Hello and welcome back to another Publisher 1-On-1! This week we’re chatting to Caraline Douglas, Sales & Marketing Manager at The Jewish Quarterly.
Admired for its fine writing, rigorous thinking, wit and wisdom, The Jewish Quarterly is published by Schwartz Media and Books out of Australia. Each quarterly issue features a major political or cultural theme, investigated in long-form essays by prominent voices from around the world. The publication’s mission is not to advocate but to investigate complex and pressing matters of politics, religion, history and culture, and to do so in depth.
Individuals and institutions can subscribe to the complete digital archive dating back to 1953 on the Exact Editions platform. The archive is fully-searchable and seamlessly accessible across web, iOS and Android devices.
Now we know a bit more about the history of the magazine, let’s hear from Caraline.
1) What’s your role within The Jewish Quarterly?
Sales & Marketing Manager.
2) What’s the best thing about working at The Jewish Quarterly?
It has been an absolute pleasure reinvigorating this publication for a global audience. At a time when everyone has been physically disconnected for many months/years due to lasting impacts of COVID-19, it feels all the more important to connect with audiences through long-form writing.
3) What impact has the pandemic had on your publication, both short-term and long-term?
We relaunched our publication in the midst of the pandemic and in many ways, the changes in working practices we all experienced (Zoom meetings and working from home) have helped to facilitate our international relaunch. We’re working across a range of time zones and connecting with a global audience of subscribers, and this has been arguably easier due to the swift take-up of these new technological practices.
4) What was your most unusual lockdown hobby?
Not a hobby per se, but I finally got around to hanging the artworks that had been stacked in the corner of my flat for months, and I’ve properly set up a reading nook in my flat — two things that were on the top my to-do list for a long time.
5) How have you found the experience of remote working over the past year?
Australia broadly has been relatively lucky with low COVID cases, although Melbourne, less so. Melbourne experienced almost four consecutive months of lockdown last year, and we’ve just come out of another snap lockdown. With these ongoing lockdowns and changes to plans, and schedules adjusting and readjusting, working from home has been an essential part of maintaining productivity and connection with our colleagues, readers and subscribers. We have an excellent team that works wonderfully together whether we’re online, in-person or somewhere in between.
6) Where are you most looking forward to travelling to, once restrictions allow?
International travel is still likely to be restricted in Australia until mid-2022, but members of our JQ team are looking forward to travelling to London to meet with our JQ partner organisations — hopefully one day soon.
7) What is your vision for The Jewish Quarterly in 10 years’ time?
In reinvigorating JQ we want to honour its 70-year legacy of cultivating journalism of the highest standard. We feature prominent voices from around the world with a mission to investigate complex and pressing matters of politics, religion, history and culture, and in 10 years’ time, we hope to continue to do so, and in depth. As our publisher, Morry Schwartz, has said, “Our main hope is to fulfil the ambitions that Jacob Sonntag envisioned for the journal when he founded it in 1953.”
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Thank you so much for your time Caraline, we’ve loved hearing from you!
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