We talked by phone this week with St. Petersburg Times reporter Michael Kruse, the author of our latest Notable Narrative. An unusual profile of a monkey on the loose in the Tampa Bay area, Kruse’s account comes at the … Read more
These days, it can be hard for a star to keep up with his Facebook feeds and the television and newspaper stories about him, not to mention where he’s been and who he’s met—especially if he’s a monkey. But in … Read more
Melissa Lyttle / St. Petersburg Times St. Petersburg Times reporter Meg Laughlin recently spent eight days in Haiti and the Dominican Republic covering the aftermath of the earthquake. Read more
Our latest Notable Narrative concerns the recent earthquake in Haiti but takes place in a public hospital in the Dominican Republic. St. Petersburg Times reporter Meg Laughlin finds one doctor who has done 22 amputations in two days, … Read more
Take a gander at some of the more interesting writing we’ve seen lately. These pieces are more or less narrative, and come at storytelling from different angles, but are all are worth checking out. … Read more
Tyler Cowen Earlier this month at the mid-Atlantic TEDx in Baltimore, blogging economist Tyler Cowen gave a 16-minute talk about the dangers of narrative. He spoke about the oft-discussed universal stories we … Read more
We often highlight stories from reporters who are well-known in the world of narrative journalism, but a lot of unsung writers slip narratives into print and online daily. Here are some moving stories with sharp scenes or imagery from three people we bet you’ve never heard of.
“Sacia's Promise,” from Kaitlin Manry of The (Everett) Herald:
"She remembers waking up in the middle of the night, just 2 or 3 years old. Her nightgown is wet. So is her bed. She walks into the living room, calling for her mom. She's not there. Sacia instead finds a stranger, a man, dividing piles of little white rocks spread across the coffee table. The pearly white stones are like baby teeth and crumble when he touches them. She runs back to her bed and stays up all night, kneeling on wet sheets, waiting for a mother who never comes."
Read more » Read more
[The second in an occasional series aimed at helping readers find online resources that focus on narrative journalism.]
For more than four years, Gangrey.com has rounded up the best print narratives on a daily basis. Founder Ben Montgomery, who is also a reporter with Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, talks here about his personal motivation for starting his site and what he thinks narrative journalism can do.
On what makes a good Gangrey story:
Does it have something that’s surprising? Is it entertaining? Will it keep my attention? Is there some device being used that I’ve never seen before?
And on the multimedia components for his latest print narrative:
I couldn’t have pulled that off if it had required more effort from me. We wouldn’t have achieved the same level of—I don’t want to say excellence—the same level of story for either of those things, if both [the print story and the video] had required my attention. If journalists are required to write the story and compose the multimedia elements going into it, both parts tend to suffer.
Read the full interview » Read more
The St. Petersburg Times’ latest narrative project started with photographer John Pendygraft’s wife giving him an assignment. A medical reporter, she had been covering the policy issues of the health … Read more
July’s first Notable Narrative tells a story of abuse at The Florida School for Boys. St. Petersburg Times reporters Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore use the account of one man—William Haynes, Jr.—as the core of their piece, while managing … Read more