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Meet Cody, our newest editorial intern with an appreciation for bagels, saxophones and the ozone layer. 

Name: Cody Wiesner
Age: 20
Hometown: Black River Falls, WI
School Attending/Graduated from and year: UW Oshkosh, 2020

Tell us about your background:
This fall marks my first semester of studying English and journalism at UW-Oshkosh, and I also have an associate degree in communications at UW-Fox Valley. I’m a copy editing hopeful who’s spent the last two years proofreading for UW-Fox’s student newspaper, the Fox Journal. There’s a lot of reading involved in editing, which is good, because I love reading. Most of my spare time goes into reading and analyzing whatever I can get my hands on. I also place high importance in credible, honest information and consistency, so copy editing combines these interests.

I very much enjoy writing, too. My published repertoire includes budget and curricular news articles and student engagement editorials for the Fox Journal. I also dabbled in some fiction for the UW-Fox literary magazine about, for example, a purple moose with body image issues. It’s a wild ride.

Why did you want to be an intern at FCM?
I’m really looking forward to take what I’ve learned at UW-Fox and further develop my copy editing skills while seeing the magazine production process firsthand.

Also, while there will always be a place in my heart for hard news, I couldn’t be more excited to diversify my writing experience through the feature writing that FCM more directly specializes in.

What’s your favorite thing about the Fox Cities?
I grew up in a very small town, but I also love the allure of big cities, and the Fox Cities has both, with an amazing contrast between concentrated, urban designs like downtown Appleton, large but wide-open areas like the Calumet area, and smaller cities like Menasha or Neenah. Combine that with the exhaustive array of local business, and it’s just about impossible to get bored here.

The last book you read:
The Phantom Tollbooth. Combining allegory with bizarre, fantastical settings and storylines, every scene has a practical message about a different area of education and not only why you need to learn it, but why you might want to. It’s a great novel for those who love teaching, learning, and especially for those who question the importance of mathematics in everyday life.

Last movie you watched:
The Wind Rises. It’s a loose biography of planemaker Jiro Horikoshi who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II. He’s a likable character, portrayed as an artist passionate about his craft, but the movie gave me mixed feelings because his designs were used during Pearl Harbor. It’s a really thought-provoking film that made me consider the ethics of artists and the social outcomes of their art. At what point is an artist to blame for creations used by others?

Any hidden talents?
I’m super obsessed with playing the saxophone. I have two at home, an alto sax and a soprano sax, which are higher pitched and melodic, but I specialize in baritone sax, a beast of an instrument that’s low-pitched, rumbly, half my height, and is about as expensive as my car, so I always have to borrow one from the ensembles in which I’ve been involved. Someday I’ll buy one, and it will no doubt be the “instrument” of my financial destruction.

And bad puns. Those too.

What can’t you live without?
Bagels. And the ozone layer. But mostly bagels.

What’s the biggest risk you ever took?
I was originally going to major in computer science because money, but I hated programming. I eventually decided on a potentially low-paying career with high job satisfaction is better than a high-paying job with low job satisfaction. I haven’t looked back since.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
It sounds cliched, but never give up. It’s really easy to think that it’s impossible to achieve better, then that idea gets more believable, and that’s when it feels like a good idea to stop trying, which is something I try to avoid all costs. Determination is key!

Describe your perfect Saturday:
The best Saturday is a relaxing Saturday. Ideally, everything’s orange, there’s pumpkins, fleeing birds, dying leaves, and all that autumnal goodness for me to look at in windowside view without actually going outside. First, I’d find something fun, yet productive to do like practice my saxophone or write about something I read or watched. Then, armed with a chai latte and sushi, I’d choose a book or film that I haven’t experienced yet, and without moving a muscle, that would pretty much be the rest of my day.

Stay tuned for Cody’s blog series about small businesses in the Fox Cities!