Yes, it’s the time of year to look back on the good things that happened this year (and try to forget the bad, if only for a little while). First off: John McPhee wrote a book that gives lesser beings … Read more
John McPhee’s great subject has always been work. From his first book, “A Sense of Where You Are,” which came out in 1965 and portrays basketball star and Rhodes Scholar Bill Bradley, to “Uncommon Carriers” (2006), with its truckers and … Read more
It’s hard to cull just one sentence from Sedaris’ embedded reporting on being a helper at Santaland, a place he describes as “a real wonderland” with a path taking visitors through the “ten thousand sparkling lights, false snow, train sets, … Read more
Recession, shuttered publications, the rise of online media — Paul Tullis has weathered it all as a freelancer for the better part of 24 years. What hasn’t changed: Story idea is king. What has, in Tullis’ view, is the level … Read more
The final half of this week’s One Great Sentence has stayed with me: “Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” It’s about the winter landscape, but couldn’t it also apply to the craft of storytelling? When we pursue a story, often … Read more
Freelance journalist and essayist Liana Aghajanian has hopscotched around the globe, reporting on stories as far apart as the first record store in Mongolia, an Arizona man looking for “the holy grail of botany,” and the Muslim … Read more
Why is it great? A few weeks ago I went to an exhibit of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings in Seattle (a strange experience for someone who lives half an hour from the places he painted in Maine), and I was struck … Read more
When Jack Hitt got an assignment to write about Jerry Foster, a daredevil helicopter pilot who worked for a TV station in Phoenix in the ’70s and ’80s, he thought he had a plum adventure story. It turned out to … Read more
It was Poetry Week on Storyboard, which is pushing the envelope a bit for a site that explores the art and craft of narrative nonfiction. But I would argue that literary journalists can learn a lot from poets, especially their … Read more
Just a stone’s throw away from the high-finance hustle of the World Trade Center in NYC, I came across a simple blue-and-white sign on a glass door that read: The Poets House. The first thing I noticed was the … Read more