Story Annotations

The magazine story behind Sebastian Junger‘s celebrated nonfiction book A Perfect Storm ran in Outside magazine in October 1994. “The Storm” (4,765 words) told the story of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat out of Gloucester,…

Our Annotation Tuesday! series takes readers line by line through a notable piece of writing — with the author. Occasionally, we bring in a guest annotator. Elon Green, of The…

Leslie Jamison‘s “Fog Count,” which ran in the spring issue of The Oxford American, is hard to pin down. Its subject matter is, ostensibly, jailed ultramarathon runner Charlie Engle — whom Jamison…

When Amy Wallace profiled then-Variety editor Peter Bart for Los Angeles magazine, she took on issues of access, personality, misdirection, industry politics, journalism and retaliation. To write about a guy…

A top reporter and storyteller, Eli Saslow was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing two weeks ago for his story about a struggling swimming pool salesman.Today, in the…

Pamela Colloff's annotated “The Innocent Man” continues today, with the second and final part. (To read Part 1, go here.) The timing couldn't be better. On Monday, the American Society of Magazine…

In November and December, Texas Monthly's Pamela Colloff wrote a two-part series on the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton, who spent 25 years in prison in the murder of his…

By now you've probably heard the story: In October 2011, a suicidal man named Terry Thompson uncaged dozens of wild animals that he kept on his farm in Zanesville, Ohio,…

The subject of death has proven inexhaustible, from the Greeks to Hamlet to E.B. White's pig. In "The End," Ben Ehrenreich examines The Inevitable from an unexpected postmortem angle, and with a…

Reading Amy Wallace's profiles is like sitting around your favorite bar with your favorite super-witty friend and talking about people over cocktails: You come for the companionship and vibe, you…