Each month, we will interview one employee to get their opinions on the publishing industry, hear what it’s like to work at Technica, and learn a little bit about them. This month we are interviewing Brianna Cooper, a North Carolina native and graduate of UNC Chapel Hill who joined Technica as an editorial assistant in December of last year.
This is your first publishing job. Did you always want to work in the publishing industry?
I remember being an avid reader when I was a child. I just enjoyed exploring books and magazines and newspapers, especially. I always had this fascination with how stories were created and shared with people. I suppose I dreamed of being a part of the story-sharing, a liaison for public information. I was born and raised in a tiny rural town in northeastern North Carolina, called Ahoskie. I know that the epicenters of the publishing industry are normally larger metropolitan areas like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, so opportunities in publishing just seemed outside of my relatively small world orbit. So I reshaped my career goals to fit the market that I thought I had access to, but I was quite pleased and surprised to find that the Triangle area in particular is more robust with opportunities in publishing, especially within the academic segment, than I originally thought. So joining Technica was a dream come true in a sense. To wax poetic, it marked the rebirth of a dream that I had long buried away and the death of a sense of impossibility.
You are a recent college grad — how has the transition from college to working full-time been?
It hasn’t felt like that much of a transition. I think a lot of the experiences that I had while still in college prepared me very well for full-time work. I began interning in campus organizations and companies in Raleigh and Durham during the second semester of my junior year, and those experiences were a lot like studies in communication, professionalism, and networking, in addition to more specialized work depending on what company I was associated with. I also commuted to Chapel Hill from an apartment I shared with my sister in Raleigh during my junior and senior years of college, so I was able to compartmentalize my “work” life, which was school, and my home life, which existed a city away in Raleigh. So I think those two personal and professional life experiences helped temper any difficulties I might have faced while adjusting to this new stage of my life.
What do you like doing when you aren’t at work?
I could talk at length about my extracurricular interests. I really am a seeker of information. I think the reason why I identify so well with my current position at Technica is because I’m a small part of the public information dissemination process. A lot of my recreational activities involve discovering knowledge and information in some way. I really enjoy reading and visiting bookstores and museums and art galleries especially. A lot of my hobbies are quite solitary, because I’m a natural introvert, but I also enjoy spending time with friends and family. I’m a huge film enthusiast, so that’s an important part of my life, not just as a hobby but as an extension of my personality. I’m such a cinephile. I find such joy in visiting the cinema and even reading about films and the film-making process. I’m also a very service-oriented person, so I like to involve myself in the community as much as possible through service. I also am quite active, and when it’s comfortable outside I enjoy jogging, or walking on this lovely trail that’s by my apartment. So that basically encompasses my life outside of work.
What is the one book that is most important to you?
There are so many books that I really enjoy…
You can name a few, it doesn’t have to be just one.
OK, I feel like I would be betraying some of my most meaningful reads by ranking them in any way. I remember The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls made a very strong impression on me when I read it as a junior in high school. It’s an autobiographical account of Jeannette’s very unconventional upbringing and how she battled against the circumstances that her bohemian parents and their devil-may-care lifestyle created for her siblings and herself to accomplish her goal of becoming a writer in New York. Although I didn’t identify strongly with her experiences, I appreciated the portrait of resilience she conveyed. I’m also very attached to The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I have it with me, I’m reading it again. It was very cathartic, especially when I was struggling to cope with not having a sense of belonging when I was in high school. I felt a lot of similarities in the way that Charlie, the protagonist, describes being different. Charlie is different in that he is unique and gifted. I’ve always felt different in the sense that I sometimes struggle to feel that I truly belong anywhere. Oh, and Jane Eyre! I love Jane Eyre. I remember I was so endeared by that story when I first read it during my junior year of high school, and so impressed by Jane’s strong sense of self-respect and determination even in the face of the misfortune that she consistently encounters. I highly recommend the 2011 film adaptation.
If you could live in any other time or place, where/when would it be?
If I could choose to live in any other place, it would be Stars Hollow, from Gilmore Girls. I’m a small-towner at heart and really always found a sense of comfort in returning to that small, intimate community setting. I think I would have appreciated that more than Rory, one of the titular “Gilmore girls” who always gravitated more toward the bigger cities and the glamour held within, but I would choose Stars Hollow in an alternate universe.
What is your favorite thing about working at Technica?
I am really grateful to rediscover passion every single day while at work. I was worried about being able to find an opportunity that allowed me to apply my skills and education while also gaining knowledge and remaining engaged and excited while exploring the material at hand. I’ve found that each of those qualities are consistent with Technica and the opportunity that I have here. I also enjoy the sense of community that I’ve found here. There’s great mentorship and friendship to be found and enjoyed among my coworkers. It really is, I keep saying this, but it really is a dream come true to work at a very rare and unique company like Technica.
