Tag: Caylin Moore

Project Bookshelf: Caylin Moore

There are many genres represented on my bookshelf, but I find that a few things are true across the board. I gravitate toward books that I relate to in some way and that address issues I care about. I primarily read fiction as I often find that it conveys its message in a more moving way than nonfiction. Below I have listed some of the fictional works that have resonated with me throughout the years.

Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons

I personally love a great feminist retelling. I am also a theatre kid at heart, so the works of Shakespeare are favorites of mine. I love Romeo and Juliet so much that I have a line from it tattooed on my arm. However, a fresh perspective on a story I love is right up my alley. This book centers on Rosaline, the girl Romeo left to pursue Juliet.

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

This book was wildly popular for a reason. It rekindled my love of reading for the first time in my adult life. When I was burned out by academic reading after finishing my undergraduate degree, a cheesy romance is what got me out of my reading slump. I’ve grown to love romances, and they make up a majority of what I read. My fiancé and I have even created a fun game that we play when we are walking through a store’s book section together. He reads blurbs on romance books and tries to pick out ones he thinks I will like. He’s gotten quite good at this game. Although he is not much of a reader himself, talking about my favorite romances has become a particularly sweet part of our own romance.

How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine

I believe we are intrigued by horror because it gives us the opportunity to work through our greatest fears without actually putting ourselves in physical danger. I would classify this book as a slasher. In my opinion, this is the scariest type of horror because it is the most likely to actually occur in real life. I have gifted my physical copy to a friend, but this is one of the best murder mysteries I’ve read. I love trying to figure out who the killer is, and this book kept me guessing until the page before the big reveal. I recommend it to people often.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

This book fundamentally shaped me in my high school years. It centers on a young girl who is struggling with an eating disorder while grieving her best friend’s death. It was instrumental in giving me the motivation to start my own eating disorder recovery. While I would suggest being cautious of potential triggers due to the novel’s graphic nature, I would highly recommend it to anyone who either has dealt with or known someone with an eating disorder. My copy is currently in storage, but I thought it was worthy of being included on this list. I still think of it often.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

I return to this graphic novel series fairly often because it fills me with pure joy. I did not realize that I am bisexual until my early twenties, but it is so comforting to read about the kind of wholesome queer teenage experiences I didn’t have. In a way, it feels like connecting my current self with the younger version of myself who did not yet know she was queer.

Caylin Moore (she/her) is currently pursuing a graduate level certificate in book publishing from Pace University, and SAFTA is her first internship in the publishing industry. Her previous work includes copyediting, social media marketing, and project management. She hopes to use these skills and those gained during this internship for a job in either editorial or marketing one day. As someone who has often felt seen by the stories she reads, she is passionate about bringing stories into the world that help others feel that same comfort. She is planning her wedding to Nathan, the love of her life, for next August. In addition to her fiancé, she also loves romance novels, murder mysteries, musical theatre, and her pets Stitch and Oreo. Stitch is a hound dog named after objectively the best Disney character of all time, and she will hear no debate on that matter.

Meet Our New Intern: Caylin Moore

When I was entering middle school, my parents filed for bankruptcy. My father worked a manual labor job from which he had to take a great deal of time off due to back surgery. Since his was the primary income of the household, our family struggled substantially. I mean this in the financial and emotional sense. Financial strain has a way of causing relationship problems, and for my parents it was no different. They began to drink and fight. I, as a young girl already struggling through puberty and the increasingly complicated social scene of adolescence, developed a plethora of mental health issues. I became bulimic, depressed, and anxious. I began to self harm. However, I am the stereotypical oldest daughter, and I behaved accordingly in the midst of my struggles. I maintained a GPA above a 4.0 with a schedule full of honors and AP level classes, and I was involved in many extracurricular activities. Staying busy was one method of coping with what I was going through. Reading was another. I had loved books since I was a small child, but this period of my life made me view them as an escape. Books represented the fantasy of what I believed my life could eventually become even when my current reality was far from desirable.

Let’s fast forward to my high school graduation. I had started to experience some of the more extreme symptoms of having an eating disorder, and I had come to the realization that the way I was living was not sustainable. I started recovery during the summer after graduation, and I geared up for my first semester of college as a psychology major. I wanted to use my career to help people through the same mental health issues I had experienced. Little did I know that I would switch majors and career paths multiple times throughout the years.

After completing two years of coursework for a psychology degree, I transferred schools to pursue a ministry degree. While working toward this degree, I interned at a local church. This was the same church that I accepted a job at post grad. It quickly became clear to me that ministry was not a career I could do for the rest of my life. Growing up in a southern religious family meant that I had been raised by people with very conservative views, and I simply did not agree with these views anymore. The same views I was raised with were the views being promoted by the church I worked at, and the cognitive dissonance of being liberal in a conservative environment led me to feel that I was not helping people at all. In fact, it felt like I was actively contributing to the harm of marginalized communities.

I enrolled in a graduate program to study social work. It seemed like it would be a simple course correction. I would enter a field similar to that which I had originally intended to when I started college, and I would help people in a more hands-on way. A few quarters into the program, it was time for an internship in the field. This internship made me aware of how often I would be required to work with people who grappled with substance use, and I knew I couldn’t do it. Even if I could, it would take an extreme toll on my mental health due to the history of alcoholism in my family. I was at a loss for what to do next.

Every decision I had made had been driven by my desire to use my life to help people, but none of my choices felt right. I left the graduate program and my job at the church. I then did something I had not done in a very long time. I took time to sit still. I thought about what I loved and what had helped me through hard times. Then I remembered the young girl who always had her nose in a book. I remembered the girl who disappeared into stories that made her believe in a better tomorrow.

I now know that I want to be a part of bringing those stories into the world. I want to help publish literature that gives others hope. Because the first step to making the world a better place is hoping that it can be.

Caylin Moore (she/her) is currently pursuing a graduate level certificate in book publishing from Pace University, and SAFTA is her first internship in the publishing industry. Her previous work includes copyediting, social media marketing, and project management. She hopes to use these skills and those gained during this internship for a job in either editorial or marketing one day. As someone who has often felt seen by the stories she reads, she is passionate about bringing stories into the world that help others feel that same comfort. She is planning her wedding to Nathan, the love of her life, for next August. In addition to her fiancé, she also loves romance novels, murder mysteries, musical theatre, and her pets Stitch and Oreo. Stitch is a hound dog named after objectively the best Disney character of all time, and she will hear no debate on that matter.