In our series The Future of Publishing, we reintroduce alumni of UNCW’s publishing programs, including former Lookout practicum members, who have gone on to careers in the industry. We continue our series with a profile of BFA certificate in publishing alumna Lauran Jones.
An acquisitions editorial assistant at Bloomsbury, Lauran works in academic publishing, focusing on philosophy and classics. The first thing she does when she steps in the office each morning is check her email, an essential task to stay on top of her wide-reaching schedule. “I’m still learning the ropes,” she says. “There’s a lot of training involved, especially since Rowman & Littlefield, where I started in 2024, was acquired by Bloomsbury.”
A major part of Lauran’s job is preparing accepted manuscripts for production. That means ensuring all permissions are cleared—especially for epigraphs or work previously published in journals—resolving lingering comments or highlights in the text, and polishing final details before handing it off to production. On a good week, she can get through about three manuscripts.
Lauran’s workload includes everything from writing marketing copy and soliciting endorsements from scholars to drafting Library of Congress forms. “Acquisitions folks do more of the paperwork now,” she explains, “so I’ve had to learn a lot of new skills quickly.”
About 20 percent of Lauran’s time is spent acquiring new titles. The rest she devotes to project management and author communication, providing vital support during each stage of the publishing process. During “commissioning week,” she reaches out to current authors to see if they have more ideas in the pipeline. She also keeps an eye out for standout articles in journals like Analytic Philosophy, and she reviews the unsolicited proposals that land in her inbox.
Lauran then forwards proposals to the acquisitions editor. If a proposal advances, Lauran helps secure peer reviewers with relevant expertise, including scholars “with a wide range of perspectives,” she says, “especially voices that aren’t always centered in academia.” Diversity matters deeply to her.
Publishing has been Lauran’s dream since she joined her high school’s literary club. “I fell in love with it on day one,” she says. As a student at UNCW, she went on to found SeaBreeze: A Literary Diaspora through Upperman African American Cultural Center and served as the youngest editor in the history of the student-run literary magazine Atlantis.
“I’ve always loved to read,” she says, “but I didn’t always see people who looked like me, or loved like me, on the page. That’s what pulled me into publishing. I want to help change that.”
Lauran joined the Lookout Books publishing practicum in her last semester, as the press was finalizing its forthcoming anthology Bigger Than Bravery, edited by the late Valerie Boyd. “Working on Bigger Than Bravery showed me how beautiful and necessary these voices are. We were equals, and as the only Black person on the team, I really felt seen.” She contributed to the marketing campaign and cover design, and even curated the book’s playlist.
“Lookout taught me how publishing works from pitch to publication,” she says. “It gave me confidence that I could go wherever the job took me.”
Beyond Lookout, she credits courses including Introduction to Book Publishing, Bookbuilding, and Sayantani Dasgupta’s Diversity in Publishing class as providing a strong foundation, especially when it came to understanding the lifecycle of a book. “Sayantani’s class really opened my world view,” Lauran notes.
After completing her BFA, Lauran went on to earn a Master of Publishing from George Washington University, then spent a year and a half coaching swim lessons before landing her first full-time publishing job. “It takes a while,” she says. “Don’t get discouraged if you don’t land something right out of college,” she advises job seekers. She found her position at Bloomsbury through GW’s newsletter and says she got the job by being herself in the interview. “My now-boss could tell I was passionate and genuine.”
After a four-year break, Lauran started writing again in late 2024. “It’s easy to get discouraged, but I’ve learned that even a sentence counts. You just have to pick the pen back up.” To emerging writers, she offers this practical encouragement: “Make a graveyard file. Kill your darlings, but know they’re not gone forever. And trust your editor! It’s okay to take a second to process all the red ink, but remember: they’re trying to help you get your work out into the world.”
Currently, Lauran is excited about two things: The novel she’s writing (“Teaser—it’s about mermaids!”) and a series of titles she shepherded through production, including favorites Critical Mixed Race Philosophy, Why Suicide is Amoral, and Feminist Pragmatism and Social Rights. “All three authors are incredible women,” she says, “and the work they’re doing is so important. There’s a lot of room for diversity in philosophy, and I’m happy to be a part of that shift.” She’s also set a goal for herself: to publish her own book by the time she turns thirty. But she knows she’s already on a path of impact. “It takes a village to raise a child, and teachers are a part of that village,” she says. “I wouldn’t be where I am without them.”