Author

Kim Cross

@KimHCross

Kim Cross is a New York Times best-selling author of What Stands in a Storm and In Light of All Darkness. Obsessed with story structure, cinematic scenes, and time-stamped recorded dialogue, she loves finding storytelling inspiration in unexpected places. An editor-at-large for The Sunday Long Read and a contributing editor for Food & Wine, she teaches feature writing for Harvard Extension School’s master’s program in journalism, The Larry McMurtry Literary Center in Texas, and the Sawtooth Writing Retreat in Idaho. Find her at @kimcross, on a mountain bike, or in a trout stream.

A first-time war correspondent finds human stories in a devastated Ukraine

A first-time war correspondent finds human stories in a devastated Ukraine

Washington Post reporter Lizzie Johnson volunteered for a Christmas-month rotation in Ukraine, where she filed intimate narratives as well as news
Gifts for reporters and writers!

Gifts for reporters and writers!

Just in time for the holidays — or any day — journalist and author Kim Cross shares her must-have reporting and writing tools
What stacking wood can teach us about structuring stories

What stacking wood can teach us about structuring stories

Author and wood-splitter Kim Cross tackles a mountain of firewood, which helps her work through the mountainous first draft of a story
How a top explanatory reporter does emotional interviews: With empathy

How a top explanatory reporter does emotional interviews: With empathy

Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong of The Atlantic takes the same open approach with COVID scientists and frontline nurses
A profile of one place that echoes all places

A profile of one place that echoes all places

How evocative imagery and telling details paint a portrait of a singular landscape that holds universal emotions and memories
Narrative of Oregon town’s hellish wildfire experience is a lesson in deadline writing

Narrative of Oregon town’s hellish wildfire experience is a lesson in deadline writing

This past Labor Day, three reporters in Salem, Oregon were enjoying the holiday weekend. They’d done a good job preparing stories in advance so they wouldn’t have to scramble the…
A Writer's Survival Guide: Tips for defying distraction

A Writer’s Survival Guide: Tips for defying distraction

One moderately productive, relatively-sane freelancer’s approach to writing through a crisis
Deadline writing when the world is in chaos, your house is imploding and kids are home from school

Deadline writing when the world is in chaos, your house is imploding and kids are home from school

EDITOR’S NOTE: This essay first appeared in The Cabin, a center for writers in Idaho. It is used with permission. Also, read Kim Cross’s Writer’s Survival Guide: Tips for defying…
A writer channels her own life of fear to report about science and psychology

A writer channels her own life of fear to report about science and psychology

Award-winning freelancer and outdoorswoman Eva Holland weaves memoir and research in her debut book "Nerve"
"Life is too short to write something boring."

“Life is too short to write something boring.”

A conversation with Los Angeles native and magazine journalist Mary Melton, who profiled a famous photographer in 36 exposures, as in a roll of film