Story Annotations

When I first saw Pop-Up Magazine in San Francisco a couple of years ago, I struggled to describe the experience to friends. What do you call a show where you…

In a full-circle illustration of the way life sometimes imitates art, screenwriting led Sarah Berns to smokejumping. Then smokejumping led to a cinematic memoir, written with a director’s eye and…

From the archives: National Geographic writer Craig Welch turns silent subjects into the compelling voices of climate change

A story that garners wide acclaim, gets multiple plays across ESPN and draws tweets from Reese Witherspoon is not your everyday deadline fare. For most writers, it will never happen.…

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

Who knew there was a beat called “fire coverage,” or it was a job they would learn to love?Certainly not Lizzie Johnson, who was covering city hall for The San…

Before Christopher Solomon took on the case of the wolf researcher who ignited a political firestorm, the situation had sparked plenty of regional coverage. In particular, The Seattle Times, where…

In the second of a two-parter, the former LA Times reporter scrutinizes the first pitch – and then the revision – that earned her a cover piece in Wired

EDITOR’S NOTE: Erika Hayasaki’s conversation with Storyboard contributor Katia Savchuk explores what it took to earn a regular byline in magazines. She also shared the two separate pitches she wrote…

America’s debate over immigration has played out to the recorded cries of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, to broadcast images of tears and hugs as some…