Short Takes

So what do you do if you fall out of a plane at 35,000 feet, as is apparently the case with “How to Fall 35,000 Feet—And Survive” in the February issue…

Take a gander at some of the more interesting writing we’ve seen lately. These pieces are more or less narrative, and come at storytelling from different angles, but are all are worth…

A storytelling approach to science can make for bad journalism, according to a Myles Allen opinion piece that ran last month in The Guardian (UK). Writing about the theft and…

Can less be more? The value of ignorance came up this week at the Modern Language Association’s annual conference in Philadelphia during a session titled “Literature and Journalism.” Rob Nixon, of…

Dave GilsonA scene from the opening of a prime-time cable series? Nope—it's the lead from a story in last month’s Mother Jones. Dave Gilson’s piece narrates a mock riot in…

I was recently taken with a piece that ran earlier this year in High Country News. Written by Michelle Nijhuis, “Township 13 South, Range 92 West, Section 35” explores the idea…

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk, in which she described how stereotypes develop when one community has only a single narrative about another. The post…

Is the future of story watching story unfold? Participating in story as it unfolds? The Washington Post’s Story Lab (which had a soft launch last week and official debut today)…

I spoke this morning with Marc Fisher, enterprise editor for local news at The Washington Post. Fisher is heading up the organization’s new Story Lab, which launched this week. See…

Before the Thanksgiving holiday, we step away from the future of story and transmedia discussions to offer a classic print narrative. David Amsden’s “Never Mind the Pity” traces the elegant arc of the…