Author

Move over Lady Gaga; meet Ron Charles (a.k.a. the Totally Hip Video Book Reviewer)

Has book publishing found its savior? Well, probably not, but in August, The Washington Post's Ron Charles made his small-screen debut in the role of a cranky, self-important book reviewer.…
October 1, 2010

What we’re reading, in which we contemplate a hit-and-run fatality, the death of Glenn Beck’s mother and the declining lethality of quicksand

One of the things about stories is that for them to be interesting, something usually goes wrong. As a result, a large number of the articles, profiles and essays we…
September 30, 2010
Michael Jones on heroes, villains and the science of narrative

Michael Jones on heroes, villains and the science of narrative

We spoke last week with Michael D. Jones, who is applying statistics to narrative here at Harvard during his fellowship at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Jones, who…
September 28, 2010
What we’re watching: in which a battalion deploys, Ramadan ends, and a drawing unfolds to illustrate an argument

What we’re watching: in which a battalion deploys, Ramadan ends, and a drawing unfolds to illustrate an argument

Perhaps it’s just the nippy fall weather descending, but we have a multiplicity of crowdsourced, interactive and on-the-horizon projects. So, depending on your constitution, here are some nuggets of future-of-journalism…
September 24, 2010
GQ's "An Army of One": The war on terror finds its own Don Quixote

GQ’s "An Army of One": The war on terror finds its own Don Quixote

Though literary nonfiction takes its cues from literary fiction, William Faulkner would struggle to invent a more extreme character than his (possibly inadvertent) namesake Gary Faulkner, the subject of “An…
September 22, 2010
Colin Harrison and Sam Gwynne on the editor-writer partnership, going deep and the difference between a subject and a story

Colin Harrison and Sam Gwynne on the editor-writer partnership, going deep and the difference between a subject and a story

In yet more goodness from July's Mayborn Conference, we're happy to post this conversation between Colin Harrison, who is currently senior editor at Scribner, and S.C. "Sam" Gwynne, author of "Empire of…
September 21, 2010
What’s in it from me? Crowdsourced magazines and storytelling

What’s in it from me? Crowdsourced magazines and storytelling

As a child, did you ever imagine yourself waiting for a call from people in need, people who were praying that you'd see their signal and come to the rescue?…
September 16, 2010

Tom French on zoo stories, narrative nonfiction and the pleasures of playing anthropologist

In 2007, St. Petersburg Times reporter Tom French delivered a nine-part series about Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, which led to the writing of "Zoo Story," published in July. In his book,…
September 14, 2010
From who's telling the stories to what they're about: Nieman Reports looks at foreign correspondence

From who’s telling the stories to what they’re about: Nieman Reports looks at foreign correspondence

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the fall issue of Nieman Reports for the skinny on “Reporting From Faraway Places: Who Does It and How?” Inside, you’ll find…
September 13, 2010
L.A. Times reporter Christopher Goffard on structure, sympathy and how to make a story go: "The same thing that’s going to make people sit through a movie will make them sit through a 10,000-word series"

L.A. Times reporter Christopher Goffard on structure, sympathy and how to make a story go: "The same thing that’s going to make people sit through a movie will make them sit through a 10,000-word series"

For "Project 50: Four walls and a bed," our latest Notable Narrative, reporter Christopher Goffard spent two years following a Los Angeles-area program aimed at finding the most at-risk homeless…
September 10, 2010