I sat on a bench with Wade Livingston the other day. We talked about an alligator attack, a woman who drowned, and the people who saw fit to condemn her for the audacity to up and die while walking her dog. It’s … Read more
I’m writing this from a mash-up of a magazine newsroom in Bucharest. The walls are smelly and stained from a recent flood in the apartment above. Desks are cluttered with grungy coffee cups, cold pizza crusts, giveaway pens. Ghosts of … Read more
This week we pay tribute to London, a city that seems like it’s being pulled in two directions: toward its tremendous past and its wildly creative yet uncertain future. As the blogger known as “The Gentle Author” (see post below) … Read more
Point of view is a powerful narrative tool. Take, for example, the Newest Americans project that we spotlighted this week. For some politicians and hate-mongerers, immigrants are a scourge. But in this project, immigrants get to tell their own stories … Read more
Looking back at this week’s posts, I was struck by the similarities between two of the writers we spotlighted. Ida B. Wells was a brave, pioneering investigative journalist who fought for women’s rights and campaigned against lynching. Born a century … Read more
This year’s Power of Narrative conference seemed to capture the #MeToo zeitgeist, with speakers like author Roxane Gay and the Boston Globe’s Sacha Pfeiffer talking about the uncomfortable truths of sexual abuse. “The match we lit started a huge … Read more
This week we celebrated the vernal equinox, this moment of rebirth and hope as we ease out of winter. (Of course, New England got hit with another snowstorm, as if winter was all Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction” and “I … Read more
As a near-spring Nor’easter hit New England this week, we showcased two recent stories about polar exploration. What intrigued me were the very different perspectives of the writers and subjects. In David Grann’s piece on explorer Henry Worsley, the focus … Read more
The fog of war is especially thick in Syria, where access is nearly impossible for foreign journalists and accounts of the war often reach the outside world via social media. In the besieged Eastern Ghouta region, a blond, baby-faced teenager … Read more
Jennifer Sahn, executive editor of Pacific Standard, understands why writers sometimes feel frustrated when editors take weeks to respond to their pitches or don’t write back at all. But she wants writers to see the other side, too. The … Read more