I’m Rudrani Sarma, and this is a virtual documentation of my summer as an intern at One Story. One Story and One Teen Story are sister publications based in Park Slope, in the Old American Can Factory.
This is the Old American Can Factory, on 232 3rd Street, Brooklyn.
On May 29th, I moved into my little room on the third story of a house in Flatbush. My landlord, Jenny, is Chinese American, and teaches physics at a local high school. She welcomed me into her home with plenty of advice about the city. That’s one important thing I’ve learnt about New Yorkers so far: they love to tell new folks about the city. I’ve heard a million different opinions on where to eat, where to do laundry, how to ‘properly’ ride the subway– even how to distinguish tourists from locals. It’s all a bit difficult to navigate, but I’m trying to use my best judgement and figure out the Big Apple for myself.
I live in an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood right on the edge of the primarily Pakistani streets of Midwood. It’s interesting being Indian American in this cultural mecca; I look like I belong, but I feel rather out of place. There are so many new behavioral rules here that it seems like a foreign country. However, I welcome the change. Life in the village of Swarthmore was getting a bit tedious.
The Yeshiva of Flatbush, across the street from where I’m staying.
I live in a world of words. When I close my eyes, I see serifs and quotation marks, perfectly printed letters and the dull heaviness of an em dash– I comprise and am comprised of my own little catalogue of stories.
Learning the business side of things was overwhelming, at first. I fell in love with the rules of the English language, and my internship which allows me to delve into them, but had to quickly learn in the first few weeks of my summer just how subjective of a world I lived in. Words that sound positively fantastic in my brain may not provide the best backbone to a narrative arc, and vice versa. I began to see that negotiating words and stories and identities was the work of the editor, not the writer. Writers craft ideas, whittle language, stir the pots of their consciousnesses, and add to the primordial soup– so to speak. They are the ones who push the boulder down the mountain. And editors are given the task to push it back up, in a straight line, while minding every crevice and bump along the way. I do love to write, but editing is a balancing act I would love to master.
I still have so much to learn, but I can already see my instinct improving. There is something so meditative about poring over writing and parsing language for impurities.
The editors and staff at One Story are also teachers the four days per week the interns are in. We are a boisterous group of nerds: Tony, from Williams College, Ian, from Pomona College, Leah, from NYU, and me. Adina Talve-Goodman, managing editor, is in charge of interns, but she will be ‘handing over’ supervisor duties to Amanda Faraone; both are former interns at One Story Inc. Maribeth Batcha and Hannah Tinti are the editors-in-chief and co-founders of the non-profit; I have yet to meet Hannah, but Maribeth is an absolutely lovely example of a writer who can also be successful managing the business of things. Patrick Ryan, the editor of One Story’s sister publication One Teen Story is in on Wednesdays; his witticism and perspectives are invaluable to us fledgling interns.
Ian Dangla, Pomona ’17Tony Weiling, Williams ’16Leah Block, NYU ’18
On Wednesdays and Thursdays we have editorial meetings: discussions about what is upcoming or what needs to be resolved. There are also formal conversations about pieces that we are either interested in publishing or not sure about. These discussions are formatted quite like creative writing workshops. It is so interesting to see a direct use of my time in English class!
One Teen Story Board
The office is a lovely space, full of colours and books and caffeine. I am really enjoying a professional (or not so professional), indie, work environment. I hope to learn a lot this summer. Strike that: I will learn a lot this summer.
I remember how excited I was to receive my acceptance letter to Washington University in St. Louis’ Creative Writing Program in 2011. I was a rising senior and so nervous about college life; writing seriously, at the time, seemed a distant dream. Enter Eileen G’Sell, poet. That summer, she taught us about abstractions, about combing through our language and picking out the cliches like nits– it was an important lesson and it has changed my prose entirely.
Those three weeks were life changing. I met some lovely students, many of whom I kept in touch with. My closest friend from the program, Eriko Kay, is studying Gender Studies and Studio Art at Harvard. She also happens to live in Brooklyn this summer! Eriko is interning at MTV and we had an emotionally overwhelming but utterly satisfying reunion with Eileen on Monday.
Kayak’s Coffee in St. Louis, 2011; Eriko and MeHarvard University, 2013; Eriko and me reuniting for the first timeMe, Eileen G’sell, and Eriko at brunch on Monday; 2015.
I feel so lucky to have been able to keep in touch with other writers from CWP and reminisce. Eriko and I hung out after brunch with Eileen and it was as if nothing had changed! We went to Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, a lovely independent bookstore. Both of us are voracious readers and of course we couldn’t help but grab a new subway read. I picked up a short story collection, of course, “No One Belongs Here More Than You” by Miranda July, and Eriko bought my recommended “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith (who was Bryn Mawr’s Emily Balch Speaker last year!).
I even found a book quite familiar to me: “The Last Flight of Poxl West,” by my professor, mentor, and friend Daniel Torday, who is up for tenure this year as head of the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr! I was so excited to see one of my favourite writers gaining recognition.
“The Last Flight of Poxl West” by Daniel Torday
It looks like so far, Brooklyn has surprised me indeed!
The summer so far has been about finding a balance between work and play. New York City is notoriously expensive, so it can be a bit straining to socialize in conventional ways. I’ve had a few brunches and dinners and boba-tea dates, but I found myself needing to cut back on these in order to save money.
Isabel Bowen, School of Visual Arts ’16, poses on the subway platform. Izzy’s my best friend from high school!Jordan Singleton, Swarthmore ’14, ponders life over Boba in the Lower East SidePaul Ahn, Swarthmore ’14, celebrates his birthday at brunch in the West Village
I’m so grateful to LILAC for my stipend (I wouldn’t be here without it), but sticking to a budget in Brooklyn is a challenge. I’ve been doing freelance writing work, babysitting– anything I can to make ends meet– but that doesn’t mean I have to cut back on seeing my friends. I’ve just had to be a bit… creative!
Basically, eating out after a while is a strict ‘no’. It’s cheaper (and more fun) to cook with friends and hang out at home. I’ve made delicious dinners, built Ikea furniture, watched B movies–there are countless quirky things you can do to make socializing both fun and inexpensive.
Homemade Indian dinner. ~$10.00/3 peoplePaul’s birthday brunch in the West Village. $27.00Dinner for one in Carroll Gardens. $16.00The feeling of building a bunk bed all by ourselves: priceless.
