Narrative News

“Our brains are hard-wired for story” is one common argument for why narrative is useful in journalism, in writing, in life. The phrase has always made me uncomfortable, because while…

This week’s “Why’s this so good?” post looked at Brady Dennis’ 296-word story about a toll booth operator’s love for the wife he lost to cancer. The piece ran in…

A soup-to-nuts look at narrative nonfiction, Jack Hart’s “Storycraft” breaks down different approaches to telling true stories and the components that make or break them. In writing the book, Hart…

After some months spent planning to write about Gene Weingarten's story “The Peekaboo Paradox” for this site, I caught up with the two-time Pulitzer winner in Texas this summer at…

The final session of last month's Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference offered The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten in conversation with Brian Sweany, deputy editor of Texas Monthly. Weingarten, who does a…

Hanging out at orgies with people who smuggle lizards in their pants. Befriending a convict with an Anne Frank tattoo. Doing drugs with a source. You never know what you’ll…

Narrative therapy uses a client’s life story to shine a spotlight on how he understands his experience. The concept of an “illness narrative” emerged not in a literary context but over…

Our first Editors’ Roundtable of the month looked at “Diving Headlong into a Sunny Paradise,” by Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times, in which a young couple arrives in Florida…

Adam Hochschild, a longtime supporter of the Nieman Foundation’s narrative program, published a new book last month, “To End All Wars.” A former editor of Mother Jones magazine, Hochschild lives…

In our last post, the Editors’ Roundtable looked at a Seattle Times column about a record-setting Girl Scout cookie-seller who got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Seattle…