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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
Newsroom Ode #9: Echoes from an empty desk

Newsroom Ode #9: Echoes from an empty desk

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the ninth and penultimate in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from a different first-person perspective. Together they create the…
March 4, 2019
Raw first stories from the Appalachian Trail

Raw first stories from the Appalachian Trail

When I first discovered that Earl Shaffer — the first man acknowledged to have hiked the entire 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine — lived nearby, I went through…
February 28, 2019
Building a museum with jars of dirt, and building stories from the ground up

Building a museum with jars of dirt, and building stories from the ground up

 One day last October, Cara Solomon sat alone in an empty field in Alabama, the unmarked site of a lynching. She wasn’t carrying a reporter’s notebook or thinking yet about…
February 26, 2019
Newsroom Ode #8: Podium pontifications

Newsroom Ode #8: Podium pontifications

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the eighth in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from a different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled narrative…
February 25, 2019
Can a soundtrack ease you through a story?

Can a soundtrack ease you through a story?

A veteran journalist tuned into music to turn on her writing
February 21, 2019
"I’m thinking longer term, in geologic time, doing just what I can each day and not putting it off because it won’t be brilliant."

“I’m thinking longer term, in geologic time, doing just what I can each day and not putting it off because it won’t be brilliant.”

When I encountered this sentence, I took it personally. I like being brilliant. I like it so much that I don’t write as much as I should. It’s uncomfortable to…
February 20, 2019
What the "Insect Apocalypse" reveals about faulty human memory

What the “Insect Apocalypse” reveals about faulty human memory

 For several years, I have been captivated by a porpoise. The cetacean in question is the vaquita, a Mexican marine mammal that is shy, adorable, and totally screwed. The reasons…
February 19, 2019
Newsroom Ode #7: Desperation calls the consultant

Newsroom Ode #7: Desperation calls the consultant

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the seventh in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled narrative of…
February 18, 2019
Forget the chocolates. Tell a story instead

Forget the chocolates. Tell a story instead

I‘m not much on Valentine’s Day. I liked the grade school tradition of exchanging Valentine’s Day cards with classmates. (Is that just a U.S. thing?) Each of us was supposed…
February 14, 2019