Miriam Moore-Keish ’19

Networking works. The Twin Cities publishing and writing infrastructure is such a robust literary community to take advantage of.

Miriam Moore-Keish ’19

English Major
Content Strategist at Capstone Publishing
Writing • Publishing • Networking

On paper, it looks like everything worked out the right way for me. I had my first book published at 19, while I was still at Mac. I edited Chanter [the Mac literary magazine], had an internship the summer between my junior and senior years, went to Cambridge and got an MPhil in children’s literature, and eventually got a job as a Content Strategist overseeing the imprints Stone Arch Books and Capstone Editions, among other brands, at Capstone. The work includes concept development and publishing strategy for about a third of our 450-title annual list. 

As a Content Strategist, I come up with children’s book ideas and make sure that they happen. This means everything from market research and sales analysis to dreaming up new stories and coordinating editorial, design, and marketing strategies. I have also published three books of poetry and two children’s books, and I have five more books in development.

But what you can’t see is what I learned the hard way—that what I thought was a robust and impressive resumé contained the same things that nearly everyone in my industry had on theirs. It took me eighteen months (during covid) applying for two thousand jobs to get sixty or seventy interviews. I became a finalist for about fifteen jobs, but what eventually made the difference was my work doing anti-bias curriculum design which, supplemented with my other experience, helped me move into educational publishing. 

In retrospect, I realize that applying to every single posting that popped up in the publishing world was time-consuming and exhausting and less effective than thinking strategically about what I really wanted to do and how to draw on what I gained from my time at Mac. I took Literary Publishing, had a great internship, and took research methods classes for my Psychology minor, which was critical for the everyday work I do. But I didn’t think about my personal branding or draw on the alumni network right away—and once I did, I got help tapping into a network that helped me get a job that is really a dream, one where I get to think about children’s books every day.

I would tell students now that the Twin Cities publishing community is so much bigger than the few presses everyone first learns about. In addition to Mac alums working in the area, the Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable is an organization that welcomes college students at happy hours and other events. And a lot of us in publishing are there to talk everything from book bans to professional development opportunities and to support the next generation of writers and publishers!

Last updated: October 2025