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Diana Moxon: “As a child, I always felt like the world was this huge and exciting place… and that my adventure lay far beyond the borders of the town.”

Caoilinn Goss
/
KBIA

Diana Moxon lives in Columbia and spoke with the Missouri on Mic team at the Unbound Book Festival last April, she hosts a weekly radio program called “Speaking of the Arts.” She spoke about how she ended up in Columbia, and about some of her lesser-known passions.

Diana Moxon: I grew up in a city called Preston in the northwest of England, and today, I live in Columbia, Missouri. I was traveling across America in a convertible, and I stopped in a small town called Columbia, Missouri, where I had a vague acquaintance.

And I went out to dinner with her and her husband the first night I was here, and they brought along their best friend – and I married the best friend, and that was 17 years ago.

I always wanted to leave.

Laughter.

As a child, I always felt like the world was this huge and exciting place, and that I really didn't have time just to be in this one medium-sized town in the northwest of England, and that my adventure lay far beyond the borders of the town.

And so as soon as I could, I went away to university, and I studied languages, and that meant I got to go live overseas for a year, and as soon as my degree was done, I got a backpack, and I disappeared off to Asia, and made my life overseas.

"I have slowly been building a dedicated fan base of Columbia people who are now almost as passionate about the Eurovision Song Contest as I am."
Diana Moxon

Today, I think very fondly of my hometown, and I began to read about the history of my town, which I'd never been taught whilst I was at school there, and so, it has become a place of much greater interest to me today now that I live 3000 miles away from it.

I still feel reticent about air travel and being out in the wider world. I haven't been back to England for over four years, and so, that is something certainly that I would like to do in the not-too-distant future.

But I find that the last two years have really shrunk my world, and I haven't complained about that. I found comfort in a much smaller world. Whereas historically, I found, I mean if I was in Columbia for too long, then I got cabin fever – I needed to get out and see other places whereas now I have much less desire to be out in the world.

And so I hope that that feeling will move away from me and I will re-find my travel lust at some point. So, I don't quite know what comes next.

Now, I was just thinking back when you asked me what my passions were, and something that I absolutely love, which is the Eurovision Song Contest, which most Americans do not know about.

But it is a 65 year long tradition in Europe of an international competition that takes place every May. Where all of the European countries who choose to take part and enter a song.

So no, it's not like the voice, but it is like the American Song Contest, which was launched by the same people who create the Eurovision Song Contest, same producing team.

And that is something that I love, and I have slowly been building a dedicated fan base of Columbia people who are now almost as passionate about the Eurovision Song Contest as I am.

Rebecca Smith is an award-winning reporter and producer for the KBIA Health & Wealth Desk. Born and raised outside of Rolla, Missouri, she has a passion for diving into often overlooked issues that affect the rural populations of her state – especially stories that broaden people’s perception of “rural” life.
Caoilinn left KBIA in December of 2022.
Caoilinn Goss is the Audio Convergence Editor at KBIA. She trains and oversees student reporters, editors and anchors to produce daily afternoon newscasts. She's also a Missouri Journalism School alum.