. It processes and resells paper, metals and plastics, and recently added repairing and selling wooden pallets to the reuse repertoire. The work—collecting, compressing, baling, grinding, and delivery—is done by roughly 80 employees who process 20,000 tons of scrap material every single month in two warehouses that together provide 300,000 square feet of working space.

The post Education, craft beer and recycling round out Outlook list appeared first on Beetle Press.

When Gabrielle Freel headed to college five years ago, her thought was to become a criminalist. She loved shows like Criminal Minds and NCIS and wanted to learn more about profiling.

My intern for the spring semester from Westfield State University went into her freshman year thinking she would major in criminal justice and psychology. Then, the poetry portion of Gabby’s first creative writing class in her junior year sparked a literary flame she hadn’t felt smouldering before.

“There were so many things that needed to be written—that I needed to write,” Gabby says, noting that her path was suddenly just a bit clearer than mud.

Gabby began at Beetle Press a few weeks ago. She is organized and eager to learn, and I am enjoying the process of getting to know her and her work style.

Before Gabby knew she wanted to focus on writing, she spent her junior year with a literature concentration to be on the track to teach English at the secondary level. That was a turn in the wrong direction as well because she realized how structured the education field is.

That’s when the creative writing course came into play, and Gabby changed her focus from teaching to writing. Her professors told her she was a natural born writer.

I am seeing the same thing. Many young writers tend to be cliché and disorganized in putting their thoughts down, but Gabby coins her own phrases and uses metaphor well.

As part of her internship, she will help me review two client manuscripts and move them closer toward publication, and she will also help me with research and with blogs for clients and Beetle Press.

She is currently at work writing some brief pieces on the people behind some of the scholarships granted by Northampton Dollars for Scholars.

Wanting to write and learn more about the craft is what led Gabby to this internship.

I was pleased to have her tell me that the Beetle Press opportunity was pitched to her at school as the “premium internship.” Gabby thanks professors George Layng and Leah Nielsen for those sales pitches. I thank them too!

I have also heard George say that the Beetle Press internship is ideal because students can work with me on everything from PR and learning to write press releases to offering feedback on clients’ books and my own.

Gabby calls what the work here can offer her “a perfect smorgasbord of writing skills and publication knowledge.” She hopes that what she learns with me will launch her into her own writing career, and I am sure that is true.

Gabby has a lot to learn, but this is definitely the perfect environment for her to craft her skill and learn the essentials for having a successful career in the professional writing world.

“I finally feel like I’m on a straight path,” Gabby says.

The post Spring Intern Inspired to Write appeared first on Beetle Press.

Dark-humored and boisterous, my new intern Abigail “Abby” Taylor has always seen the value in the written word. That means she will fit right in!

A junior at Westfield State University, Abby has taken pen to paper about nature while sitting on her front porch since the age of 10 in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and she has used writing as a creative and therapeutic tool as well.

Abby grew up with the “Brady Bunch” of three older siblings and two parents. Her house is a caucus full of Democrats, her brother working for a New Hampshire senator and sister Jess working for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. There are two politicians, two teachers, and one caregiver in the family for Abby to emulate. While her mother begs her daily to become a nurse, Abby couldn’t drift from writing if she wanted to, and her father and sister keep her lust for school and education burning.

When junior year rolled around in high school, Abby took a philosophy class with a teacher she will never forget. A septuagenarian who was committed to teaching indefinitely, he inspired Abby to strengthen her work ethic. This mentor conditioned his students to have thoughtful discussions in class, and that transformed Abby’s learning experience and drive for English studies.

Although Abby’s siblings are everything to her, their vast success has daunted her. Writing allowed her to overcome this hurdle of anxiety. Scripting her darkest feelings turned into a creative process that was therapeutic when she suffered a depressive episode during her senior year of high school.

In her internship at Beetle Press this fall, Abby hopes to take her writing foundation and build on it, learning how writing can be used in the work place to raise awareness for organizations and tell their rich stories. She also hopes to deepen her knowledge of the creative writing process.

Abby’s dad says she has the soul of a writer, which means worlds to her, since he was a sports columnist before he became a teacher. Abby and her father identify as the “thinkers” of the family—the philosophical intellectuals.

So, at Westfield State, where she is majoring in English with a concentration in writing, Abby is taking ethnic and gender studies classes, and writing classes in fiction and poetry. In creative writing last year, she realized her niche for poetry. She wants to write poetry that contributes to the conversation of our nation’s well-being, evoking feeling that can be put into action.

Abby also has a deep interest in music and considered an internship with the WSKB radio station on her campus. After an interview with me, she decided she enjoyed the at-home work environment of my office and could see herself grinding words away at my dining table—the intern station here. Also, in a meeting with her internship coordinator at school, Professor George Layng told Abby that working with me would expand both her business and creative writing capabilities. On board she came!

Abby hopes her internship will help her advance her skills so that she can write about issues she cares about, such as the current political climate, the human experience, and turning mundane observation into graphic imagery.

She will be doing research, writing press releases, helping with social media and contributing to other projects. I hope Abby can also help me grow my audience on JaniceBeetle.com and help me finalize a manuscript I have been working on for too many years.

Abby will graduate in May 2019. She hopes to eventually write for a magazine or possibly enter the PR industry. I can see already that, even though she is quiet—like I was at her age—Abby is intelligent, learns quick, and has a real depth of spirit. I believe her father is correct. Abby has a writer’s soul, and I hope to help her dig deeper—to write and operate from a profound place in all her work.

The post Fall Intern has a Writer’s Soul appeared first on Beetle Press.

I was one of the pack of students hollering “Go Rebels!” at football and basketball games, and I volunteered with the other members of the Intergenerational Club at local nursing homes and also visited the nearby state school to teach my friends there the alphabet and play games.

It was then, as a teenager, that I first saw there was something in the world that was bigger than me, bigger than my family. I just didn’t have a name for it.

Then, I arrived at Westfield State College in 1981, and I learned the phrase associated with this kind of giving: community involvement. And boy, did I get involved.

I was a member of the on-campus Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, on a committee that helped bring about the passage of the Bottle Bill. I wrote for the student newspaper, then called The Owl. I danced and sang in the Musical Theatre Guild. I volunteered in local schools. I babysat. I did community involvement, on and off campus.

That didn’t change after I graduated, got married and had a family. I volunteered in my daughters’ preschools and held leadership roles on their PTOs as they grew. I was active in my church and served on its governing board. I helped raise money for countless local causes.

I was all about community, and I’m grateful to Walpole High School and Westfield State for planting and nurturing those important seeds within my psyche.

Community engagement—the buzz words you’re more apt to hear on campuses or in the business community now—is important for every citizen to take seriously. It is giving back. It’s about showing gratitude for the fact that we have healthy, vibrant cities and towns that support us with resources of all kinds.

I think it’s especially important for business owners and organization leaders to be involved in their communities. Yes, it’s good for business because you are out there meeting people, networking, making connections. But it’s also good for everyone around you—those real and important people who ensure that your business thrives and survives. It’s a way to thank your community for the privilege of being a successful entrepreneur.

The way I do community engagement is quieter now, far less public than it once was. This, because I realized I had something to give that was bigger than brownies for the bake sale. I have skills that allow me to tell stories and raise awareness for groups that needed visibility to increase their reach and touch lives. I am especially all-in for that.

So, instead of changing diapers in the church nursery, I’m doing things like writing press releases that help United Way of Hampshire County promote its work and its partner organizations.

Instead of serving lasagna for the cot shelter in Northampton on a team with fellow church parishioners, I’m writing stories about cancer survivors and caregivers for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life of Hampshire County to raise dollars for research and programming.

Instead of sitting in PTO meetings, taking minutes, I’m doing PR—writing blogs, press releases and Facebook posts for organizations in the Valley that support children, the arts and people in need.

Unlike the kind of volunteer work I used to do, my work now goes unseen, and that’s fine with me. I know that, in the quiet of it, there is the potential that I am helping more people.

The post Discover Community appeared first on Beetle Press.

After checking in with Michael Filas, the professor at Westfield State University who I collaborate with on the intern program, I created a list of students from Westfield State and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, going back about six or seven years.

Interns from the spring semester, Kayla Fontaine, Shannon Grossman and Molly Ahern helped me track down email addresses for all of the intern alums. After choosing a date with Kayla, Shannon and Molly, I sent an email to the group and excitedly waited for replies.

I had in mind an afternoon full of hummus, chips and other snacks and former and current interns milling about, sharing their stories of their careers. I thought it would be especially useful for Kayla, Shannon and Molly and fun for everyone, including me.

As usual, the hopeful optimist in me was blinded but what could be instead of focused on reality.

About a half dozen folks replied right away that they were unable to join. One is living in California, and likewise others were out of range for an afternoon visit. One was traveling that weekend.

I was excited about seeing the six former interns who RSVP’d with a “yes” and the three current students at the gathering and started making plans for activities that would get them all talking without feeling awkward about it. I was thinking of some activities Val Nelson used at a networking event she held earlier this year.

Then, the Friday before the gathering, things started to unravel.

One young woman’s car broke down.

Another, about to graduate, had a lot of work to cram in before the big day.

Molly was unaware of a surprise graduation party her parents were hosting on the same afternoon, three hours away.

Like the 10 little Indians (well, only sort of), those kinds of stories kept coming in to me, and then we were down to one “Maybe I’ll get there but will be late” from one former intern and Kayla and Shannon, who were still all in.

I cancelled the event, thinking it had only been a few days since Kayla and Shannon had seen each other.

It was not a total loss, though.

I got to hear about what some of my former interns are doing, just as I had hoped, but not live—via email.

Maddie Cicitto, for instance, is working at a small public relations firm in New Britain, Connecticut.

“I am using so much of what I learned at Beetle Press, and I still feel so grateful and lucky that I got to intern with you,” she told me. “I felt like you believed in me, pushed me to do new things and gave me the opportunities that would help me in the future. I’m really looking forward to continuing my PR path.”

Vanessa Pesa, the former student with the failing car, is working at Berkshire Bank in marketing.

She told Kayla in an interview for a blog we recently posted about her: “Listen to Janice. She is there because she wants more than anything to teach you, to help you in your endeavors and to see you succeed.”

It was all music to my ears, especially hearing about their success.

And I modeled a skill I teach to all my interns: keep in touch with people in your network. Check in. Say hi. Stay connected.

Good will always come of it, whether it’s a new work opportunity, an idea or just some good news and stories.

The post Keeping in Touch Has Merit appeared first on Beetle Press.