Hi, I’m Kanika and I come from the sunny (read: burning) city of Delhi in India.
Cliché alert: I adore reading, and though I’m partial towards the physical book, I also use a Kindle (more platforms equals more reading). Prior to coming to Stirling, I studied English Literature at the University of Delhi, which is where I started taking an interest in publishing in the first place.
While in my first year, I gained entry into the editorial board of our department’s annual magazine. The magazine was printed to be distributed free of cost, mostly amongst students and staff of our own department (we didn’t print too many copies). My colleagues and I had to do everything from copy-editing, proofreading, typesetting, and designing the magazine to looking at the financial aspects of the whole publication process. And because we were funded by the department we had to cut costs in numerous ways, including physically carrying 150 newly printed copies of the magazine back to our college in the sweltering heat.
In my second year, our literary society invited a new novelist for an event for our department’s annual fest. As I was responsible for this event, I was constantly in contact with a representative of the publishing house. My conversations with her piqued my curiosity and I began researching the field. The fact that I got a number of free books for my work helped.
I’ve been here at the University of Stirling for just over a month now and I can already feel my vision of my future in publishing changing. My focus has started shifting from proofreading and copy-editing, things that I’ve always done, to production, something that I’ve only recently become familiar with.
Here’s to hoping that there’s something waiting for me over the MLitt in Publishing Studies rainbow!
