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Probing dark corners and dark souls

Probing dark corners and dark souls

The risks and rewards of covering society's monsters: Insights from the 2019 Power of Narrative conference
April 5, 2019
Ripping up the narrative arc and fumbling your way to structure

Ripping up the narrative arc and fumbling your way to structure

2019 Power of Narrative: Dave Cullen on how he wove time and perspectives to tell a fuller story of the Columbine High School shootings
April 4, 2019
High notes from the keynotes

High notes from the keynotes

Quick hits from featured speakers at the 2019 Power of Narrative Conference
March 29, 2019
Golden nuggets from the rich river of narrative nonfiction

Golden nuggets from the rich river of narrative nonfiction

Big Ideas from small sessions at the 2019 Power of Narrative Conference
March 28, 2019
Grounding apocalyptic issues in reality without losing hope

Grounding apocalyptic issues in reality without losing hope

Q&A with Washington Post writer Dan Zak about his daring and emotional query about climate change, and finding some calm in the controversy
March 21, 2019
"She stares at me, but it feels like she's looking at who I used to be, her little girl with ponytails and a snaggletooth who swore she was a Powerpuff Girl."

“She stares at me, but it feels like she’s looking at who I used to be, her little girl with ponytails and a snaggletooth who swore she was a Powerpuff Girl.”

This sentence contains everything that good narrative writing should. There’s the specific detail of the narrator, and there’s universality — the wonder we humans experience when faced with a child…
March 20, 2019
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!'”

Why I like it: I imagine my high school grammar teacher, Ms. Weiner, trying to diagram this sentence. We all seek characters to drive our stories. Here, Kerouac lists requirements…
March 13, 2019
Learning to look up, down, sideways, backwards and beyond while storytelling

Learning to look up, down, sideways, backwards and beyond while storytelling

Storytellers in any medium can learn from those in others. Writers must know how to paint mental images through the hieroglyphics of text, apply (and break) rules of grammar to…
March 13, 2019
Newsroom Ode #10: A loyalist's last lament

Newsroom Ode #10: A loyalist’s last lament

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the tenth and last in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled…
March 11, 2019
Wired's executive editor seeks stories that reveal all faces of technology

Wired’s executive editor seeks stories that reveal all faces of technology

Rejections aren't personal: “70 percent of why pitches don't work has nothing to do with the writer”
March 5, 2019