Voicing the Ordinary Susan Orlean--a Writer's Perspective

This journalism master's project includes a professional work component and a research component. The professional work component details the author's experiences working for Missouri Life with the task of creating the magazine's first top town's package. Field notes and samples of work are included. In the research component the author looks at "how literary journalist Susan Orlean frames her stories, which profile ordinary people and capture an everyday 'slice of life,' in order to parlay their importance to the reader. Specifically, [the author] want[s] to look at how she uses voice not only to gain the readers' interest, but also to make the reader aware of her take on the subject and justify her reasons for warranting the article space" (p. 66). Voice is defined as the way a writer talks and the way he/she speaks to the readers.This section includes a literature review and interview transcript.