This summer, I spent a little over three months interning with the Outdoor Writers Association of America. As an editorial intern, I wrote stories and edited their membership magazine, Outdoor Unlimited. This magazine’s audience and OWAA’s members are outdoor communicators and journalists. Much of the content in the magazine is about craft improvement as well as stories on conservation and environmental issues.

OWAA sent me to their annual conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana where I helped set up, attended some of the panels and connected with the members. This is where I learned about some current issues in conservation and then wrote stories about them. One panel I went to was about the nation’s decline in hunters and anglers. I have never hunted and never knew much about it, but it was an eye-opening presentation to learn that they were conveying the importance of targeting and including more women, people of color and millennials. The panelists presented graphs to the audience showing the decline and why hunting is important to conservation. I wrote a story about hunting’s decline and what could be done to recruit more people to try it. The story I wrote featured voices of organizations who are bringing different people into hunting. I also attended a panel about how Trout Unlimited is restoring urban streams and rivers and how they get the inner-city communities to help. Most all the panels were related to my GLI theme, Natural Resources and Sustainability and opened my eyes to how environmental organizations are working to keep the planet healthy.

As I interned, I learned how a membership magazine runs. This is a particularly small magazine, so I was able to work very closely with the editor. I realized just how much an editor-in-chief does to make sure the magazine runs smoothly. I had the chance to talk with and write stories about editors of major magazines like Outside and Adventure Cyclist.

My main goal in interning at Outdoors Unlimited was to create inclusive content in hopes of making the magazine more diverse. Women, people of color and those in the LGBTQ community are often left out of the outdoor industry conversation. I wanted to bring those voices in without it seeming out of the ordinary. Only three of my eight stories focused on men. One of those men did discuss the importance of diversity in outdoor media. Outdoors Unlimited is now actively working toward continuing an inclusive and diverse space. Their next keynote speaker for their conference next year is Dr. Carolyn Finney, author of “Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors.”

Now that it’s toward the end of my internship, I am starting up a student chapter at University of Montana with OWAA’s president. We hope it will be a chance for students who are interested in outdoor writing and media to come together to learn about conservation issues, hear from professionals and share content with each other. I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn from a talented editor who supported all of my ideas. Not only did I enjoy every minute of it, it also strengthened my journalism skills while writing about issues I’m passionate about.