Author

Paige Williams

@williams_paige

Paige Williams writes for The New Yorker and is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. Winner of the National Magazine Award for feature writing in 2008, and a finalist in 2011 and 2009 (shared) , she has been anthologized in five volumes of the Best American series, including twice in The Best American Magazine Writing. She is the former editor of Nieman Storyboard and has taught narrative nonfiction at Harvard, M.I.T., NYU, Emory, the University of Pittsburgh, and at her alma mater, the University of Mississippi. She was a '97 Nieman Fellow and holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her narrative nonfiction book "The Dinosaur Artist" is forthcoming, from Hachette, in Fall 2016.

What we're following: truthiness in narrative

What we're following: truthiness in narrative

It’s been a volatile few months for ethics in storytelling, what with the unprecedented “This American Life” retraction of monologist Mike Daisey’s Apple story, and with the unfurled furor over…
Wright Thompson on identity, clarity, editing, voodoo and the deadline virtues of Lionel Ritchie

Wright Thompson on identity, clarity, editing, voodoo and the deadline virtues of Lionel Ritchie

We chose Wright Thompson’s ESPN.com piece “The Kid Who Wasn't There” as our latest Notable Narrative because the story added a chilling layer to the odd life story of Guerdwich…

Wright Thompson and the lingering saga of a lone star

Our new “Notable Narrative,” “The Kid Who Wasn’t There,” by Wright Thompson of ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine, unearths the other half of the strange tale of Guerdwich Montimere, a…
Work we love: a multimedia look at secret slavery, a portrait of fantasy baseball’s founder and dueling Robert Caro profiles

Work we love: a multimedia look at secret slavery, a portrait of fantasy baseball’s founder and dueling Robert Caro profiles

Our bookmarks have been busy lately what with all the good stuff to read and watch and hear. Some of our recent favorites hail from CNN.com, Grantland, the New York…
Multimedia storytelling at The Atavist: One year in, how's it going, Evan Ratliff?

Multimedia storytelling at The Atavist: One year in, how’s it going, Evan Ratliff?

It’s been a little over a year since The Atavist debuted as a groundbreaking digital platform for long-form multimedia storytelling. Narrative journalists had been bemoaning the shrinking storytelling acreage, so this…
Kevin Sack on kidney transplants, kickers, the myth of the daily/narrative disconnect and “The Little Mermaid”

Kevin Sack on kidney transplants, kickers, the myth of the daily/narrative disconnect and “The Little Mermaid”

For our latest Notable Narrative we chose Kevin Sack’s “60 Lives, 30 Kidneys, All Linked,” a New York Times story about an unprecedented chain of kidney transplants. We admired the…

Kevin Sack and the amazing kidney chain

Imagine this as a narrative:A man’s child needs a kidney transplant. Despite successfully enlisting an organ donor, the man finds the U.S. transplant network frustrating and ineffective. To spare other…
Harding in the house: a Pulitzer-winning novelist on rhythm, revision, rejection and a hundred other things

Harding in the house: a Pulitzer-winning novelist on rhythm, revision, rejection and a hundred other things

We promote narrative nonfiction here at Storyboard but occasionally look outside the genre for storytelling inspiration. Paul Harding, who won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel “Tinkers,”…
Narrative gold: Eli Sanders and his Pulitzer-winning crime saga

Narrative gold: Eli Sanders and his Pulitzer-winning crime saga

“The prosecutor wanted to know about window coverings. He asked: Which windows in the house on South Rose Street, the house where you woke up to him standing over you with…
Getting the story: Luke Dittrich and the tornado

Getting the story: Luke Dittrich and the tornado

In Thursday’s post we excerpted nice lines from the five National Magazine Award finalists in feature writing. These included Luke Dittrich’s “Heavenly Father!...,” from Esquire, about survivors of the Joplin,…