A stray remark during a visit with her grandmother sent newspaper reporter Casey Parks, then a college journalism student, on a years-long quest to unearth the story of a trans man in Louisiana. As the project evolved — from … Read more
It was the mid-1990s. I was sitting across a white damask table-clothed table at a midtown Manhattan steak house watching my editor, Bob Loomis, alternately cut into a ribeye and sip a dry Martini. This was … Read more
For well over a decade, my memoir was a perennial backburner project. I would vow to carve out time to write each week, but work or life always took precedence. I kept a blog where I posted personal essays, … Read more
You’ve written that gripping long-form story, and you’re champing at the bit to get a book deal. What do you do? My own journey started with a lot of wrong turns and even more learning, which I wrote about … Read more
All the great writers have proffered wisdom on the craft, the best-in-show quote being Norman Mailer’s: “Writing books is the closest men come to childbearing.” But the literary sages have offered scarce advice to serious long-form journalists on plotting, … Read more
By Laine Cibulskis As a young tween, life’s turbulence often led me to pick up my pen and write poetry. I was prolific. I filled journals upon journals and clogged my phone notes with words. I started performing, and … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski Back in March, The New York Times published a how-to piece on styling bookshelves. It was written by Tim McKeough and featured Jeremiah Brent, who is … Read more
By Ruth Tam Steve Almond has lived many lives in pursuit of his most elusive dream: publishing a novel. He’s been an investigative journalist, tortured poet and author. Before he published “All the Secrets of the World” in … Read more
By Line Vaaben Much of my shaping as a journalist traces back 25 years, when I covered a deadly fire in Sweden. But it wasn’t until I returned to the scene a quarter-century later that I realized how the … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski I try to take notice of writing approaches in all manner of places. As a kid, I read the back of cereal boxes, which probably were promo-style or maybe kid-type stories. I read the “Green Pages” … Read more
