Carla Benton hosted our Instagram, on August 20, 2023 for our weekly #SalaSundays series. Below are a few questions that we asked Carla.
Latinx In Publishing (LxP): What do you do?
Carla Benton (CB): I am a full-time freelance copy editor and proofreader. Previously, I worked in-house in production editorial roles at Penguin, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster.
LxP: How did you get started?
(CB): I attended college in New York City; during this time I held publishing internships, and I continued to follow that career path once I graduated.
LxP: What do you wish you knew before getting into the industry?
(CB): I graduated in 2009, when the recession was still in full swing and jobs were scarce, so I was very preoccupied with making sure I majored in something that would likely land me a job, even though I wasn't entirely sure what type of job I wanted. I wish I'd known just about any writing-focused concentration in the humanities would have prepared me to take the same career path so I would have felt more inclined to choose a course of study purely because it interested me.
LxP: What book are you currently working on or reading?
(CB): I just wrapped up proofreading a compelling memoir called My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez. A recent read I enjoyed was R. F. Kuang's latest novel, Yellowface, and on the nonfiction side I just started reading sports journalist Jemele Hill's memoir, Uphill.
I am full-time freelance copy editor and proofreader and have been based in Chicago for seven years now. I mostly work on adult books and the Big Five publishers continue to be my primary clients. In my spare time, I am an avid long-distance runner, and I enjoy traveling. I recently returned from an outdoor retreat in Alaska that was organized by one of the authors I worked with last year!
