The Dalkey Archive Press responds

Following my last post about the Dalkey Archive Press advert for unpaid interns I received an email from publisher John O’Brien. I think it sheds some interesting light on the issue so here it is in full:

‘What started out as an announcement of two hires and then hoped-for interns who would become hires (putting aside my “characteristics” sections, if you can), all internships are on hold and will quite likely not resume.

We are deluged with requests (paid or unpaid) for internships, and usually take on more than we can properly handle because people are rather desperate to get the experience, without which they cannot get the first door opened for them for a job.

I’ve always been very conscientious about what the kind of duties that interns have, and sometimes that’s like walking a tightrope. Is packing up reviewer copies good experience or is it using interns that we would otherwise have to be paying someone? I come down on the side of not having them do such things, while also aware that I would prefer to hire someone who has done such packing so that he/she knows all the things that can go wrong.