The Virginia Quarterly Review, a 280-page “National Journal of Literature and Discussion,” has less than 100,000 subscribers, is produced outside of a metropolis—by a permanent staff of five people—and is published on a decidedly non-Hearst or Condé Nast-sized budget. But in 2006, having received six nominations, it won two National Magazine Awards, beating out some of the most recognized names in the business. What’s its secret?

On February 14, VQR’s editor, Ted Genoways, visited Columbia’s Journalism School to answer that question. (One piece of advice? “It’s been a simple matter of focusing on the piece at hand, trying to make it the best it can be,” he said.) Genoways was the second guest of the School’s 2008 Delacorte Lecture Series, which, on Thursday evenings throughout the spring, invites the current leaders of the magazine industry to the School to share advice and insights with students.

A podcast of Genoways’s talk is available here.

And keep checking back with CJR.org for new podcasts of our Delacorte lectures, which will be updated each week; in the meantime, you can listen to the first lecture of the series—featuring Newsweek’s editor, Jon Meacham—here.