Amelia Seepersaud and Cece Caldwell, fall 2023 interns
This fall, Amelia Seepersaud and Cece Caldwell spent their Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in the New England Review office. They organized author contracts, read paper submissions and updated our filing system, helped create marketing materials for our letterpress broadside, created posts for our website, and much more. Here they interview each other for our “Meet the Interns” series.
Cece: Okay, so, we’re here. [Laughing]
Amelia: [Laughing] Um, should we just introduce ourselves?
C: Yeah, let’s do it! So, I’m Cece. I’m a junior here at Middlebury. I’m majoring in English on the creative writing Track and I’m minoring in anthropology and Spanish.
A: Cool, and where are you from?
C: Oh, I’m from western Massachusetts, from the Berkshires. What about you?
A: I’m Amelia, I’m a senior at Middlebury now and I’m a global migration and diaspora studies major, though I do take some writing classes here and there [Laughing], and I’m from New York City.
C: Cool, um, so what are you reading now?
A: I’ve been trying to finish reading The Song of Achilles—
C: Ooh, I love that!
A: By . . . I’m forgetting the name right now—
C: Madeline Miller.
A: There you go. So the thing about me: I love to read, but I always, like, it takes me a while to finish a book because I’m busy with school or work, or just life, and so I’ve been trying to read this book for months. And it’s so good! I’m halfway through and I will get through it because the writing is amazing. What are you reading?
C: Right now I’m rereading The Catcher in the Rye. It’s one of my favorite books and I try to reread it, like, once a year or so. But yeah, definitely slow-going during the busy semester.
A: What do you like about it?
C: I feel like Holden Caulfield is very misunderstood as a character. I think he’s seen as a punk or degenerate, but when I first read it in high school, I could really relate to Holden since he kind of acted out because he was in a lot of pain and he was reckoning with a lot of things. Yeah, it’s a comfort book for me because it makes me feel seen.
A: Nice, yeah. And so, why did you decide to intern at NER?
C: I guess I first heard of New England Review when Leslie Sainz (NER managing editor) came into a class I was taking last fall, Karin Gotshall’s Structure of Poetry class. And I just remember thinking that her work sounded super cool, so I reached out and ended up being in the reading group last spring. We got to read through lots of stories and poems and give feedback, and it was so much fun. So, I decided to apply for this internship because I just wanted to be involved even more. How about you?
A: I have a similar story! I was in Karin Gottshall’s class last fall [Laughing], but not “Structure of Poetry.” I was in “Writing Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry” with her, and Leslie also came in to speak to our class. I also thought the work she was doing was super cool. I like anything literary, so when she mentioned that NER has internships throughout the school year, I thought that sounds interesting! I’m a migration and diaspora studies major, but I do think I want to write as a career. I want to be a journalist, but I also like to write creatively, so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the publishing side of things. I actually applied for the summer internship this past summer but I didn’t end up taking it because I wanted to write for a newspaper instead [Laughing]. But I was still very interested in learning about how things run here, so I reapplied and it’s been great.
C: Yeah, for sure! On the subject of your own personal writing, what do you like to do?
A: Um, well, when I’m writing articles, I like talking to people. I love the connection that comes with writing articles. Creatively, I like writing fiction, but I tend to struggle with it because I take it very seriously. After taking Karin Gottshall’s class, I got a little more into poetry because she’s a poet and I actually started to see all these different ways that you can craft a poem and I thought that was really cool. So, sometimes I experiment with poetry, but I really would like to write more fiction—I just need to carve out the time to do that. What about you?
C: I’m really drawn to nonfiction and personal essays. I think as a whole, in terms of my passions and career ambitions, I’m interested more in the editing side of things as opposed to the creative writing side. But I love nonfiction and satire. I’m the print editor for the Local Noodle, so humor writing is something I also love.
A: That’s cool! And yeah, so you’re in the Noodle. Do you do any other extracurriculars here?
C: Yes! I guess, like, writing related, I also work as a peer writing tutor with the CTLR, so I work with freshmen in their first-year seminar to help them brainstorm and edit essays, which is a lot of fun! Outside of that, um, I tap dance, I love to work out, I love to be outside, I love to cook. What about you?
A: I do improv with Middlebrow and that’s been fun. I joined Middlebrow during the second semester of my sophomore year, so it’s been a little over a year since I started doing that. Improv is a lot of fun and I’ve made friends in the group, so it’s a nice thing to be involved in. I also do Oratory Now!, so I’m an oratory coach on campus. We do a lot of workshops in first-year seminars, but also in classes in general. This semester I’m doing head coach work, so it’s been fun having more responsibility and being more involved. I was in Midd Masti, which is the South Asian dance group on campus. Technically, we’re not officially a club this semester [Laughing], um, but I did that last fall and it was so fun performing at the ISO show. This semester we did it through SASA and we performed at the ISO show and that was super fun and a great community to be a part of on campus. Um, yeah, I think that’s all of the extracurricular stuff I do.
C: Awesome! Okay, final question—a fun one this time: If you could sit down with any author for a meal, who would it be?
A: Oh, that’s a good question! Any author for a meal . . . um . . . this is hard. Who do I like? [Laughing] Um . . . you can answer first because I can’t think right now.
C: Okay, sure, I’ve definitely prepared for this one. Probably John Green. I love him. His writing, absolutely, but also just as a human being. I follow everything he does, like his podcasts—
A: He’s a fun guy.
C: Yeah, he’s super fun and also super involved and dedicated. He just seems like a genuinely good person.
A: Yeah, I love his TikToks. [Laughing]
C: Yeah!
A: Him and his brother, Hank Green. Okay, now that I’ve had more time to think, I would probably want to sit down and talk to Rupi Kaur. She’s a famous South Asian poet and that’s a really big deal to me. I mean, I’m Indo-Caribbean, but being South Asian is a part of my identity. Also, I really enjoy her poetry and have a few of her books. People call her an “Instagram Poet,” but if you actually read her books, it’s a lot deeper than that. Her poetry is simple, but it resonates with a lot of people. She’s a powerful personality, and I’d like to just talk to her.
C: Yeah, I love her poetry. It’s so beautiful.
A: Well, cool!
C: Cool.
A: [Laughing]
C: [Laughing]