Jacqui Banaszynski retired as the endowed Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2017, is editor at Nieman Storyboard, and a faculty fellow at the Poynter Institute. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for “AIDS in the Heartland,” a series about a gay farm couple facing AIDS, and was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for her account of the sub-Saharan famine.
Why it’s so great: Tyler is a novelist, not a journalist. But the work of writing is the work of writing. In this New York Times profile by Charles McGrath – based on a rare bit of time with reclusive … Read more
Editor’s note: We are trying out a new feature. Call it writing practice (with a nod to Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones,” where I first encountered the term). Or virtual workshopping. Or maybe simply shop class. The goal is to … Read more
WHY IS THIS SO GREAT? Or … is it? This might cause eyerolls as a “great sentence” pick. It’s not what most would call high literature, and likely will be breezed by in a fast read. Some might even call … Read more
Why is it so great? I have come to love bagpipes, perhaps because they conjur special moments in my life, perhaps because they are rooted in my maternal heritage. But I know many cringe at their screech and whine. Outdoors … Read more
Why is it great? I read Allison’s “Bastard Out of Carolina” when it was first published, about the time I was covering a range of social justice issues – gender, race, class, sexual orientation. I was clueless to who … Read more
I’m writing this from a mash-up of a magazine newsroom in Bucharest. The walls are smelly and stained from a recent flood in the apartment above. Desks are cluttered with grungy coffee cups, cold pizza crusts, giveaway pens. Ghosts of … Read more
The story of the woman called Lola begins and ends with ashes. Ashes that “filled a plastic box about the size of a toaster.” Ashes sheltered in a canvas tote bag from a suburb north of tech-hip Seattle to a … Read more
Editor’s note: This is the fourth and last piece covering this year’s “Power of Storytelling” conference, in Bucharest. For the setup, and to watch Esquire‘s Chris Jones talk about the intersection of storytelling and magic, go here. To watch and read Tom Junod‘s talk, on … Read more
