For the past eight months, I have lived in other people’s worlds. Physically, I’ve never strayed far from my wooden Ikea desk and pop artist posters. Intellectually, I’ve explored far beyond the confines of my dorm room. As an intern at Split Lip Magazine, through UC Berkeley’s Art of Writing program, I read hundreds of story submissions. Fictions that beat with life, sentences that stayed with me like sand between my toes, plotlines that depicted the full spectrum of human emotions, from grief to grandeur. Each piece momentarily opened the door into another writer’s imagination and the lives of their characters. Similar to the welling up of empathy, this new perspective appears automatically.
When I arrived at Berkeley, I sought out every opportunity to be close to that experience. In January 2025, I stumbled upon an Art of Writing Instagram post urging me to apply for a Split Lip Magazine Intern position, a role that promised an inside look into a voice-driven literary publication that celebrated diversity and authenticity.
Throughout the internship, I strengthened my creative muscles. I built the ability to recognize a story’s feats and faults, and engaged with other submission readers to discuss which pieces are the best for publication. Reading submissions became a refuge from the craziness of undergrad, enabling me to slip into rhythms dictated by sentences rather than routines determined by schedules.
I remember reading a submission entitled “Deadheading,” a flash fiction piece about a woman whose body begins to sprout plants as her caregiver tends to her growing garden. I was struck by its sharp voice, inventive premise, and themes of self-sacrifice, so I voted for it to move forward in the submission process. It was subsequently published. That story inspired me to write my own voice-driven narrative about a woman who wakes up with a zipper along her spine. In reading “Deadheading” and other stories like it, I live a life, experience emotions, and feel thoughts I may not have otherwise. Even when I disagree, I inhabit, and oftentimes it manifests itself later in my work.
The most rewarding and interactive aspect of the role was the interviews I conducted. I spoke with contributors and magazine staff who published work I was particularly fond of. One instance that stands out was an interview I conducted with Séamus Isaac Fey. Admittedly, I did not typically gravitate towards poetry. That changed when I read Séamus’s piece, “Tove’s Cento: Youth,” which captured a complex, emotional journey of adolescence, and introduced me to the concept of a cento: a poem constructed from a patchwork of existing verses.
When I interview contributors, much like with reading, I love to delve into their minds. Seamus and I talked about his modes of creative expression, topics he’s eager to write about, his debut poetry collection, and even his favorite Mario Kart character. When inspiration strikes, Séamus invites this feeling in and treats it as “channeling the divine.” It is a form of collaboration for him, not isolation. When he wrote his centos, he saw them as “shaking hands” with another author. Now, in my own writing, I view the process as a conversation with other writers, my past self, or even the world around me.
With the help and guidance of Split Lip’s brilliant Editor-in-Chief, Maureen Langloss, I edited and revised the interviews. I realized that editing was less about fixing a typo and more about ensuring that the shape of the piece was true to its intent. At times, the structure needed to be rearranged; other times, the writing was best undisturbed. The line between editing approaches was often blurry, but I sharpened my ability to distinguish it.
While speaking with other interns working through the Art of Writing program, I noticed that much of what I enjoyed about Split Lip was shared across all experiences, even though we interned for different publications.
Bayley Harris, a Senior majoring in Comparative Literature and Cognitive Science at Berkeley, told me that her internship at Transit Books — a small publishing press based in Berkeley — offered “a good combination of creativity and structure.” She discovered the internship through a Comparative Literature advisor who directed her to Art of Writing and was drawn in by their focus on translation. She has stayed in this role for multiple semesters, crediting the community for her decision to continue: “They keep things interesting while giving me a stable role. They’re supportive, and I genuinely believe in what they’re doing.”
Since Transit Books is a small press, Bayley has had the opportunity to see all sides of publishing: “proofreading, editing, reviewing manuscripts, going through the acquisition process, deciding what to publish, proofreading books, and sending out galleys,” she explains. “I’ve also done some marketing, community outreach, and graphic design.” These interdisciplinary experiences have expanded her skill sets.
When I asked Bayley how the internship changed her approach to writing, she said it made her “more aware of tone, grammar, and style.” In academic spaces, grammar is strict, but in publishing, she learned that “you balance grammatical accuracy with preserving the author’s voice.” That lesson is one I also learned in my internship. As I said, revision is about respecting intention while guiding form.
Bayley also described her favorite memory: proofreading a special edition of I Who Have Never Known Men, a novel by Jacqueline Harpman that subsequently went “viral.” She recalled creating a reading guide that was printed in the back of a special edition sold at Barnes & Noble. “Seeing my work in print was surreal,” she gushes, “I remember thinking, ‘I’m literally getting paid to read — this is so cool.’”
What struck me most was how she described her internship. “Supportive, creative, and community-oriented.” Those words not only encapsulated her experience at Transit, but mine at Split Lip. Both of our internships through the Art of Writing program gave us proximity to stories, yes, but also proximity to the people who wrote them.
Eythana Miller, a Spring 2025 graduate who majored in Political Economy during her time at Berkeley, also interned through the Art of Writing. She shared how her internship with The Dial, a magazine that publishes fascinating global news reports and literary work, helped her bridge her creative and professional worlds. Eythana noted that she was always “on the lookout for what [Art of Writing] offered.” She loved some of their workshops, so when she found out they were partnering with The Dial, the internship felt like the perfect position for her.
Eythana’s role centered on audience engagement and fact-checking. “Sometimes I would help review long pieces to provide blurbs or feedback … and distilled them into a few lines for promotion across platforms.” Her fact-checking work demanded precision and patience, especially for a story about the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan. “It had dozens of references,” she said. “I had to verify everything across multiple documents. It was a challenging but rewarding start.” She noted that this story — along with every story she was involved with at The Dial — helped deepen her understanding of the world, a reflection with which I deeply resonate.
Similar to Bayley’s and my experiences, she loved the community aspect of her internship and enjoyed conducting behind-the-scenes interviews with writers about their previously published pieces. “I loved reading these pieces deeply before interviewing the authors,” she explained. “It made me want to understand their work fully.”
When I asked what she took away from those interviews, Eythana paused before answering thoughtfully: “I think what stuck with me the most is how every person you talk to expands your sense of possibility. Each writer had a unique path, background, and approach. Talking to them opens up the world a bit more every time — it makes me realize how many ways there are to live and work creatively.” She also expressed gratitude to the writers she interviewed for the personal advice they offered on writing and career paths.
She concluded with her own advice for future interns: “Always apply, even if you don’t think you’re qualified … Be honest about why you’re interested — if something excites you, communicate that clearly. Passion and sincerity come across more than anything.” I found myself nodding. Like Bailey, Eythana’s internship was a mix of professional interest and creative endeavor, one that solidified storytelling as a site of community.
While each of our internships was distinct in focus, they all shared an underlying theme. Literary publishing is not just about producing text; it’s about maintaining connections — a chain of relations between writer and editor, reader and editor, and writer and reader. The practice of reading itself — with its slower temporality in a world of Instagram memes and TikTok doomscrolling — evokes unique emotions and allows for a unique accumulation of insights. It’s a slow accumulation of knowledge that came when I sat with words and dwelled in worlds unlike my own.
I return to the idea that reading is a rehearsal of empathy. Not only empathy for the characters in the story, but also for the writers who craft them. The stories I read throughout my time at Split Lip did not always resolve satisfactorily, nor were they all “good” in a conventional sense. Even the imperfect ones, however, had a quirk that left an imprint on my mind. Not fit for this magazine, maybe, but a story that someone believed in enough to send to unknown readers. There is courage in that — a quiet bravery in sharing stories with strangers and letting them glimpse the private corners of your mind.
That may be why I found such a home at Split Lip, and why Bayley and Eythana found a home at their internship sites. Split Lip was a place where empathy and art overlapped, which held space for both the writing and the writer. For me, reading, editing, revising, and writing all felt like a small defense against the hecticness of the world. And it equipped me with knowledge on how to steer through it.
I’m not sure what comes next. But I do know that wherever I go, I will continue to step into worlds through words and leave changed. My Split Lip Magazine Internship, and the Art of Writing more broadly, reminds me that to write is to open a gateway into one’s thoughts and to read is to reach inside another’s mind.