Story Craft

Writing guru Roy Peter Clark analyzes an "astonishing lead," and unpacks the notions of objectivity and detachment in light of current events

Cal Hooper is a Chicago cop who was ditched by his wife, estranged from his daughter, haunted by past cases and addicted to the action. Somewhere along the way, the…

Dave Kindred never intended to take on this project. Truth is, he didn’t even think of the Facebook posts he’s been writing as a project.But last spring, the walls began…

By her own admission, New York Times reporter Sui-Lee Wee doesn’t often break news out of China; her beat coverage usually follows the reporting of multiple Chinese articles about the…

An offhand remark by a source caught Stephanie Clifford’s interest. More than a year later, the reporter revealed a harrowing problem previously obscured in the murk of the family court…

It was the kind of tweet a lot of people would thumb past with no more than a quick “like.” But when Jaweed Kaleem read about a one-woman Black Lives…

I’d heard the story many times before, but I still couldn’t believe it:Gay Talese pinned his manuscript pages to the wall of his office. He then walked across the room to…

Most 20-something sports journalists don’t find themselves covering something as raw and emotional as the aftermath of one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history. But here was Benjamin Hochman, sitting in the lobby of the Doubletree hotel in Dallas with…

 The U.S. Supreme Court this week (June 17, 2020) ruled that the Civil Rights act of 1964  prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, which the majority said…

With writing, as with most things, you get better with practice. Just ask an athlete. Or a sports reporter.Derrick Goold, baseball writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, guesses that he…