Articles

I Saw It All. Then I Saw Nothing.

We admired the plainness of this story’s language. It is as if the horror of the event stripped Henninger’s voice of all pretense. He gives a blow-by-blow account, with summation…

Free Wheelin’

This short piece entertains while providing an appropriately complex portrayal of a man who has suffered but whose spirit, or will anyway, seems irrepressible. We particularly liked the opening line…

Steve Miller Ate a Scone, Sheila Moody Did Paperwork, Edmund Glazer Boarded a Plane

We first read this reconstruction during the year following the 9/11 attacks. We found it difficult to read for its level of detail, its emotional content. Rereading it, we admire…

Looking Out for Roberta

We liked the topic of this narrative, and we appreciated Laughlin’s clarity in laying out its themes. Through a narrative approach, she reveals the cultural and legal ramifications of Sophia…

Remember His Name

Smith writes in a folksy, manly voice—as if he were saying, “gather round, boys, and I’ll tell you a story about daring, heroism and doing the right thing, even when…

Reliving the Morning of Death

This narrative succeeds because of the clarity with which it sequences events and because of its evocative detail. Its wrenching emotional content springs from such detail: the mother’s instructions for…

The Eye of the Storm

This narrative of horror and escape is plainly and clearly told. Published the day after the 9/11 attacks on New York, it must have helped readers begin to hold the…

Fighting for Life 50 Floors Up, With One Tool and Ingenuity

The efficiency of this piece is remarkable. We thought the use of time and floor numbers a tight and evocative way of both structuring the piece and crystallizing a chaotic…

At a Ground Zero Hotel, Room for Miracles

This piece mixes humor and gravity in telling the story of a man who narrowly escaped from the Marriott World Trade Center, a hotel that collapsed when the Twin Towers…

Sons of the Mothers

Marilynn Rosenthal is on an obsessive quest for the truth. Trying to understand her son’s death, she even travels to the United Arab Emirates in search of the mother of…