This week is women’s week on Storyboard. We spotlight wonderful writers like Katherine Boo, Sarah Lyall, Harper Lee and Elizabeth Bowen. But get this — all the writers of the posts are women too. Kind of cool, no? This theme … Read more
When I first came across Katherine Boo’s work in journalism school, I was immediately taken with her ability to expose injustice while weaving gorgeous narratives. I carved up her stories in The Washington Post and The New Yorker with a … Read more
“Elroy lives here. Tiny, half-blind, mentally retarded, 39-year-old Elroy. To find him, go past the counselor flirting on the phone.” If you had been in the Georgetown University cafeteria back in 1999, you might have seen me with my … Read more
Katharine Boo begins her 2003 New Yorker piece “The Marriage Cure” with one of my all-time favorite opening lines: One July morning last year in Oklahoma City, in a public-housing project named Sooner Haven, twenty-two-year-old Kim Henderson pulled a pair … Read more
I only saw my great-aunt a few times – she lived far away – but in my family, she was kind of a legend. She wore purple every day, and kept a stash of matching purple toilet paper that she’d break out for company. She … Read more
Since the first stirrings of the Nieman Foundation’s narrative writing program nearly 20 years ago, the staff has tended a treasure trove of resource material devoted to excellence in journalistic storytelling. Much of that material went online first via the … Read more
There’s a lot of great work out there right now, people! Here are some of the stories and storytellers who’ve caught our attention lately — and why. Highlights: a Mexican cemetery for drug lords, a near-death experience in a bullring, a … Read more
Every narrative journalist can point to a story or a book, or two, that changed their lives, and that made them want to tell true stories. What story does it for you? Where was your love born? When we asked about … Read more
By Andrea Pitzer Is it possible to tell the story of Auschwitz, the abyss at the center of the twentieth century? When I wrote “One Long Night,” a history of concentration camps around the world, my central question … Read more
By March 2020, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the incurable illness also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, had already ravaged Ron Deprez’s once-strong body with particular cruelty. He needed help with one last thing: to die. It fell to his … Read more
