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Haven't read those Pulitzer winners yet? Here's some great storytelling in this year's batch

Haven’t read those Pulitzer winners yet? Here’s some great storytelling in this year’s batch

This week, journalists had their version of the Oscars (minus the red carpet and catty remarks about who-wore-what). The Pulitzer announcements are always an electric moment in a newsroom.  Back in…
April 14, 2017
Why's This So Good? Hunter S. Thompson and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

Why’s This So Good? Hunter S. Thompson and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

It’s hard, I know, to make a case for gonzo journalism in an age when reality is beset by exaggeration, even lies. And yet I’ve found myself drawn back to…
April 13, 2017

“I go to sleep every night knowing I have the blood of so many on my hands and no amount of soap could ever wash these stains away.”

Why is it great? Chivers just won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his magazine profile of Sam Siatta, a Marine suffering from PTSD. How did he make a…
April 12, 2017
Annotation Tuesday! Kent Russell and “They Burn Witches Here”

Annotation Tuesday! Kent Russell and “They Burn Witches Here”

Some people are made for what they do. Steph Curry was made to play basketball. Dave Chappelle to deliver jokes. You get that feeling with Kent Russell and his writing.…
April 11, 2017
The politics of power: through Billie Holiday's voice and an Iranian blogger's words

The politics of power: through Billie Holiday’s voice and an Iranian blogger’s words

This week has me thinking of the dynamics of power, racial and sexual, governmental and personal. An Iranian blogger who goes to prison for six years for his words. The…
April 7, 2017
5(ish) Questions: Iran’s "Blogfather" talks algorithms, hyperlinks and the lost art of communication

5(ish) Questions: Iran’s “Blogfather” talks algorithms, hyperlinks and the lost art of communication

Six years is a long time to be away from cyberspace—especially when you’re known as the Blogfather.At one point, 20,000 visitors came to Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan’s site every day.…
April 6, 2017

“But then the not-knowing returns, and it keeps him awake at night.”

Why is it great? For the second week in a row, our One Great Sentence comes from a gifted journalist who has just left us. Last week, the writer was…
April 5, 2017
The making of binge-worthy serial narratives, from "S-Town" to "Framed"

The making of binge-worthy serial narratives, from “S-Town” to “Framed”

Podcasts and print alike are reinvigorating a form of storytelling that Dickens and Homer used to hook readers: "to be continued..."
April 4, 2017
A week where journalism, poetry, fiction and music converge = a dream week

A week where journalism, poetry, fiction and music converge = a dream week

Journalism, poetry, fiction and music all came together on Storyboard this week, so yes, call it a dream week for me. I love seeing how the same skills apply whether…
March 31, 2017

“She is the mother of two fatherless children and she was walking into the history of this country because she was showing everybody who felt old and helpless and without hope that she had this terrible strength that everybody needed so badly.”

Like a lot of people, last week I reread the story that made Jimmy Breslin famous. It has his greatest hallmark: writing about the little guy, in this case Clifton Pollard, who…
March 29, 2017