Story Craft

Michael Mooney on Jerry Joseph: "What person has not thought about what it would be like to relive their youth?"

Michael Mooney on Jerry Joseph: "What person has not thought about what it would be like to relive their youth?"

Our latest Editors’ Roundtable looks at Michael Mooney’s story “Blindsided: The Jerry Joseph Basketball Scandal,” from the July issue of GQ. Mooney, a staff writer for D Magazine, previously worked for…
August 5, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
August Editors' Roundtable No. 1: GQ ponders truth, lies and mystery

August Editors’ Roundtable No. 1: GQ ponders truth, lies and mystery

Our first Roundtable of August considers “Blindsided: The Jerry Joseph Basketball Scandal,” by Michael Mooney. The story spotlights a high school basketball player who stirred up questions about truth and…
August 4, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
Barry Bearak on vigilante murder: "I had to find out why this man was killed"

Barry Bearak on vigilante murder: "I had to find out why this man was killed"

Our latest Editors’ Roundtable looks at Barry Bearak's story “Watching the Murder of an Innocent Man,” from the New York Times. Bearak won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2001 coverage of…
July 22, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
July Editors' Roundtable No. 2: The New York Times probes a murder in South Africa

July Editors’ Roundtable No. 2: The New York Times probes a murder in South Africa

For the second Roundtable of July, our editors looked at “Watching the Murder of an Innocent Man” by Barry Bearak of the New York Times. Bearak has spent the last…
July 21, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
July Editors' Roundtable No. 1: the St. Petersburg Times' snapshot between before and after

July Editors’ Roundtable No. 1: the St. Petersburg Times’ snapshot between before and after

For the first Roundtable of July, our editors looked at “Diving headlong into a sunny paradise” by Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times. The story follows a young Wisconsin…
July 5, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
June Editors' Roundtable No. 2: The Seattle Times, a first pitch, and the Queen of Samoas

June Editors’ Roundtable No. 2: The Seattle Times, a first pitch, and the Queen of Samoas

We're fine-tuning our Editors’ Roundtable, moving toward more frequent postings and smaller groups of editors looking at each story. As part of those changes, today we highlight our second June…
June 15, 2011
Andrea Pitzer

Slow violence and environmental storytelling

Strategies to plot and give shape to formless threats whose fatal repercussions are dispersed across space and time
June 13, 2011
Rob Nixon

Stephanie McCrummen on bare-bones writing, "working backwards" and editors' good ideas

Yesterday, our Editors’ Roundtable dissected “Ala. tornado twists two families together” by Stephanie McCrummen, which follows the development of an unlikely connection in the aftermath of a tornado. Late last…
June 7, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
June Editors' Roundtable: The Washington Post finds order in chaos

June Editors’ Roundtable: The Washington Post finds order in chaos

For the first Roundtable of the month, our editors looked at “Ala. tornado twists two families together” by Stephanie McCrummen from The Washington Post. The story, published early in May,…
June 6, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
May Editors' Roundtable: St. Petersburg Times dives into missing man mystery

May Editors’ Roundtable: St. Petersburg Times dives into missing man mystery

This month, the Editors’ Roundtable looks at “When a diver goes missing, a deep cave is scene of a deeper mystery” by Ben Montgomery of the St. Petersburg Times. The story, our…
May 4, 2011
Andrea Pitzer