Search results for “so you want to write a book”

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Jonathan Eig searches for the characters of his new book

Jonathan Eig searches for the characters of his new book

In previous books, best-selling author Jonathan Eig profiled baseball legend Lou Gehrig and Chicago gangster Al Capone. But as he set about researching his most recent project, he faced an interesting…
October 14, 2014
Writing the book: Beth Macy and 'Factory Man'

Writing the book: Beth Macy and ‘Factory Man’

In the fall of 2011, I began reporting stories about the aftereffects of globalization on small factory towns in southern Virginia, for the Roanoke Times. For the next three years,…
July 9, 2014
"Why's this so good?" No. 93: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the case for reparations

“Why’s this so good?” No. 93: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the case for reparations

It’s hard to know where to begin when attempting to grapple with the sprawling legacy of racial discrimination and oppression in America. But Ta-Nehisi Coates knows there to start. “The Case For…
June 3, 2014

Ariel Levy’s personal and impossibly painful New Yorker essay “Thanksgiving in Mongolia”

Levy’s narrative voice is by turn darkly comic, confessional and challenging.
May 6, 2014
Writing the Book: Profiling the Sabine River

Writing the Book: Profiling the Sabine River

My story might interest other small-timers with big ambitions. Believe it or not, a four-part series in a local newspaper launched my career as an author. My first book, Running…
April 22, 2014

The Music of Narrative: Songs from great literary journalism

A story without sound lies too dead on the page. Imagine “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster,” by Jon Franklin, without the pop … pop … pop of the operating-room sensors. Or Tom…
April 17, 2014
'It's not about the cameras, it's about how you see the world' — and 49 other tips and inspirations from the BU narrative conference

‘It’s not about the cameras, it’s about how you see the world’ — and 49 other tips and inspirations from the BU narrative conference

Fifty takeouts from some of the speakers at last weekend’s Boston University conference on narrative, culled from the Twitter feeds of Lauren Alexander, Alletta Cooper, Cat Cowan, Jessica DuLong, John…
April 8, 2014
Writing the book: Neil Swidey on 'Trapped Under the Sea'

Writing the book: Neil Swidey on ‘Trapped Under the Sea’

I love inspirational quotes from august authors as much as the next writer. But the quote I thought about the most during the long years when I was writing my…
April 3, 2014
"Why's this so good?" No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch

“Why’s this so good?” No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch

Twenty-nine years ago today, Sports Illustrated ran George Plimpton’s "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch," about a mysterious, unknown major league pitching recruit who threw a fastball at jet speed. Published…
April 1, 2014
Want to write great narrative? Study screenwriting.

Want to write great narrative? Study screenwriting.

“That’s all fine,’’ the L.A. film executive said briskly, “but who’s the antagonist?’’Cut to: Me, author of a soon-to-be published biography of the 1940s/’50s wrestler and pop culture figure who…
March 14, 2014