From the Editor

By Jacqui BanaszynskiThe fall equinox takes the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere into official autumn tonight. There’s already been a dusting of snow in the high Cascades that rise just west of…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiA hopeful-news detour from a study of the art and craft of story work, to the shaky business that supports that work. In this case, To summarize it,…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiOne of the back-to-school things I looked forward to in grade school was the Weekly Reader, a tab-sized newspaper that was handed out in class. I suppose it…

The editor has made a lifelong practice of studying other writers – not to write like them, but to understand how writing works

By Jacqui BanaszynskiAccording to my pre-Wordle morning scans of social media in recent days, it’s back-to-school time. That seems awfully early to me (What happened to waiting until after Labor…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiAt the many writing workshops I lead, the primary struggles reporters raise involve, duh, writing. But when six health-reporting fellows gathered recently, the challenges they brought to the…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiReporter friends after swap tales about the stories and tips they picked up from cabbies when they travel on assignments. That’s seldom been successful for me. First, I’m…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiPrison stories are a special challenge for journalists. The gold standards of journalism are relevance and relatability. But it can be hard for many readers and listeners, if…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiEverybody talks about the weather — more than ever these days. But not everybody gets death threats for their comments.Yet that’s what happened to Chris Gloninger, a chief…

By Jacqui BanaszynskiAfter our mother died, my brothers and I gathered to clean out and sell our childhood home. An inevitable part of that process was to sort through her…