“Life means suffering.” According to the Buddha, that is the first of four “noble truths” that together define human existence. I’m not much of a Buddhist (I’m a lapsed Catholic who owns a rarely used meditation pillow), but as a … Read more
Dementia — the inexorable erosion of memory that erases the mind and eventually robs the body of its most basic abilities — is growing to epidemic levels as America ages. It brings the same fear today that a cancer … Read more
Sunday, December 28, 1986. An ordinary day, much like any other. Except in two operating rooms at Fairfax Hospital in suburban Virginia, where something extraordinary was about to happen. In one lay a young man, his body split from … Read more
Douglas Haynes spent nearly 10 years working on his book “Every Day We Live is the Future: Surviving in a City of Disasters.” So when it was finally published late last year, he was understandably gratified that his decade-long project … 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
Jill Lepore is both a historian at Harvard — the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, to be precise — and since 2005 a staff writer at The New Yorker, to which she contributes brilliant … Read more
“What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s exhaustive account of the 1988 presidential election, took so long to report and write—six years in all—that it wasn’t published until the 1992 election. Clocking in at over 1,000 pages, it’s a … Read more
Editor’s Note: Anyone who writes about politics and politicians knows how difficult it is to bring fresh insight to familiar issues and personalities. That challenge is even greater if your subject is the most well-known woman in the United States, … Read more
More than a few journalists have dreamed of turning their stories into films. Chicago Tribune features writer Kevin Pang actually did, producing a 90-minute documentary about a troubled chef’s attempt to open the country’s best restaurant. In the … Read more
Editor’s Note: Welcome to the newest installment of “Writing the Book,” an occasional Storyboard feature in which journalists turned authors discuss the challenges of creating their work. In this essay, freelancer and 2013 Nieman affiliate Barbara Mahany explores how she … Read more