Author

Kari Howard

@karihow

I'm the woman who left a dream job as Column One editor at the Los Angeles Times because I wanted to move to Maine. Go figure how happiness works. Former editor of Nieman Storyboard. I love music almost as much as (and sometimes more than) beautiful storytelling, so expect to see that here too.

“I go to sleep every night knowing I have the blood of so many on my hands and no amount of soap could ever wash these stains away.”

—C.J. Chivers, "The Fighter," The New York Times Magazine, December 28, 2016.
April 12, 2017

“But then the not-knowing returns, and it keeps him awake at night.”

—Alex Tizon, “In the Land of Missing Persons,” The Atlantic, April 2016.
April 5, 2017

“She is the mother of two fatherless children and she was walking into the history of this country because she was showing everybody who felt old and helpless and without hope that she had this terrible strength that everybody needed so badly.”

—Jimmy Breslin, "Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor," the New York Herald Tribune, November 1963.
March 29, 2017
The Power of Narrative conference: how the tools of poetry can help journalists

The Power of Narrative conference: how the tools of poetry can help journalists

The poet Verandah Porche, who sparked a firestorm at last year's event with her question to Gay Talese about women writers, made a softer splash this year: "Sort what haunts…
March 27, 2017

“Henry Ford believed the soul of a person is located in the last breath and so captured the last breath of his best friend Thomas Edison in a test tube and kept it evermore.”

—Elizabeth Alexander, "The Light of the World."
March 22, 2017

“This is a love story, and I apologize; it was inadvertent. But I want it clearly understood from the start that I don’t expect it to turn out well.”

— Eve Babitz: "Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A."
March 15, 2017
5(ish) Questions: Diarmid Mogg and the crazy-compelling "Small Town Noir"

5(ish) Questions: Diarmid Mogg and the crazy-compelling “Small Town Noir”

The Scotsman's website is a rabbit hole of midcentury mug shots and the stories of the everyday people of a Pennsylvania town at probably the worst moment in their lives
March 14, 2017

“Hazel Morse was a large, fair woman of the type that incites some men when they use the word ‘blonde’ to click their tongues and wag their heads roguishly.”

—Dorothy Parker, "Big Blonde."
March 8, 2017
Notable Narrative: Bernt Jakob Oksnes and "The Baby in the Plastic Bag"

Notable Narrative: Bernt Jakob Oksnes and “The Baby in the Plastic Bag”

The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet bucked the short-attention-span trend by committing to a nine-part serial -- and it paid off both in readers and a powerful narrative about an infant left…
March 7, 2017
Guy Larson and "Merv Curls Lead" — it's kind of like "The Office" on ice

Guy Larson and “Merv Curls Lead” — it’s kind of like “The Office” on ice

In his 1999 piece on a would-be impresario of the quirky sport of curling, the Canadian writer creates a David Brent-like character: at times an insufferable blusterer, at others an…
February 23, 2017