Story Craft

Where Tom Wolfe got his status obsession

Drawing a line from Yale classrooms and dead German intellectuals to Masters of the Universe
Farah Stockman: "I'm not going to write about them like they're failures"

Farah Stockman: “I’m not going to write about them like they’re failures”

Farah StockmanFarah Stockman came to journalism while teaching street children in Kenya. She worked as a freelancer in Nairobi for The New York Times, NPR and The Christian Science Monitor, and then joined The Boston…
"Power of Narrative" conference: Nikole Hannah-Jones on difficult topics

“Power of Narrative” conference: Nikole Hannah-Jones on difficult topics

Two years ago, Nikole Hannah-Jones published “Segregation Now,” a collaboration between her then-employer Pro Publica and The Atlantic, about the desegregation and resegregation of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Hannah-Jones started her career…
"Power of Narrative" Conference: Mary Roach's bad habits

“Power of Narrative” Conference: Mary Roach’s bad habits

Mary Roach doesn’t do her homework. She didn’t go to J-school. By her own admission, she’s never quite sure she knows what she’s doing.“I always have the sense that I’m…
Esquire Classic: Mike Sager's country includes old men

Esquire Classic: Mike Sager’s country includes old men

Back in 1998, magazine writer Mike Sager was best known for his fearless profiles of drug dealers, crackheads, porn stars, and neo-Nazis. But that year Esquire handed him a very…

Esquire Classic: Colum McCann, Bitcoin and the Winklevoss twins

The last time most of us heard of the Winklevoss twins—hell, the first time we heard of them—was in David Fincher’s acerbic 2010 movie, The Social Network. You remember: Tyler…

Esquire Classic: Elizabeth Kaye and great profile writing

Esquire has long been fascinated by men in power—and by the frailties and anxieties that lie just beneath their polished facades. Beginning in the late eighties, contributing editor Elizabeth Kaye…
Radio Diaries' Joe Richman and "The Last Man on the Mountain"

Radio Diaries’ Joe Richman and “The Last Man on the Mountain”

Joe RichmanJoe Richman practices narrative without narration. His production company, Radio Diaries, crafts public radio stories whose characters do all the talking. In the absence of a reporter’s voice, which…

From Esquire Classic: “Love in the Time of Magic”

Mid February marked the anniversary of Magic Johnson’s 1992 return to the NBA after having retired the previous fall, when he announced he was HIV positive. He turned in a…
From Esquire Classic: Mark Warren on “The End of War” for C.J. Chivers

From Esquire Classic: Mark Warren on “The End of War” for C.J. Chivers

C.J. Chivers, widely regarded as a superman of war coverage, covered conflicts for The New York Times and Esquire for 14 years. In “The End of War,” Mark Warren explains what…