EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the final post in our focused series on the core elements of narrative by nonfiction writer and teacher Lauren Kessler. Previous posts provided an overview of the power of narrative, how to … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: “The Best Audio Storytelling: 2022” is a newly released audiobook compendium of English-language nonfiction. The collection’s curator, Julia Barton of Pushkin Industries, spoke with creators of work in the collection about their storytelling choices and … Read more
By Trevor Pyle In opening paragraphs of her Chicago Reader piece about six deaths in Chicago last year, Katie Prout makes a rare and daring admission: She reveals that she keeps an altar and remakes it … Read more
By Dale Keiger If you write for a living and stay with it long enough you will accumulate a bulging folder of journeyman’s work. You don’t renounce it and you don’t brag about it. It’s the work that working … Read more
By Caren Chesler Essayist and poet Hillery Stone lost her 4-year-old dog not long ago. A door was opened. The dog ran out. Several people who tried to steer the dog away from the road inadvertently … Read more
By Carly Stern For Nathan Heller, Lowell High School had always represented the road not taken. Heller had applied to Lowell when he was a teenager growing up in San Francisco, but ended up attending a nearby private school … Read more
By Korrina Duffy Timer set. Pen poised. Go! Free writing is for when you just need to write the damn thing already. If you like many have a bad case of blank page syndrome, free writing helps clear the … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: This essay is shared with our friends at The Poynter Institute by request of the author. * * * By Roy Peter Clark Early last October I received a small package from England, … Read more
It’s a common and happy reframe among my retired friends: They are busier than they’ve ever been. They can’t remember how they managed to do all the things they needed to do — make friends, keep a house, have … Read more
By Lauren Kessler “Listen to the people who are talking about how to fix what’s wrong, not the ones who just work people into a snit over the problems. Listen to the people who have ideas about how to … Read more