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Storytelling for the win: This year's ASME finalists

Storytelling for the win: This year’s ASME finalists

This year’s National Magazine Award nominations in the features, multimedia, reporting and essay/criticism categories cover conflict, immigration, violence, grief, the abortion wars and more, from a host of talented journalists…
"Why's this so good?" No. 89: Matthew Power and 'Mississippi Drift'

“Why’s this so good?” No. 89: Matthew Power and ‘Mississippi Drift’

My friend Matthew Power, wondrously excellent human and magazine journalist, died recently while on assignment in Uganda.Like so many others, in recent days I have missed Matt, older-writing-brother Matt, in…
Pinned: A boxer, a triple murder, an art mystery, a writing conference and how to get organized

Pinned: A boxer, a triple murder, an art mystery, a writing conference and how to get organized

Pinned this week for your storytelling pleasure: pieces on a jailhouse boxer, an old triple homicide in Texas, a billion dollars’ worth of recovered European art, a one-day writing conference and…
Audio Danger: Radio storytelling and the perils of digital permanence

Audio Danger: Radio storytelling and the perils of digital permanence

Back in the distant 1990s, This American Life host Ira Glass described a recurring dream of NPR’s Scott Simon: Simon would shoot a basketball over and over, but then it…

“Why’s this so good?” — The Spring Break edition

In our “Why’s this so good?” series, contributors break down a favorite piece of journalistic storytelling. In honor of this, the season of Spring Break, three great reads in first-person…
Want to write great narrative? Study screenwriting.

Want to write great narrative? Study screenwriting.

“That’s all fine,’’ the L.A. film executive said briskly, “but who’s the antagonist?’’Cut to: Me, author of a soon-to-be published biography of the 1940s/’50s wrestler and pop culture figure who…
Remembering Matthew Power

Remembering Matthew Power

The magazine world suffered a deep loss Monday with the death of writer Matthew Power. An adventure-loving contributor to Harper’s, VQR, Outside, GQ and The Atavist, among others, Power died, reportedly of heat stroke,…
Annotation Tuesday! Roger Angell and the pitcher with a major-league case of the yips

Annotation Tuesday! Roger Angell and the pitcher with a major-league case of the yips

Roger Angell has been writing stories about baseball since the year before John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He’s been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1944 and became fiction…
Pinned: Elizabeth Kolbert, Gillian Blake, Todd C. Frankel, John Jeremiah Sullivan, storytellers in trouble, a healing cruise and two schools of cliches

Pinned: Elizabeth Kolbert, Gillian Blake, Todd C. Frankel, John Jeremiah Sullivan, storytellers in trouble, a healing cruise and two schools of cliches

For your weekend reading pleasure, items from our Pinterest boards …Recommended Reading:A news photographer, a layoff, a death, and then things got even worse. From the John Woodrow Cox’s short…
What we're reading: Narratives on the Boston Marathon bombing and a tunnel tragedy + essays on empathy and religion + smartphone photos as a reporting tool + the future of digital longform

What we’re reading: Narratives on the Boston Marathon bombing and a tunnel tragedy + essays on empathy and religion + smartphone photos as a reporting tool + the future of digital longform

What we’re reading, in the world of narrative journalism, essays and academia:Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City’s Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice, by Scott Helman…