From the Deputy Publisher: Summer School

Everybody needs a vacation, but the news never stops. Luckily, Seven Days has a crew of capable interns this summer, bringing fresh energy and perspectives as they fill the seasonal gaps in multiple departments.

Culture intern Cecilia Luce has a story in this week’s paper about a controversy surrounding former Vermont cartoonist laureate Tillie Walden’s new graphic novel, Charity & Sylvia (page 44). Cecilia grasped the nuances of the conflict at the heart of the story, according to her editor, Carolyn Fox: “It took a certain doggedness to get people to go on the record because it was a tricky topic, and Cecilia dove right in.”

Since mid-June, Cecilia has written stories about local films, a new Ecuadorian restaurant, a politically timely Eugène Ionescu play at Unadilla Theatre and the Vermont Green FC women’s team semifinals match. A rising junior at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where she writes for the Daily Northwestern, Cecilia is a local: Her family lives in Burlington. She grew up reading Seven Days and its parenting publication, Kids VT, and entered many of our coloring contests. In fact, Cecilia got her first byline in Kids VT — at age 8 — when she won a 2014 book review contest.

“Clearly this internship has been a long time coming,” she quipped.

News intern Ian Curry grew up in the Philippines. A rising senior English major at Middlebury College, he was inspired to become a reporter after witnessing courageous journalists in that country, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, stand up to the murderous regime of former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte.

His first assignment for Seven Days was covering downtown Burlington in the wee hours for our June 24 cover story, “24 Hours on Church Street.” Last week he wrote two of the most popular stories on our website — about the Alburgh arrest of one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives and the impending closure of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.

“I like being in the thick of it,” Ian said of his experience so far.

Seven Days is hosting two more Midd Kids through the MiddWorks for Vermont program: Olivia Fleming and Norah Khan, both of whom are focused on the 2026 Good Citizen Challenge, our youth civics project.

A history major, Olivia wanted to spend the summer getting kids excited about civics. No surprise: This former camp counselor is good at it! I’ve seen kids light up when she asks them, while tabling, “Do you have what it takes to be a Good Citizen?”

Olivia herself is always up for a challenge: At Warren’s rainy Fourth of July parade, she managed to keep our Good Citizen stickers and pocket Constitutions dry. On June 25, she woke up at 4 a.m. to cover my weekly 6 a.m. prize-drawing appearance on WCAX-TV’s “Channel 3 This Morning.” She’ll do a repeat performance next week.

Olivia said being part of a local news organization — and watching the reporters, editors and designers work — gives her hope, despite all the negativity in the national news. Also, the Bay Area native said, “It makes me feel more connected to Vermont.”

Norah, a political science major from Rochester, N.Y., started on Monday and will work on the Good Citizen Challenge through Labor Day.

Marketing intern Tatum Kosow, University of Vermont Class of 2027, has been helping us prepare for the Daysies — both the big reveal of our best-of-Vermont winners on August 5 and the party on August 7. The New York City native is also helping us understand where her UVM peers get their news — and how we might entice them to read Seven Days.

Will these experiences help them get hired somewhere postgraduation? We hope so. It’s been gratifying to see past interns end up at the Portland Press Herald, the Boston Globe and Vanity Fair.

Best of all, last summer’s news intern, Sam Hartnett, found his way back to Seven Days in June as our ticketing manager and sales associate. For this summer, at least, he’s not the youngest one in the office.

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