Narrative News

A creative daily distraction became a journey of discovery

Retired sports editor Cathy Henkel turned her ephemeral art-and-storytelling project into a book at the request of fans and to support kids

By Jacqui Banaszynski • March 4, 2021

How and why Katie Engelhart followed a woman’s journey to her “final exit”

A California Sunday Magazine profile of a woman with dementia is included in Engelhart's new book on right-to-die issues

By Chip Scanlan • March 3, 2021

Why's This So Good?

Pulitzer winner Ellen Barry solved a mystery, then questioned the mysteries of truth

"Reader, I should confess that I wanted to write the story."

By Rashi Shrivastava • March 2, 2021

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Julia Shipley

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Notable Narratives

Lessons in the purpose of poetic language from a presidential inauguration

By Roy Peter Clark

January 21, 2021

Writing master Roy Peter Clark reflects on the power of words in politics, and how they mirror the times we live in

Narrative News

America’s first hip-hop inaugural poem ties history to the present, optimism to urgency

By Lisa Grace Lednicer

January 21, 2021

Youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman draws on Hamilton, MLK, scripture and slavery to capture and prod America in the moment

Notable Narratives

The enduring power of John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”: the first “nonfiction novel”

By Jacqui Banaszynski

August 6, 2020

On the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, Hersey's taut, unflinching story remains a masterpiece of narrative reporting

Notable Narratives

How F. Scott Fitzgerald guided the hand and aspirations of a newspaper journalist

By Lisa Grace Lednicer

June 4, 2020

An editor and writer revisits the lessons she found, as a young reporter, embedded in Fitzgerald's short stories

Notable Narratives

The news joins the rituals of mourning

By Roy Peter Clark

May 28, 2020

A haunting front page and essay in the New York Times is more than a chronicle of the dead in the era of coronavirus

Notable Narratives

Four hundred years of harsh history delivered in 8,000 unflinching words

By Lisa Grace Lednicer

January 17, 2020

Nikole Hannah-Jones anchors "The 1619 Project" in the New York Times with a reported essay that weaves historical events and personal experience

Notable Narratives

A narrative “troika:” direct testimony, news analysis and biographical journalism

By Ron Judd

November 5, 2019

How the eye-witness testimony of a public servant advanced and enhanced coverage of the Trump Ukraine story in ways journalism alone couldn't

Notable Narratives

Will this date ever fade?

By Jacqui Banaszynski

September 11, 2019

Remembering the day, and the stories we wish never had to be written

Notable Narratives

Not just a guilty pleasure: “Game of Thrones” holds essential writing lessons

By Roy Peter Clark

June 5, 2019

Esteemed writing teacher Roy Peter Clark shares the 12 things he learned (or re-learned) about storytelling from the epic HBO series

Notable Narratives

About a bear: The story behind the story of “The Loneliest Polar Bear”

By Julia Shipley

April 19, 2019

How The Oregonian tracked the uncertain fate of an abandoned bear cub and created a multimedia phenomenon that informed other projects

Notable Narratives

Raw first stories from the Appalachian Trail

By Greg Bowers

February 28, 2019

Earl V. Shaffer's original journals reveal a treasure trove that inspired a book, and generations of hikers — and writers — to come

Notable Narratives

A prescient voice speaks for the Earth

By Erik Ness

February 5, 2019

Seventy years after "A Sand County Almanac," Aldo Leopold's message grows in relevance