In Jacqui Banaszynski’s intermediate writing course at Mizzou, students take on a semester-long writing project. At the time, I still felt new in Missouri and felt the best way to understand a place is to know it’s history. So, I decided to write about the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in Missouri.
I started off researching Civil War events in Missouri, and an editor in the newsroom told me about William Berry, which helped bring the story to the 21st century. Writing about something that happened long ago isn’t difficult, but it is hard to make it sound interesting and come alive. Jacqui worked with me to pull the more interesting parts of my interviews with Berry to the front and to frame the story so that it didn’t read entirely like a history lesson. A listing of local Civil War sites helped localize the piece even more and gave it a travel-aspect.
I enjoy the research involved in stories like this and intend to write more like it.
“The Civil War: 150 Years Later,” The Columbia Missourian, April 12, 2011 or online here.