The final session of last month’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference offered The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten in conversation with Brian Sweany, deputy editor of Texas Monthly. Weingarten, who does a weekly humor column for … Read more
On a bright autumn morning, a man drives into the wilderness of the Utah mountains. As he arrives, the sun glows, the clouds float, the aspens glimmer in a passing breeze, “humming a faint prayer.” In the front seat of … Read more
Our latest Editors’ Roundtable looks at Michael Mooney’s story “Blindsided: The Jerry Joseph Basketball Scandal,” from the July issue of GQ. Mooney, a staff writer for D Magazine, previously worked for the Village Voice south Florida weekly … Read more
How true does a memoir have to be? That question has been the basis of an ongoing debate kicked off by the revelation, five years ago, that much of James Frey’s bestselling “A Million Little Pieces” was made up. Unfortunately, … Read more
We tend now to think of Hollywood’s hackneyed, would-be blockbusters as a new phenomenon, one borne of desperation, unprecedented cynicism and the rise of narrative television. But Raymond Chandler’s wonderful 1945 essay-screed “Writers in Hollywood” reminds us that the … Read more
We recently talked by Skype with David Dobbs about the mystery that began with his mother’s dying wish. Dobbs’ years of efforts to solve that mystery eventually became “My Mother’s Lover,” which was published last month by … Read more
Hanging out at orgies with people who smuggle lizards in their pants. Befriending a convict with an Anne Frank tattoo. Doing drugs with a source. You never know what you’ll hear about – or which writers will surprise you – when you … Read more
On a rainy afternoon in 1949, W.C. Heinz watched a beautiful young horse break its leg and then get shot in the head. And then he sat down and wrote about it for the readers of the New York Sun, … Read more
Any piece about New York City has a heavyweight champion to contend with – E.B. White’s “Here Is New York” – but André Aciman’s “Shadow Cities” comes out swinging. “On a late spring morning almost two years ago,” … Read more
Narrative therapy uses a client’s life story to shine a spotlight on how he understands his experience. The concept of an “illness narrative” emerged not in a literary context but over the past two decades in the fields of psychotherapy and … Read more