Al Moreno is 60 and wants to join the Marines. He’s haunted by his father’s defection from the armed forces during the second world war; he wants the Marines to…

This piece provides a snapshot of one girl and her daily schedule. We guess it surprised a lot of readers, gave them a better sense for the competitive world of…

This is an exceptional story: We notice the wealth of detail, reporting. We admire the efficiency of pace, of sentences, of movement from one event to another. We admire the…

The opening scene in this piece got our attention; it’s muscular in its frank portrayal of character. It also effectively sets up a problem: a young mother’s struggle to care…

Allison focuses his profile on Nelson’s volunteer mission on the space shuttle, using details about Nelson’s behavior on the shuttle to portray him as a slightly nerdy politician who’s also—surprise,…

LeBlanc’s lovely, sad portrayal of her father’s death shows character and relationship through 12 minutes of intimate tape.Read/listen to “The Ground We Lived On,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc…

Saslow recounts Hixon’s injury, hospitalization and quest to find a new career. He moves between flashbacks and present-time narrative, changing tenses to help demarcate sections. The piece is a nice…

Rose offers an insightful first-person account of his experience with mental illness. Memoirs of descents into internal hells are getting more common—and that seems like a good thing. They demystify…

We appreciated, were even grateful for, Streeter’s exploration of moral and political context in this story. He might have tried to make this a piece about overcoming odds, about the…

Here’s what Erika Hayasaki wrote us when she sent this piece: "This is an example of going back after the news is ‘over’ and finding the richer story. I read…