Notable Narratives

This piece won an American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award for Deadline Reporting. We admire the friendly, human voice, the determination to find a fresh way to describe…

We found this story difficult to read, for good reason; we squirmed with sympathy for Elias Fishburne, a man who is swept into the criminal justice system in a case…

DeGregory spent four months reporting this story about a 14-year-old girl, Lillie, her newborn son, Thomas, and the woman who takes her in, Amy. DeGregory’s structure is lucid, the scenes…

This piece starts with a news-feature sort of lead, a focusing-in on one boy that is well-wrought and moving. Then comes a long, sweeping history, then a section of first-person…

This fascinating piece is part historical narrative, part contemporary profile. From a craft point of view, we were interested in the challenge of portraying Margarete Barthel, the former SS guard,…

We admired the balance in this piece of detachment and emotion, of distance and closeness. We appreciated the close attention to telling detail, action, gesture and also the willingness to…

This is a story about the power of story and stories: the power of telling them, of withholding them; the weight they bear in families; the power they have to…

What stands out among all the lovely elements in this series is Tizon’s use of the first and second persons. Come join me on a journey, he says. And if…

As in all of Siegel’s stories on this site, all of which cover in some sense an “endangered child,” he portrays emotional content—in this case a young boy’s death, his…

Siegel builds this piece on effective, masterful movement from story-telling through explanatory digressions and back to story. The digressions advance not just our understanding of how this girl could come…