In spring 2015, The Rose O’Neill Literary House hung a new plaque in its library in honor of Maureen Jacoby and the generous endowment she left to be administered by the Literary House. This fund is the reason I am able to write this post today while I am working as a Literary House Summer Intern. My internship this summer is entirely paid for by the Maureen Jacoby Fund and is the reason I have the opportunity to learn and to gain experience in the field of literary arts administration at Washington College before beginning my senior year.

The Maureen Jacoby Fund’s mission is to support student internships, professional endeavors, and individually created projects in the fields of publishing, editing, and writing. The resources for English majors at Washington are the primary reason I chose to attend this school, and the Maureen Jacoby Fund supports an incredibly large portion of the opportunities at the Literary House. 

The fund supports the Literary House Summer Internships, the Literary House Press Internship, and the Cherry Tree Production Internship. In addition, there are the Jacoby Endowment Grants that, each academic year, are awarded to 2-3 students for up to $1000 each in support of individual projects in writing, editing, and publishing. Recently, this grant program was expanded to offer funding assistance for graduating students as they pay fees for MFA and MA applications. The operation of the Print Shop is supported by the fund and is the way you might have taken the free letterpress and book arts workshops taught by Mike Kaylor at the Print Shop on Tuesday and Thursday nights each semester. This is where the annual broadside series and the yearly budget for printing and bookmaking supplies come from. My copies of Cherry Tree and The Book of Scented Things as well as other publishing and book projects are made possible by the fund that covers the printing costs. Each of these projects also involves multiple opportunities for student participation in professional literary editing and publishing at each step of the process.

The array of opportunities for students available at the Literary House is encouraged and made possible by the Maureen Jacoby Fund. Today I have the chance to plan a literary event of my choice and invite an author and publisher that I have admired to give a talk at Washington College. Today there is a new plaque in the Literary House in honor of the financial assistance that the Maureen Jacoby Fund provides that allows students to pursue their passions in the literary field.