The Freshest Professional Writer Yet

Lauren Foster is not just your typical twenty-something.  A trim, stylish Pacific Northwester, Lauren is in her first year out of college and already a published professional writer.  With the recent ongoing economic crisis and the financial burden of a private liberal arts degree that includes few “job skills,” Lauren agrees that her situation is remarkable, to say the least.

As Staff Writer for Premier Media Group, which publishes two local bimonthly magazines, Lauren contributes to both 425 and South Sound magazines.  It is not until nearly halfway through our interview, however, that Lauren reveals that she is one of three members of PMG’s editorial staff –the other two being the Lisa Patterson, Editor In Chief and Ethan Chung, Assistant Editor (PMG also employs a handful of freelance writers for feature stories in both magazines).  Lauren admits that this small arrangement is unusual for such a demanding output, but it also means that even as a green member of the PMG staff, Lauren’s voice counts.

But how did she, as they say, ‘land such a sweet deal?’  Lauren is an encouraging real-life example of the results of networking and building professional relationships.  The path to her current position began with the Writing Internship course offered at the University of Puget Sound last spring, Lauren’s final semester of college.  Through the course, Lauren obtained an internship with Jeff Burlingame—a local writer of nonfiction for young adults—conducting research and interviews as well as editing for his current work in progress, Lost Boys of Sudan.  At the end of this internship, Burlingame recommended Lauren to apply for another writing internship with Premier Media Group, where his wife works as Editor In Chief.  Over the summer, Lauren worked as an Editorial Intern for PMG, blogging, writing blurbs for both 425 and South Sound magazines, as well as writing a story with another intern, published later in the summer. 

Lauren shared an insightful anecdote with me about how the internship turned into a fulltime position:  Lisa Patterson, Editor in Chief for PMG celebrated her birthday during Lauren’s internship with an office potluck and Lauren baked cupcakes to share with the company for the occasion.  Lauren elaborated that she loves to bake and this seemed a very natural action to her, as even a temporary member of staff.  Later, when Lisa spoke with the publisher about hiring a new staff writer, he immediately asked if she was considering Lauren, citing the cupcakes as evidence that she fits in well with the company.  Lauren concluded the story with the maxim, “part of being good at your job is working with the people you work with.”

But Lauren is quick to clarify that she did not arrive at this point in her career so quickly because of some fluke of luck and timing.  Although she doesn’t admit it outright, Lauren is an incredibly driven young woman, gregarious and enterprising.  Of course, her experience writing for both her high school and college newspapers hasn’t hurt.  Lauren asserts that her experience and published writing samples have been the most effective aspects of her resume.  At a recent convention for professional journalists, a seasoned writer informed Lauren on no uncertain terms that in order to succeed in this field, experience and publication are far more advantageous than a Masters in Journalism.

Despite her experience with journalistic writing, Lauren has found plenty of challenges in transitioning to writing professionally.  In fact, she has worked incredibly hard over the last several months, as her responsibilities and recognition have increased.  In adapting to this particular media, Lauren has learned the specific voice of each magazine and adjusted her writing style to fit each.  She explains that within each issue there are additional nuances of style, from the brief informational blurbs in the “Finds” section in South Sound to the feature articles she imbues with more of her personal voice in conjunction with the voice of the magazine.

Another feat the recent college graduate faces as a Staff Writer is the responsibility of writing professionally itself.  Although she took writing as a student seriously, Lauren explains, “It’s different when you’re writing for [publication] than when your writing only affects you and the professor.”  In the professional setting, Lauren continues, a longer chain of individuals is affected by her writing.  If Lauren makes typo, for example (which she openly admits to be one of her faults as an academic writer, just as many of us also fail to reread our works thoroughly), multiple editors have to take the time to fix the error and return it to her before it can be passed on to publication and shared with the world of readers.  Lauren has found an amusing solution to this problem, however, using what she calls a “creepy man voice” application on her computer, which reads her articles aloud to her so that she can locate those errors before passing them on to her superiors.   Odd though it may be, Lauren asserts that this tool has become invaluable in timesaving for her as well as her editors.

Lauren is finding even more applications of the writing skills she developed in academia to her new position in the working world.  With a fresh Bachelor of Arts in English, Lauren is thrilled with the extent to which she uses her unusual emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Culture in her daily professional life.  This specialization offered by the University of Puget Sound offers a degree emphasis studying the ways in which various types of writing respond to and shape rhetorical and cultural contexts—an interdisciplinary approach to the study of writing that has equipped Lauren with critical thinking skills actually applicable to the professional world.  Lauren explained that the Premier Media Group interviewers emphasized that in order to succeed in writing for them, she would need to visualize her articles—a WRC skill Lauren “didn’t necessarily think I would use and [now] I use on a daily basis.”

 “I think our generation has a sophisticated eye for visual and text,” she continues, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the PMG editorial and design staff, and the intellectual tools she developed in WRC courses as essential to work on both magazines.  Working on a magazine editorial staff is as much about understanding visual rhetoric as it is about researching and writing the articles themselves, Lauren explains.  This modern way of thinking about rhetoric in the world of journalism extends to the prevalence of technology in Lauren’s work.  She mentions blogging and tweeting as facets of both her internship and permanent position with PMG, as well as contributing to the upkeep of the websites for both South Sound and 425 magazines, recognizing the niche available to a young generation of writers participating in the sphere of professional journalism.

Lauren fully acknowledges the challenge of locating that niche for young members of the working world.  She considers herself lucky to have found herself in a job for which she is both skilled and passionate.  Lauren lives with two close friends from college who work for Target and Boeing corporations, and she identifies a distinct difference in the attitudes they adopt regarding their current professions.  When her friends physically leave work for the day, they also check out mentally, compartmentalizing so that work life does not interfere with their personal lives.  Lauren, however, cannot seem to stop thinking about work-related issues.  Rather than expressing frustration at the constant presence of her professional life, Lauren’s eyes light up and she leans a little closer as she explains how she cannot help but jot down ideas when story ideas strike, or when a new resource occurs to her.  “When you’re a writer,” Lauren notes,” you never really stop thinking about it.”

However demanding her work may be, Lauren seems not to care.  “It’s kind of amazing,” Lauren admits, that the pieces have come together so successfully this early in her professional life.  The combination of her experience both from writing for educational newspapers as and from internship opportunities as well as her specialized skill set have truly catapulted her into a professional writing career staggeringly early in life.  When I asked Lauren if she had any future career plans, she just laughed at her inability to even fathom what might come next. Too thrilled with her current work with Premier Media Group to consider what could be greater in life than doing what she loves, Lauren exclaims, “My life is just blowing my mind right now!”