My name is Tamera Coston, and I am the Fall Intern for History Through Fiction. My journey here started when I was young. I first conceptualized working in publishing at just eleven-years-old when I realized that for some, writing was a career. Like many eleven-year-olds, I was obsessed with speculative fiction. The preeminent British writer of speculative fiction for middle-grade children was JK Rowling, but my interest was in Diana Wynne Jones. After reading the Howl’s Moving Castle and Chrestomanci series, I was inspired to learn more about the mind behind them. I remember reading that Jones was a mother who had a career as a writer. I thought, She couldn’t have just been a writer? Of course, no one is just a writer and equally, juggling several other roles is often what it means to be a writer. The same is true, I think, of publishing.

In addition to this internship, I juggle the roles of writer, reader, and lifeguard. I write short stories, often magical realism and historical. Writing magical realism with a historical setting allows me to respect the folklore of our ancestors—respect with which I hope our beliefs and practices will be later remembered. Reading, meanwhile, has gone together with writing for me. Naturally, I read in the genres I write, but my reading list tends to lean toward anthologies of myths, fairy tales, and folklore. Finding the mythic qualities of ordinary life is a large part of what has drawn me to storytelling, and one of the reasons being a lifeguard enriches my skills as a storyteller. Although far from the creative field, it is hard for me not to become lyrical if not dramatic about being a lifeguard when regularly depended on for protecting life and safety. In this internship, like my role as a lifeguard, I look forward to serving and making memories.

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey,
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis,
Gossip from the Forest by Sara Maitland,
Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block.