These last two weeks at Lostintheletters have been very eventful, both for me as an intern and for the organization itself. We had our first meeting virtually on 2/7, and it was good to put a name to the faces I had been emailing and get started on my work. The tasks and a good bit of our discussion were in preparation of the 2/22 events, which I will describe later.
My first task was to create and send a press release to a few contacts of Litl. My boss gave me a template he had used in the past, as well as the emails of the contacts–Rough Draft ATl and ArtsATL–and I was tasked with updating them. This meant going to Eventbrite, which is the main place people find out about our events, and collecting information on the event to put into the template. Once I had updated it with the correct location, date, time, recipient title, and details about the reading event and its guests, I sent it out!
The second task was to find community calendars to send our event information to. I created a word doc and compiled a list of community calendars that I thought would work for our type of event and reach the most people that would be interested in Litl. I found a list of local newspapers, which was very helpful, and a few other community calendars, art and literature organizations, etc. and put links and information on the doc. Many of these websites required me to create a login, so I gave the information and links to my boss so that he could create an official Litl login. I now have access to the logins to these calendars so that I may update them myself for future events. This part was especially fun to me; I’ve always loved falling into research rabbit holes, and I lost track of time working on this task.
Then it was time for the events themselves! I was in Atlanta from 12-8, so it was a long day, but it was totally worth the effort! I arrived at noon to the Little Five Points community center–which is an old school bustling with activity and filled with cracking paint, rickety window panes, and so much character(!)–to help set up for the first event of the day, which was a generative writing workshop with Claire Bateman, one of our guest authors. I then had a little break, and a friend of mine who attended the workshop went with me to Aurora coffee (so yum). I arrived at White Space Gallery at five to help set up a drinks & books table, and for the next hour, I welcomed people and checked them in through the Eventbrite app. I jumped between welcoming stragglers and listening to the readings, and then socialized a bit afterwards with the attendees and guest authors. It was so cool to meet so many talented and knowledgeable people in the Atlanta creative community, and I can’t wait for the next event!
https://www.lostintheletters.org/
