Dispatches | June 15, 2009

I’m a believer in a liberal arts education and all that it stands for, including (but not limited to) the enhancement of critical reading and thinking skills, a broadened cultural perspective, an appreciation of the arts, and a context for determining why we’re here and what our purpose in life may be. That does not, however, preclude us from equipping our students with practical skills, such as those needed to communicate in an ever-increasing digital world.

Learning such communication skills is an important part of The Missouri Review internship program. Not only are our interns immersed in reading and discussing manuscripts, but they also learn about the larger business of running a magazine. Last semester, that included teams of interns producing video podcasts. These students experienced all aspects of production, including storyboarding, the capturing of video, and editing audio and video tracks. Video subjects included author and staff interviews, an interview with our poetry editor, and a short on the “The Life of a Manuscript.” For a brief insight in what happens to a submitted manuscript, click here. And thanks for the creativity and diligent work by this team of interns (which, by the way, does include more than English majors): Scott Scheese, Kate McIntrye, Lindsay Sihilling, Cody Horton, and Emily Wunderlich. Original music by Kyle Stokes. We’ll post more video podcasts in the coming months.

Richard Sowienski