Articles

A $65 Table, and a Tale to Tell Around It

We like the spareness of this story’s telling, the nodding at the theme of human connection, but the stepping back from it, just as the events themselves do. We like…

Suddenly It Was Up to Shane

Padilla set out to follow the recovery of Jeff May, one of the victims of the Red Lake school shootings — but found little narrative there. So Padilla and his…

Violent Femmes

In this first-person piece, we liked the wealth of dialogue, rich scenes, vivid characters and satisfying narrative arc. Darr uses a familiar structure: She starts the piece with the moment…

Plagued by Fear

This 7-part series’ strengths, it seems to us, are first, its ability to keep readers wondering, its handling of suspense. (Notice the suspenseful section endings in particular.) Second, the series…

In Balraj’s Realm

We admire this piece for the way its tone and content match its protagonist’s own qualities. Elizabeth Balraj is the exacting and dignified coroner of Cuyahoga County. Long’s writing, too,…

The Boy Monk

This series was written and reported by Anh Do and Teri Sforza. We admired the masterful blend of emotional material—the boy’s and his family’s experience of separation, loss—with engaging explications…

Global Mixology at Hyannis Club

We liked this piece because it’s well written—good verbs, vivid scenes—and because it applies narrative to a complicated sociological subject: the internationalization of a formerly fairly homogeneous community. LaForgia gets…

The Hard Road

Two children were killed and two injured in a hit-and-run accident. This series tells, in long form, the story of two women—the mother of the children and the young woman…

Enrique’s Journey

Nazario’s reporting for this series was remarkable. She followed Enrique for part of his journey—from the U.S.-Mexican border to North Carolina—and reconstructed the rest. As part of her research into…

Smoking ’em Out

Mark Kramer cautions his students against writing “How I Got the Story” stories. A particularly amateurish version of such a story might begin: “I felt nervous as I walked into…