I became the project manager of The Neighborhood Dames when it was acquired in spring of 2025. It was an enthralling prospect. The manuscript offered unique and authentic explorations of womanhood, neurodivergence, and queerness while filling many gaps in the current market. I was super grateful but also extremely nervous to take on this project. The author, Laura Stanfill, runs her own publishing press—Forrest Avenue Press—that has great acclaim within the publishing world and especially within the Pacific Northwest. I felt the pressure but was also honored to have received the challenge. I trained under the previous manager, Alex Devon, learning how to lead a team and the flow of the production timeline. 

The timeline gave me a bit of a headache when working it out at the start. It seemed an insurmountable and overwhelming mountain of due dates and avalanches of scheduling conflicts. I spent two whole weeks plotting everything out but learned along the way that no matter how much one plans, life has other things in store for your project. At this time, I leaned heavily on my fellow managers for advice, and, eventually, the timeline began to carve itself out. 

The next milestone was the developmental edit. This was so much fun to work on with Laura. I got to sit in on meetings between her and the acquisitions department as they discussed certain character choices, plot elements, and overall organization for the manuscript. 

At the same time, the project team was hard at work on developing the marketing plan for The Neighborhood Dames. This involved carefully crafting marketing copy like the book’s hook and back cover description. These are vital to get just right at this stage because they will be used throughout the production process. We went back and forth with writing and editing, working with the marketing and publicity department. The creation of the marketing plan also involved finding comp titles, which was fun because Laura had written another book—Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary—that served as a wonderful comparison. There were also many books published by her now publishing press that fit well! 

By the end of the spring term, we had gotten final approval for the marketing plan. Starting summer term, I was officially the solo project manager for the title. It was a scary but exciting thought. The team got right to work finding blurb contacts. Blurbs are those short little quotes on the covers or backs of books from other authors hyping up the book. The team spent a lot of time researching similar authors and books to find good contacts that might be willing to give a blurb for Laura’s book. 

Then, it was time for the COVER DESIGN BRIEF! YAY!!!! I’m a little biased when it comes to design because covers and interior design are my absolute favorite; I was so thrilled to begin working on bringing the visual, physical representation of this manuscript to life. I met with Laura to discuss her ideas and overall vibes for the cover. It was wonderful because we were on the exact same page. She sent me a huge document full of ideas and reference photos—an absolute dream for a designer. After our discussion, my team and I had a brainstorming session to create the design brief, talking over color palettes, important symbols, and things to avoid. This was a fun challenge because though the book is historical literary fiction, we still wanted the cover to appear fresh and not dated. 

Now, we are in the early stages of fall term. We just received the first round of covers from students in the press! They look so good, and I’m excited to see how they develop through the three rounds of feedback. My team is also working on finishing up the copy for the blurb request template and then sending out specified blurb requests to the contacts my team found during the summer term. 

This project has been such a fun whirlwind. It has been a pleasure to work with such an involved and passionate author and team. I am beyond excited to see how this project takes shape over the coming terms, and I know it will be a smashing success. A BIG thanks to Ooligan and my wonderful fellow Oolies for inviting me and coming with me on this fantabulous journey.