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.
Geraldine Brooks laid that line down in “Secret Chord,” her deeply researched and richly reimagined novel about the life of biblical King David, the psalm-writing, harp-playing, woman-lusting warrior. But they could speak just as well to the best … Read more
Sometimes a sentence stops me for reasons I can’t entirely explain, or even defend. Often it includes a moment of description or metaphor that teases out a personal memory, or plants the seeds of feelings. Almost always they capture the … Read more
Why it’s so great: This isn’t a particularly elegant sentence. It may even come across as disingenuous – a popular, successful Hollywood actor who, at 65, still claims to be a “humble student” of his craft. But “A Word With” … Read more
Why is this great? Writers wade into the world to witness it in all its dimensions, then remake it in the hieroglyphics we know as words – marks we use not just to describe, but to create meaning. Words can … Read more
Editor’s note: Our third Shop Class – part of our Story Craft posts – grew out of breaking news stories and blogs that offer rich lessons on how to do the work we do. Even in narrative, we need to know … Read more
Why it’s great: Deadline reporting of natural disasters is a tightrope walk. Too little drama and events are reduced to factoids that don’t take hold in the readers’ mind or heart. Too much and a story risks becoming overwrought. As … Read more
Editor’s note: This is our second edition of Shop Class, a new Story Craft feature. The goal is to break down the work that goes into creating stories, and offer prompts or small suggestions to help you practice the craft that … Read more
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
