Some book purists may cringe at this, but one test of a great book, to me, is how many pages are dogeared by the time I finish. Those are the ones I tuck on a shelf, reluctant to take … Read more
It was while listening to a Tamil story on Spotify that the thought occurred to me: Listening to stories in vernacular Indian languages had changed my writing. Some of the influence came from the cadences of speech. Some came … Read more
In “The Art of Description: World into Word,” Mark Doty writes that Proust endeavored to “dilate the sentence toward its outer limit, so that one would feel the blur of space and time that the unit of syntax … Read more
Every year, or as often as I can, I go into the northern Minnesota woods, usually alone now, seeking tranquility and time to brood and reflect. And I write while I’m there, among the pines, at a campfire or … Read more
We are living in a century of displacement, says Jessica Goudeau, award-winning author of “After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America.” And because we are, journalists need to learn to … Read more
“If you know what you want to say, you’ll figure out how to say it.” That’s what Steve Padilla, editor of Column One at the Los Angeles Times, told a virtual gathering of the San Diego Press Club on … Read more
If you’re not a fan of “A River Runs Through It,” it can only be because you haven’t read it yet. Norman Maclean’s 1976 novella of family dynamics plays out on Montana’s Blackfoot River and is an enduring … Read more
My daughter Zara, who just turned 9, attended her first reporting interview as an infant, napping next to my chest in a snuggly baby wrap tied around my waist. Read more
Hemingway is having a moment. Again. The eponymous documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that has been airing and streaming on PBS — air streaming? — has exhumed the cultural conversation about the author. That … Read more
Pull up Roy Peter Clark’s website and you’ll see it leads with a reference to him as “America’s writing coach.” The source of that comment isn’t specified, but could likely be claimed by any number of the thousands … Read more
