Story Craft

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…
From Esquire Classic: Gay Talese on Profiling Boxer Floyd Patterson

From Esquire Classic: Gay Talese on Profiling Boxer Floyd Patterson

To help celebrate Floyd Patterson’s birthday, let’s turn for a moment to Esquire Hall of Famer Gay Talese, who called Patterson a “writer’s dream.”Esquire Classic: You wrote more than thirty stories…
From Esquire Classic: Tom Junod on Profiling Hillary Clinton

From Esquire Classic: Tom Junod on Profiling Hillary Clinton

Tom JunodHillary Clinton has changed greatly over the past twenty-five years of public service, as First Lady, then Senator, then Secretary of State, and now presidential front-runner. No one has…

Narrative Conferences and Workshops: Where to Hone Your Skills in 2016

Happy Narrative New Year! If you resolved to get better at narrative in 2016, or even just to figure out what it is, here’s a list of conferences and workshops…
In Search of the ‘Southern Voice’

In Search of the ‘Southern Voice’

When I was a child, my father would sometimes mention The Great Southern Novel he’d always wanted to write.I remember the protagonist as a poor, small-town man who’d somehow made…
9 Rules for Creative Work from Chris Jones, Esquire Writer and National Magazine Award-winner

9 Rules for Creative Work from Chris Jones, Esquire Writer and National Magazine Award-winner

The Power of Storytelling international conference in Bucharest just concluded its fifth edition in October, and thanks to conference founder Cristian Lupsa, editor of the nonfiction journal Decât o Revistă and a 2014 Nieman fellow, and his…
Jacqui Banaszynski: The Importance of Place

Jacqui Banaszynski: The Importance of Place

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jacqui Banaszynski on the role of place in stories
Carmen Bugan: Secret Police Records and The Language of Memory

Carmen Bugan: Secret Police Records and The Language of Memory

Romanian poet and author Carmen Bugan discusses the process of creating literary work from personal testimony