Articles

The Deepest Wound

This elegiac piece is at once memoir and a tribute to both DeSilva’s own father and his generation. It poses a mystery, draws readers in with it and resolves it,…

How They Did It

This story about the construction of Boston’s new Institute of Contemporary Art building is a good example of involving readers in an overarching narrative, covering a lot of ground in…

The Champions of Consumption

Getlen wants us readers to consider—and really, to be persuaded—that competitive eating is just as much a sport as football. We weren’t convinced, but Getlen makes an interesting case. He…

Probing a Mind for a Cure

This story received the AAAS best science writing award in 2006 for newspapers and appears in Best Science Writing 2007, edited by Gina Kolata. It’s a fine example of both…

Blighted Homeland

This is one of those stories that makes us believe all over again in journalism, in its power to bring truth to light. Pasternak’s use of narrative in certain chapters…

The Zen of Joan Didion

This is a good one for the religion file. It’s a big quote-heavy, narratively speaking, but the voice is quietly companionable, intelligent, sympathetic but detached—a good narrative voice. Writing for…

Kerouac Express Steams Through the Heartland

We liked Pierce’s breezy, almost jazzy tone in this piece, the ways she reaches out to her readers. We found some language a bit hard to follow, but overall enjoyed…

Natural Narratives

[Editor’s Note: These comments are adapted from a talk given by Michael Pollan at the 2006 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.] Book by book, project by project, it’s usually hard…

Dust and Snow

This piece is one in a series of stories Nijhuis wrote for the High Country News that uses narrative techniques to get at the complicated issue of climate change. This…

Science’s Glacial Strides

This is travel writing brought to science. Nijhuis joins a group of scientists and students at a camp on a glacier. She’s a seasoned writer on the environment; her pieces…