Fraser Valley Writers Festival Assistant Practicum

I was offered the position as the Social Media & Operations Manager with the Fraser Valley Writers Festival. Below, you will find a link to the website I created with Artistic Director, Rob Taylor. It includes a poster created for the festival, a map on how to arrive, an introduction to all the authors attending, the workshop registration forms, and links to all our social media platforms.

#FVWritersfest

FVWF Website

Skills Acquired for Far Transfer

Creativity & Innovation

I believe I have polished my skill of creativity and innovation because this practicum was centered around social media content creation. My estimated hours out of the 80 hours I was assigned was 40 to content creation, so I had plenty of time to explore, practice, and polish this skill.

Reading

Reading is an essential skill to the job because I was receiving many emails a day to the joint festival account. This is where we would receive inquiries, suggestions, feedback, and logistical things like scheduling for meetings and interviews. Getting all the information correct required a strong reading skill.

Writing

Writing was also essential to this role because I had to write full media press releases, articles about authors, and social media captions on multiple platforms. It was important to respect the requests of the authors in posts and articles, and to respect their voice when transcribing interviews for the media.

Problem Solving

Problem Solving came in handy on the festival day, Nov. 4th. We anticipated a smooth day with no hiccups, but the rain flooded our venue and there was a medical emergency at the same time where we had to call 911. Thankfully, I was able to get help and quickly solve the situation within an hour.

Feedback From Superiors

Below you will find a compilation of some feedback I've received directly from those I worked with closely over the course of the practicum. All from the Artistic Director, Associate professor of the English Department, and the authors who attended the festival. The positive feedback truly makes the hard work worth every second.

Michelle Superle

Associate Professor

"... we at the Fraser Valley Writers' Festival experienced not one but TWO major incidents simultaneously in B building on the afternoon of Saturday, November 4th. Shortly after 4pm, a student attending the event began experiencing a seizure; when I—and student organizer Cindy Castro . . . departed from the B 101 auditorium to assist the students helping the student in medical distress, we discovered significant flooding at the bottom of the stairwell.

Fortunately, both incidents were successfully resolved very quickly—thanks in large part to the immediate and effective intervention of the janitor on duty that day (who just happened to be cleaning a nearby classroom on the first floor of B building when Cindy went running off to find help and mop supplies!)." via email - 11/7/23