Author

In praise of the sentence

In praise of the sentence

The first chapter of How to Write a Sentence (and How to Read One), by Stanley Fish, begins with this paragraph:In her book The Writing Life (1989), Annie Dillard tells the story of a…
April 25, 2014
Writing the Book: Profiling the Sabine River

Writing the Book: Profiling the Sabine River

My story might interest other small-timers with big ambitions. Believe it or not, a four-part series in a local newspaper launched my career as an author. My first book, Running…
April 22, 2014

The Music of Narrative: Songs from great literary journalism

A story without sound lies too dead on the page. Imagine “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster,” by Jon Franklin, without the pop … pop … pop of the operating-room sensors. Or Tom…
April 17, 2014
Notable Narrative: David Abel and the Richard family, survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing

Notable Narrative: David Abel and the Richard family, survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing

Our latest Notable Narrative, "For Richard family, loss and love," is a two-part series by David Abel* of the Boston Globe. Abel spent six months with the Richards, a family of…
April 17, 2014

The 2014 Pulitzers: A gap year for features

The Pulitzer judges’ decision* not to award a prize in Features Writing on Monday was disappointing but not unprecedented.** The last (and only other) gap occurred 10 years ago, when…
April 15, 2014
Narrative flashback: Kelly, Kirn, Guillermoprieto, Woo, Kaminer, Krulwich and Hart talk storytelling's future and form

Narrative flashback: Kelly, Kirn, Guillermoprieto, Woo, Kaminer, Krulwich and Hart talk storytelling’s future and form

Storyboard isn’t the only Nieman Foundation publication with a rich craft archive. Our venerable sister magazine Nieman Reports maintains a trove of material on narrative and storytelling, and we’ll be…
April 10, 2014
'It's not about the cameras, it's about how you see the world' — and 49 other tips and inspirations from the BU narrative conference

‘It’s not about the cameras, it’s about how you see the world’ — and 49 other tips and inspirations from the BU narrative conference

Fifty takeouts from some of the speakers at last weekend’s Boston University conference on narrative, culled from the Twitter feeds of Lauren Alexander, Alletta Cooper, Cat Cowan, Jessica DuLong, John…
April 8, 2014

Remembering Anja Niedringhaus

Anja Niedringhaus in April 2005 (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Anja Niedringhaus, the veteran AP photographer and 2007 Nieman Fellow who was shot and killed today in eastern Afghanistan while covering the run-up to the presidential…
April 4, 2014
Writing the book: Neil Swidey on 'Trapped Under the Sea'

Writing the book: Neil Swidey on ‘Trapped Under the Sea’

I love inspirational quotes from august authors as much as the next writer. But the quote I thought about the most during the long years when I was writing my…
April 3, 2014
"Why's this so good?" No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch

“Why’s this so good?” No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch

Twenty-nine years ago today, Sports Illustrated ran George Plimpton’s "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch," about a mysterious, unknown major league pitching recruit who threw a fastball at jet speed. Published…
April 1, 2014