Author

“If the history of the earth’s tides should one day be written by some observer of the universe, it would no doubt be said that they reached their greatest grandeur and power in the younger days of Earth, and that they slowly grew feebler and less imposing until one day they ceased to be.”

—Rachel Carson, "The Sea Around Us"
September 13, 2017
Notable Narrative: The Marshall Project's Maurice Chammah and “The Accusation”

Notable Narrative: The Marshall Project’s Maurice Chammah and “The Accusation”

The reporter talks about his piece, published jointly with Esquire, on a recanted allegation of child sex abuse that had sent a father to prison
September 12, 2017
An alt-weekly editor steps up to the plate to back a freelancer's controversial story

An alt-weekly editor steps up to the plate to back a freelancer’s controversial story

Like most journalists today, Britni de la Cretaz is accustomed to being on the receiving end of comments from critical readers and opinionated trolls. As a freelance writer who frequently…
September 7, 2017

“A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.”

—D.H. Lawrence, "Lady Chatterley's Lover"
September 6, 2017
The late Alex Tizon and "My Family's Slave": his first memory, and his last byline

The late Alex Tizon and “My Family’s Slave”: his first memory, and his last byline

The Atlantic story, published just weeks after his death, drew a firestorm of criticism; a Pulitzer winner and friend examines the craft, and the loss
September 5, 2017
Monica Hesse and "American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land”

Monica Hesse and “American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land”

The Washington Post reporter talks about what it's like to juggle multiple projects (and genres), and the virtue of capturing the way people talk
August 31, 2017

“Sometimes at noon down South on the hottest of days, when everyone is shivering inside their arctic offices, I go outside just to hear the metallic whirring of the cicadas start up in the trees on the edge of the parking lot. Their tymbals pulsate against their abdomens and the thick air reverberates with the loneliest sound in the universe.”

—Will Blythe, “Five Encounters with Vegetation,” Oxford American magazine, 2015
August 30, 2017
Notable Narrative: Joe Kovac Jr. and a tale of murder, a manhunt and a midnight run

Notable Narrative: Joe Kovac Jr. and a tale of murder, a manhunt and a midnight run

The reporter for Georgia's Macon Telegraph shows that even on regional newspapers with tiny staffs, writers can dream large with gripping narratives
August 29, 2017

5(ish) Questions: Podcast producer Lily Percy and humor as a survival tool

"Laughter helps us heal," she says of a 15-episode C.O.O.L. series featuring the famous (Terry McMillan) and the not-so-famous (a drag-queen-turned-rabbi)
August 24, 2017

“Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.”

—Dorothy Parker
August 23, 2017