Andrea Pitzer is the author of three books of narrative nonfiction that explore untold histories. She was the editor of Nieman Storyboard from 2009-2012,
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk, in which she described how stereotypes develop when one community has only a single narrative about another. The post also referenced National Geographic writer Tom O’Neill, who sometimes … Read more
Is the future of story watching story unfold? Participating in story as it unfolds? The Washington Post’s Story Lab (which had a soft launch last week and official debut today) is about to find out. Marc Fisher, enterprise … Read more
I spoke this morning with Marc Fisher, enterprise editor for local news at The Washington Post. Fisher is heading up the organization’s new Story Lab, which launched this week. See our next post for the Storyboard … Read more
Before the Thanksgiving holiday, we step away from the future of story and transmedia discussions to offer a classic print narrative. David Amsden’s “Never Mind the Pity” traces the elegant arc of the last year of a boy’s life and the … Read more
Esquire’s Tom Junod crawls under his subjects’ public masks and starts asking questions. Junod has long specialized in profiling symbols such as a man falling from the north tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the … Read more
While we love the classic storytelling of Gary Smith or Chris Jones, sometimes a Notable Narrative attracts our attention even if it sits on the border between narrative and straight news. “Fallout,” an August print and video package … Read more
Tyler Cowen Earlier this month at the mid-Atlantic TEDx in Baltimore, blogging economist Tyler Cowen gave a 16-minute talk about the dangers of narrative. He spoke about the oft-discussed universal stories we … Read more
[First in a series looking at storyboarding projects.] You’re almost done with your six-month narrative project, and you realize you have no multimedia elements. Or worse, you’re coming upon the end of your story, and there’s… no end. If you’re interested … Read more
Talking about narrative journalism, The St. Petersburg Times’ Lane DeGregory once told me
“One of the stupidest stories I ever did had the biggest response. It was an 'up all night' piece about what happens between midnight and 6:00 am. I had all these old ladies calling me up and saying, ‘I’m never up that late, and I didn’t know about any of this.’ It was so gratifying to take readers someplace.”
Taking readers someplace they are unlikely or unable to go is a prime service narrative can provide. Witness these two nicely done but very different stories:
[caption id="attachment_972" align="alignleft" width="101" caption="Abhinav Ramnarayan"][/caption]
Supermarket, superstores—why not a supertemple? “The Many Gods of Ilford,” a Guardian trend essay on multi-god Hindu temples in former recreation centers, touches on religion and tolerance while revealing that cockroaches can evoke nostalgia. A few useful posted comments about disability, caste, and monotheism add to Abhinav Ramnarayan’s original piece.
Over at The Daily Beast, Tim Mohr’s “Did Punk Rock Tear Down the Wall?” looks at the East German '80s punk scene and recounts the career of Die Anderen (“the Others”), a band that straddled the East-West divide.
What other keyhole views into history or a community have generated memorable narratives? We’d like to hear from you. Read more
Excerpts from a November interview with Gary Smith about his story “The Power of One,” which appeared in Sports Illustrated in September: Q: When did you first hear about Bonnie Richardson? How long did you work on … Read more
