Feature Writing

This course will prepare students to work as journalists on lifestyle and special interest magazines, as well as for the lifestyle pages of newspapers. It is distinct from news reporting which is the basic writing style of journalism. The course will look broadly at feature journalism, considering story angles, packaging, working with commercial influences, and feature journalism's place in society and readers' lives. This is a writing course, and each week there will be writing exercises in class. Looking at eight forms of writing commonly used in magazines, it will help students develop their own voice, as well as understanding how to adapt their writing style for different publications with different readerships. These writing skills are transferrable across platforms as the fundamental principles and applied styles are not print-specific.