Editor’s note: This is the fourth and last piece covering this year’s “Power of Storytelling” conference, in Bucharest. For the setup, and to watch Esquire‘s Chris Jones talk about the intersection of storytelling and magic, go here. To watch and read Tom Junod‘s talk, on … Read more
In good fiction, the reader absorbing a compelling narrative never notices the writer as intermediary. In nonfiction, that translator’s presence is inevitable. Since the former is the ideal relationship with the reader, the more you can bring that non-point of view to nonfiction narrative, the better. In other words, as a writer, no matter what the hell you’re writing, do your best to kill your ego, even if those are mutually exclusive ideals. (i.e.: He could have told the story of the effect of that atomic bomb on an innocent city by telling us what he found when he went over there, and it would have been a good piece. Instead he gave the story over to the six survivors, and it earned a place in immortality.) Read more
I often tell students, both undergraduate and graduate, that beautiful stories are everywhere. You can head off to Iraq and Afghanistan and pen a riveting war epic, but you can also discover scintillating stories much closer to home – … Read more
Years ago, the wonderful Walt Harrington came to our newsroom and fired us up. We were at the start of a storytelling revival, trying to find our way back to craft, and Walt’s book “Intimate Journalism” had just … Read more
Our bookmarks have been busy lately what with all the good stuff to read and watch and hear. Some of our recent favorites hail from CNN.com, Grantland, the New York Times magazine and Esquire. In case you missed them, here … Read more
It’s been a little over a year since The Atavist debuted as a groundbreaking digital platform for long-form multimedia storytelling. Narrative journalists had been bemoaning the shrinking storytelling acreage, so this app-based venue was met with substantial interest. “E-books … Read more
Our first October Rountable looks at “Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World,” by Amy Harmon. Harmon tells the story of Justin Canha, a 21-year-old illustrator hoping to live on his own but facing challenges both … Read more
Our second Roundtable of September examines “The Good Short Life,” by Dudley Clendinen. Diagnosed with ALS, Clendinen reflects on the past suffering of those closest to him and decides that he would prefer to approach death on his … Read more
For the second Roundtable of July, our editors looked at “Watching the Murder of an Innocent Man” by Barry Bearak of the New York Times. Bearak has spent the last three years as co-bureau chief of the Times’ … Read more
In our latest Notable Narrative, “Iraqis Pass the Safety Test,” The New Yorker’s George Packer draws an arc through three apparently unrelated points by doing little more than setting up and repeating quotes from as many stories: The … Read more