Articles

Rebecca Solnit's long and winding road through the tangled tale of politics

Rebecca Solnit’s long and winding road through the tangled tale of politics

The opening paragraph of Rebecca Solnit’s new LitHub essay, “Why the President Must Be Impeached,” is a single sentence, 88 words long. It is one of the shortest paragraphs in…
September 4, 2018
Jacqui Banaszynski
"Do not despair of our present difficulties. We believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here."

“Do not despair of our present difficulties. We believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.”

This photo released by Hanoi’s Vietnam News Agency shows Lt. Commander John S. McCain III as a prisoner of war in 1967.Coming at the end of his elegant posthumous valedictory…
August 29, 2018
Don Nelson
Erika Hayasaki on the reality of landing a big freelance story

Erika Hayasaki on the reality of landing a big freelance story

In the second of a two-parter, the former LA Times reporter scrutinizes the first pitch – and then the revision – that earned her a cover piece in Wired
August 28, 2018
Katia Savchuk
Parachute reporting in a foreign land: Getting it fast and getting it right

Parachute reporting in a foreign land: Getting it fast and getting it right

On May 3, 2018, volcanic fissures opened in a residential neighborhood on the island of Hawai‘i, forcing more than 2,000 people to evacuate their homes. While the Kīlauea volcano has…
August 23, 2018
Shannon Wianecki
"Words. Words upon the wind. What will endure, perhaps is what I have written. If so, it is enough."

“Words. Words upon the wind. What will endure, perhaps is what I have written. If so, it is enough.”

Geraldine Brooks laid that line down in “Secret Chord,” her deeply researched and richly reimagined novel about the life of biblical King David, the psalm-writing, harp-playing, woman-lusting warrior. But they…
August 22, 2018
Jacqui Banaszynski
Erika Hayasaki on how to leave the newsroom and kill it as a freelancer

Erika Hayasaki on how to leave the newsroom and kill it as a freelancer

EDITOR’S NOTE: Erika Hayasaki’s conversation with Storyboard contributor Katia Savchuk explores what it took to earn a regular byline in magazines. She also shared the two separate pitches she wrote…
August 21, 2018
Katia Savchuk
Q&A: How a letter, honesty and patience won the trust of a shamed school cop

Q&A: How a letter, honesty and patience won the trust of a shamed school cop

This week marks a return to school for students around the country, including at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, where six months ago a gunman shot and killed…
August 16, 2018
Pat Walters
"During six Sundays, he never varied his routine, faithful as a migratory mallard, his route taking him through a neighborhood of apartments that all seemed to be dying of boredom."

“During six Sundays, he never varied his routine, faithful as a migratory mallard, his route taking him through a neighborhood of apartments that all seemed to be dying of boredom.”

Sometimes a sentence stops me for reasons I can’t entirely explain, or even defend. Often it includes a moment of description or metaphor that teases out a personal memory, or…
August 15, 2018
Jacqui Banaszynski
Immigration reporting from the inside-out: through the mouths and eyes of babes

Immigration reporting from the inside-out: through the mouths and eyes of babes

America’s debate over immigration has played out to the recorded cries of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, to broadcast images of tears and hugs as some…
August 14, 2018
Traci Angel
Letter from Sing Sing: Writing from inside

Letter from Sing Sing: Writing from inside

Editor’s note: Reporter and teacher Shaheen Pasha (2018 Nieman Fellow) met John J. Lennon when she interviewed him for a larger package she did on writing programs and newspapers inside America’s prisons.…
August 9, 2018
John J. Lennon