Author

Jacqui Banaszynski

@JacquiB

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.

"They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals."

“They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals.”

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…
June 20, 2018
"A singing bagpipe joined the wind in the pines."

“A singing bagpipe joined the wind in the pines.”

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…
June 11, 2018

“…you can’t write about this stuff and be boring. That would be a sin against God.”

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,…
June 6, 2018
Welcome to pizza, potluck and a story potlatch

Welcome to pizza, potluck and a story potlatch

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…
June 1, 2018
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

“Pebbles in the Pond: Touching Hearts One Story at a Time”

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…
November 1, 2013

“Why’s this so good?” No. 36: Alice Steinbach and one boy’s vision

I wish I had come to this assignment when Alice Steinbach was still alive. I could have thanked her one last time for writing “A Boy of Unusual Vision,” a…
April 3, 2012