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3 (stories) for 2 (days): A weekend reading list

3 (stories) for 2 (days): A weekend reading list

Pam ColloffIt’s one of the last weekends of the summer and a good time to relax on the front porch with some of the recent noteworthy stories you may have…
"Stay away from your phone"

“Stay away from your phone”

Tom HuangTom Huang, the Sunday and enterprise editor at the Dallas Morning News, offered some good ideas for sharpening storytelling skills during a writing panel at last week’s Asian American…

Annotation: John Jeremiah Sullivan and “Upon This Rock”

[Editor’s note: John Jeremiah Sullivan‘s “Upon This Rock” is by now a modern classic of literary journalism: writer rents an RV, experiences a Christian rock festival (and certain revelations) with a…
Got 19 bucks? Take an online storytelling class with Susan Orlean.

Got 19 bucks? Take an online storytelling class with Susan Orlean.

Bestselling author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean breaks down a semester’s worth of storytelling instruction in a two-hour online video course for Skillshare.com. For $19, you get tips and insight on 14 topics, from…
Storytelling tips from the creative minds behind 'House of Cards,' 'The Newsroom,' PBS, The Moth and more

Storytelling tips from the creative minds behind ‘House of Cards,’ ‘The Newsroom,’ PBS, The Moth and more

“The most important element in a good story is conflict. It’s seeing two opposing forces collide with one another.” That’s from Beau Willimon, the showrunner for House of Cards, and he said it at…
Annotation Tuesday! Rebecca Skloot and the wild dogs of New York

Annotation Tuesday! Rebecca Skloot and the wild dogs of New York

Before Rebecca Skloot published the bestselling The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she wrote magazines stories about science and about animals. You may remember her New York Times magazine piece…
Launched: Storyline, the Washington Post's new narrative project intersecting policy and storytelling

Launched: Storyline, the Washington Post’s new narrative project intersecting policy and storytelling

The Washington Post’s new narrative project, Storyline, launched today under the editorship of economics policy correspondent Jim Tankersley, with the tagline “People, policy, data.” As Tankersley explains in his introduction,…
It's Mayborn week!

It’s Mayborn week!

The 2014 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference opens Friday at the University of North Texas. The Saturday and Sunday workshops are full but you can still register for the keynote events. This year’s…
Writing the book: Beth Macy and 'Factory Man'

Writing the book: Beth Macy and ‘Factory Man’

In the fall of 2011, I began reporting stories about the aftereffects of globalization on small factory towns in southern Virginia, for the Roanoke Times. For the next three years,…
“Why’s this so good?” No. 95: Patrick Radden Keefe and the loaded gun

“Why’s this so good?” No. 95: Patrick Radden Keefe and the loaded gun

It had been three months since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and stories probing the life and possible influences of the shooter Adam Lanza were still all over…