Kelly Len: Today Will Be Different Than Yesterday

By: Carrie Clark & Emily Lewakowski

When young adults think about the careers they want to pursue as actual adults, they often envision a working world where they will travel, meet interesting people, and know that today will be different than yesterday. This is the career that Kelly Len was able to build for herself.

A Writer is Born...

Upon graduating from Calvin College, Kelly Len was eager to share her knowledge and love for life as an elementary school teacher. However, “I became a professional writer because I had so many experiences and so much information I wanted to share. Writing was one medium to communicate my excitement about the world around me and the new things I was constantly learning,” said Len.

Len began her career as a columnist for a weekly newspaper. Not only did she “wheedle her way in” by convincing her editor that people would be interested in her writing and what she had to say, but she also insisted that she was paid for her work. Many writers, she explained, found satisfaction in seeing their names in print and worked without pay to gain experience. Len later compiled some of these weekly columns into a self-published book which was reprinted several times.

Although rewarding, life as a professional writer was not easy, and Len had to work her way from the bottom to obtain what she considered a more desirable or credible position. From newspaper columnist, she became a contributing editor, editorial assistant, editor, and then editorial director of a national magazine in a niche market. An editor asked her to help set up a shoot for her in Michigan and was impressed with Len’s work, and asked her to continue to help set up shoots and write articles for her. Later, she became the editor, then editorial director. For each issue, she traveled with a photographer and another editor to conduct photo shoots and interviews throughout the United States and Canada, and eventually in Europe.

Pros and Cons

As editorial director, Len had quite a lot of freedom. “I set up the ‘shoots,’ selected the people to be interviewed and the artifacts to be photographed, and searched out interesting homes, historic buildings and beautiful settings to showcase. I arranged the schedule, made the hotel and airplane reservations (because I am a control freak) from Alaska to Hawaii, Ireland, Florida, California—wherever I wanted to explore and share what I discovered.” She was often asked to speak about her work to large and small groups, which helped with PR for the magazine and gave her more “leads” for stories and photos.

Len developed a “stable” of writers who had various areas of expertise, could meet deadlines and were able to share their knowledge in print. Their writing styles differed as well as their presentations. “I always wrote the ‘Letter from the Editor’ for the front of the magazine to set the tone of the issue, and to tell the readers what they were going to see and read. We had an excellent photographer and art director, but there were always heated arguments about cropping and color, and what had impact and what was or was not appealing,” Len recalls.

“Magazines are constantly being bought and sold, which often creates tension amongst current employees due to possibility of relocation or cutting of jobs,” Len adds. Her editorial assistant in the large office staff was a very talented, young college graduate who was assigned mundane jobs like opening and distributing mail. “I saw her talent for writing and dealing with people, and she became my special helper, and gradually did my scouting in Europe, going ahead of me to find the people and places I needed to see. She made herself very useful to me and it paid off for her! She made lots of connections.”

While there are many perks and advantages in being an editor, every up has its down. The biggest writing-related challenge that Len faced on the job was to be sure that the information that she gathered was presented correctly and is accurate. “Spelling names correctly and attributing sources accurately is imperative. You can’t take back what comes out in print, even if you print corrections another time. You lose credibility, and you feel terrible for yourself and the person you have wronged.” Some may think this is a no-brainer, but Len remembers making such mistakes “more than just a few times.” “Good proofreaders are important, even with spell check!” she advises.

Editors face many other challenges, such as meeting deadlines. “Missing a deadline is costly,” Len says. “The presses roll on schedule, and you just don’t miss deadlines, even though the impulse to tweak, tweak, tweak is strong…when the magazine comes to you in ‘blue lines’ to check for the final time, those changes translate into dollars. Sometimes, these errors just jump out at you in blue line form.” Len also mentioned color correction as another challenge, as well as flipped photos or cropped images.

Along with challenges, editors must also deal with what Len called “frustrations.” She mentioned: never having enough pages (or space as a columnist), incorrect color or captions, and cover lines that block a beautiful cover as some of the most common annoyances she faced.

Fortunately, the rewards of her profession outweighed the negatives and made all of the time and effort put into her work worth while. “The greatest rewards,” according to Len, “are the opportunities presented throughout my career. These opportunities include traveling all over the world, interviewing all kinds of culturally unique people, being able to share and document all of my experiences with so many people, and the opportunity to explore—to explore myself, my writing, the world… I was lucky to have so many wonderful opportunities.”

Advice to hopeful writers

Len offered some advice to hopeful writers and students, saying, “My advice to students is to put yourself out there in a writing related job or volunteer position to gain some insight into the ‘job.’ It is not glamorous to haul photographer's equipment, or sit while a set is being lighted (it's like watching paint dry). Arguing with the publisher, the art director, whoever, nudging the columnists to get their work in on time—it is constantly a learning experience. Networking is important and imperative.”

As a little girl, Kelly Len wanted an exciting career that would allow her to explore her interests while exploring the world. As a writer and editor, she has had the opportunity to travel the planet, interviewing the interesting people she has met, while letting her readers feel that, they too, have just experienced a small slice of the globe. When asked about her future goals, Kelly shrugs and says, “That’s what’s so great about writing. You just don’t know what’s around the next corner.”