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

To cover the Kilauea volcano, Simon Romero had to push past tourist brochures, myths and cliches to discover a more authentic Hawai'i
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

Journalist, professor, author, mother – How does she do it all? With passion, persistence, another paycheck and perspective: "I'm not just one story."
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

Washington Post narrative writer Eli Saslow answers an essential question: "How'd he get that guy to talk to him?"
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

Dan Barry and a team of New York Times reporters channel the voices of children held in migrant detention camps
August 14, 2018
Traci Angel
Letter from Sing Sing: Writing from inside

Letter from Sing Sing: Writing from inside

A convicted murderer shares what he learned about writing, and what writing taught him about himself and about the power of true stories
August 9, 2018
John J. Lennon