{"id":344,"date":"2018-02-14T17:44:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T17:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/humanities\/?p=344"},"modified":"2024-05-29T14:32:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T14:32:44","slug":"english-alumna-at-vanity-fair-celebrates-first-bylines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/humanities\/2018\/02\/14\/english-alumna-at-vanity-fair-celebrates-first-bylines\/","title":{"rendered":"English alumna at Vanity Fair celebrates first bylines"},"content":{"rendered":"

KrisAnne Madaus (\u201814, BA English) smiles in the Vanity Fair offices, located in the World Trade Center building. Photo courtesy of KrisAnne Madaus.<\/small><\/i><\/p>\n

Vanity Fair<\/em> magazine is among the top publications in the U.S. Covering pop culture, current affairs, and fashion, the magazine has a circulation of more than 1 million readers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s KrisAnne Madaus\u2019 job to ensure every page is perfect. Madaus majored in English at UWM and graduated with her Bachelor\u2019s in 2014 before getting her Master\u2019s at the New School in New York City. Today, she\u2019s a production assistant at Vanity Fair<\/em>. She talked with UWM about her job and her recent bylines \u2013 including a story on Heidi Klum\u2019s Halloween party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How did you get started at Vanity Fair<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a complete surprise to me. The one thing I have learned is that the more you network with people, the more opportunities you get. During my time at the New School, I worked as my thesis adviser\u2019s research assistant. I learned that her husband writes for Vanity Fair<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Near the end of the semester before I graduated, I got an email saying that there was an opening at the magazine, and my thesis adviser kindly recommended me for the position. Of course, I had to interview like anyone else, but I truly believe that networking with people got me here.<\/p>\n

What does a production assistant do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I support the production department, including the production director and the associate managing editor. My job is to take each page of the magazine through every stage. It starts with the writer sending us the text, which we clean up for stand out errors, and then we send it to other departments like copy and research. From there, we merge art with text using InDesign and InCopy to get ready for the print process.<\/p>\n

And now you\u2019ve started writing for the magazine too.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another part of my regular job is to write for a little bit for print. I don\u2019t get a byline for these things. It\u2019s just things that regularly occur in the magazine, like contributor\u2019s notes or table of contents entries. For these, I reach out to some of our writers and photographers and interview them.<\/p>\n

Other than that, the things that I\u2019ve had published on web were things that I\u2019ve personally pitched – the Heidi Klum interview for her Halloween party, and then a small article about an interior design book.<\/p>\n

Heidi Klum, the model and businesswoman, Heidi Klum?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The phone interview was really fun. I was incredibly nervous. She is very much a professional though, and I barely had to prompt her. She kept going on, which is exactly what you want in an interview. She was talking about her childhood in Germany, and I was like, this is going a little off-topic, Heidi, so let\u2019s bring it back in \u2013 and that was all the direction I had to give her. It\u2019s a fun moment to look back on.<\/p>\n

How was it seeing your byline for the first time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had my fiction published before in small literary magazines, but having my name on Vanity Fair<\/em> is something that extends way beyond my literary community. My mom knows what Vanity Fair<\/em> is, and people who aren\u2019t necessarily readers or writers know the name.<\/p>\n

Going forward, I would like to write more for web. I love my job very much, but I did go to school for writing. I\u2019ll be brainstorming and making pitches.<\/p>\n

What are the elements of a good pitch for an article?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A subject line that an editor won\u2019t ignore is a good start. You have to remember the sheer volume of emails these editors get daily. You need something that stands out. I also include my word count, the deadline, and what date I want it to run \u2013 all the facts.<\/p>\n

When I pitched Heidi Klum, it wasn\u2019t as hard. She\u2019s a celebrity, so people are already paying attention. Beyond that, you want to make the editor feel like you know what you\u2019re doing with the pitch. For example, I had already reached out to Heidi\u2019s publicist to see if she would be interested in doing a one-on-one with us, to make sure that if my editor said yes it was a solid deal and we wouldn\u2019t have any issues moving forward.<\/p>\n

Do you ever have moments where you think, \u2018I can\u2019t believe they hired me\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pretty much everyone who works at Vanity Fair<\/em> has a degree or background in journalism. A lot of them have wanted to work here their whole life. I just showed up. I feel a little bit of guilt for that, but I am qualified. I\u2019m a writer. I\u2019m good at my job and I know what I\u2019m doing. But I think that not planning to be there gives me a bit of a different perspective.<\/p>\n

[You need] persistence. You will get rejected a lot. It\u2019s a very tough field, and when you jump into it with no background, like I did, you\u2019re not going to understand a lot. You just have to keep going<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vanity Fair<\/em> magazine is among the top publications in the U.S. Covering pop culture, current affairs, and fashion, the magazine has a circulation of more than 1 million readers. 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