Don’t be a turkey: Earn your flight wings

What an impatient longform wannabe is learning from writing short

By Jacqui Banaszynski • October 17, 2018

Brendan Meyer chases the story of Thomas Gobbles, an infamous turkey who stalked the streets of Casper, Wyoming. Writing features for the Casper Star Tribune was Meyer's first job out of college. He is now a feature writer for The Dallas Morning News.

The Pitch: Can’t wait? A Marie Claire editor tries to answer pitches within 48 hours

Senior editor Kayla Webley Adler scouts for both hard-hitting and fun stories with women at the center. Helpful hint: pitch a story – not a topic

By Katia Savchuk • October 16, 2018

Divining the true source of stories

A failed water system in Flint, Michigan, also revealed fissures in reporting: Journalists need to reach beyond officials to the people living a story

By Madeline Bodin • October 11, 2018

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A conversation with Tommy Tomlinson: Getting naked in print and public

By Chip Scanlan

October 9, 2018

A writer who tells intimate stories of others turns his notebook on himself in a searing memoir that undresses his own and America's obesity

Q&A: A conversation with Alexandra Petri on conjugating gender and politics

By Anna Claire Vollers

September 26, 2018

What's in a verb? That depends on whether he said or she said

Parachute reporting in a foreign land: Getting it fast and getting it right

By Shannon Wianecki

August 23, 2018

To cover the Kilauea volcano, Simon Romero had to push past tourist brochures, myths and cliches to discover a more authentic Hawai'i

Q&A: How a letter, honesty and patience won the trust of a shamed school cop

By Pat Walters

August 16, 2018

Washington Post narrative writer Eli Saslow answers an essential question: "How'd he get that guy to talk to him?"

Q&A: Greg Bishop on a quarterback, a suicide and a search for answers

By Elliott Almond

July 31, 2018

The Sports Illustrated senior writer uses intimate reporting and intricate outlining to weave personal tragedy with societal controversy

Take Two: Avi Selk on spiders, aggregation and writing fast

By Rebecca Boyle

July 18, 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yesterday, we featured contributor Rebecca Boyle’s interview with Washington Post general assignment reporter Avi Selk about his intriguing, elegiac story of the world’s longest living spider. Today, we broaden that interview as Boyle delves into Selk’s process for writing fast – very fast –… Read More

5 Questions

Avi Selk eulogizes the long life and too-soon death of Spider 16, and what she taught us

By Rebecca Boyle

July 18, 2018

In his elegiac profile, the Washington Post general assignment reporter talks about finding gems in previously published work, and doing it all on deadline

5 Questions

5(ish) Questions for Michelle Mizner and Katie Worth and “The Last Generation”

By Julie Schwietert Collazo

April 26, 2018

The multimedia interactive about climate change in the Marshall Islands is compellingly told through the eyes of three children

5 Questions

5(ish) Questions for Douglas Haynes and “Every Day We Live Is the Future”

By Julie Schwietert Collazo

April 24, 2018

The author spent nearly 10 years on his project to show climate change in the extreme micro, telling the stories of two Nicaraguan women

5 Questions

Amy Padnani on The New York Times’ “Overlooked” obituary series

By Julie Schwietert Collazo

March 27, 2018

The digital editor of obituaries talks about finally giving women and people of color their due -- and how she's been "blown away" by the reaction

5 Questions

Finding the story in the parentheses and other adventures with Jeffrey Stern

By Julia Shipley

February 15, 2018

In a Vanity Fair story you might call "the BMW Schindler," the freelancer takes us on a wild ride in a bulletproof car with a Kurdish fighter turned savior

5 Questions

5(ish) Questions: Radio storytelling pioneer Jay Allison and the bite-size “Sonic IDs”

By Lee Romney

February 8, 2018

The audio vignettes interrupt the expected with the voices and sounds of life on Cape Cod (including the sound of scallops clapping)