Search results for “roy peter clark”

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The news joins the rituals of mourning

The news joins the rituals of mourning

EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece is published in partnership with our friends at the Poynter InstituteI was half-way through an essay on how the experience of news — especially in the…
May 28, 2020
"When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely."

“When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely.”

My wife, Karen, and I happen to have for more than a decade a good Catholic pastor, Msgr. Robert Gibbons. Among his many gifts, he is a news junkie and…
May 20, 2020
How to wed personal experience and journalistic discipline

How to wed personal experience and journalistic discipline

Some journalistic tenets are almost sacred, among them: The story is not about us.But sometimes, the story is. Or at least the journalist is living the same story as his…
April 3, 2020
What we can learn about writing and life in a graduation speech sent from a distance

What we can learn about writing and life in a graduation speech sent from a distance

Do you remember your college commencement speaker, or anything s/he said? I had it in my head that a state legislator spoke at my high school graduation in 1970, but…
March 26, 2020
In good writing, clarity is job one

In good writing, clarity is job one

After 40-some years of practicing journalism, I decided there was much I still had to learn about the craft. So I became a teacher. Any of you who have gone…
January 30, 2020
The 1619 project: Tracing steps backwards to find a way forward

The 1619 project: Tracing steps backwards to find a way forward

Four centuries ago this year, a privateer named the White Lion anchored off Point Comfort, an English colony in what is now Hampton, Virginia. In its cramped hold, it carried…
November 26, 2019
Some warbly thoughts on "voice"

Some warbly thoughts on “voice”

Defining a writer’s “voice” has always stumped me. It came up again recently, when a journalism professor put me on speaker phone with her class of college freshmen, who had…
November 22, 2019
If it was good enough for Jane Austen ...

If it was good enough for Jane Austen …

My mother’s reverence for education, a solid grounding in middle-school grammar, and a long career in old-school journalism has chiseled me into one of those people who honors language, and…
September 13, 2019
Romancing the moon in the reality of time

Romancing the moon in the reality of time

When it came time to write about the 50th anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon, Charles P. Pierce jettisoned sentimentality like a booster rocket.The opening of Pierce’s July…
August 16, 2019
Foreshadow forward; echo back. How writers harness the power of the callback

Foreshadow forward; echo back. How writers harness the power of the callback

The art of the callback in comedy, film, literature and journalism: When repetition isn't redundancy, but theme and structure
May 2, 2019