Latinx in Publishing (LxP): What do you do?
Alex Cruz-Jimenez (ACJ): I’m a Marketing Assistant for the Viking Books, Penguin Books, and Penguin Classics imprints of Penguin Random House.
LxP: How did you get started?
ACJ: I was in the middle of getting my Masters in Teaching at Binghamton University (thinking that’s the only thing you could do with an English degree) when my university sponsored trips to Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. By the end of that first information session I was hooked, and applied to every publishing internship I could until I landed a marketing internship at HarperCollins in 2019. That solidified my love for publishing, and I was lucky enough to start my current job in January of 2020 and haven’t looked back!
LxP: What do you wish you knew before getting into the industry?
ACJ: So many things! How to juggle multiple projects at once (I am assigned dozens of books a year), how many different departments go into the making of a book, the timeline of a book, how to speak up in meetings, how to feel confident speaking up when you are often the only BIPOC in a meeting, I could go on!
LxP: What book are you currently working on or reading?
ACJ: I am really excited to work on two titles from Julia Alvarez this fall, In the Time of Butterflies and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, that we are reissuing under Penguin Classics. This will be the first Dominican author I work with, and I think it really speaks to the hard work Penguin Classics is doing to diversify the canon. I really hope to come up with some creative and inclusive marketing plans for this one!
Alex Cruz-Jimenez was born and raised in New York City and attended Binghamton University before returning to the city to pursue a career in publishing. She now works as a Marketing Assistant at Penguin Random House and spends her time exploring the city, finding her next TV binge, and reading of course. Follow her on Instagram @alex.gets.lit!
