Articles

Annotation Tuesday! Rebecca Skloot and the wild dogs of New York

Annotation Tuesday! Rebecca Skloot and the wild dogs of New York

Before Rebecca Skloot published the bestselling The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she wrote magazines stories about science and about animals. You may remember her New York Times magazine piece…
Launched: Storyline, the Washington Post's new narrative project intersecting policy and storytelling

Launched: Storyline, the Washington Post’s new narrative project intersecting policy and storytelling

The Washington Post’s new narrative project, Storyline, launched today under the editorship of economics policy correspondent Jim Tankersley, with the tagline “People, policy, data.” As Tankersley explains in his introduction,…
It's Mayborn week!

It’s Mayborn week!

The 2014 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference opens Friday at the University of North Texas. The Saturday and Sunday workshops are full but you can still register for the keynote events. This year’s…
Writing the book: Beth Macy and 'Factory Man'

Writing the book: Beth Macy and ‘Factory Man’

In the fall of 2011, I began reporting stories about the aftereffects of globalization on small factory towns in southern Virginia, for the Roanoke Times. For the next three years,…
“Why’s this so good?” No. 95: Patrick Radden Keefe and the loaded gun

“Why’s this so good?” No. 95: Patrick Radden Keefe and the loaded gun

It had been three months since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and stories probing the life and possible influences of the shooter Adam Lanza were still all over…
"Why's this so good?" No. 94: Joe Rhodes and Aunt Marge and the deep (deep) freeze

“Why’s this so good?” No. 94: Joe Rhodes and Aunt Marge and the deep (deep) freeze

Joe Rhodes pulls off the nearly impossible in “How My Aunt Marge Ended Up in the Deep Freeze,” an edgy New York Times magazine piece. He takes a horrific event—the…

Susan Orlean and the American man, age 10

Susan Orlean likes to do something not many other journalists can get away with. In many of her articles Orlean tells us, right there on the page, what she’s thinking…
An intimate new narrative conference, Cali style

An intimate new narrative conference, Cali style

For the better part of the last decade, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism ran the most popular narrative journalism conference in the country. For three days each spring, hundreds of journalists gathered…
Nieman narrative news: Please welcome Steve Almond and Louise Kiernan

Nieman narrative news: Please welcome Steve Almond and Louise Kiernan

An exciting word from the mothership:CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Nieman Foundation for Journalism has hired Louise Kiernan to edit Nieman Storyboard, a website that showcases exceptional narrative journalism and explores the future of nonfiction…
Reporting and writing historical narrative: Author Adam Hochschild on accessible prose + scene/setting + character + plot

Reporting and writing historical narrative: Author Adam Hochschild on accessible prose + scene/setting + character + plot

Several years ago, Adam Hochschild, the acclaimed author of King Leopold’s Ghost and other nonfiction narratives, told a Vanderbilt University audience that academic writing doesn’t have to be boring. Scholars of history and science — theoretically…