Malcolm Gladwell does so many things well as a feature writer that it’s embarrassing to mention them all. I’ll list a few of them anyway: Malcolm Gladwell is astonishingly quotable. He writes graceful, intelligent sentences. But he’s also something better … Read more
In this week’s Notable Narrative, we took a semi-quantitative look at how Dahlia Lithwick’s story on a wrongful conviction used one person’s experience as a narrative thread to present a bigger problem. The piece, which followed the exoneration … Read more
America tends to get credit for adding narrative journalism to the literary canon. And there’s no doubt that the combination of timely reporting and timeless writing took on new and exciting forms in the U.S. in the second half of … Read more
It’s been 16 years since I first read Darcy Frey’s piece about the overwhelming, stressful job of being an air traffic controller – 16 years since I first swore never to fly into Newark. Frey’s powerful narrative scarred me for life. Read more
When I was little, my mama worked the early shift at the seafood plant. She’d drop me off at my Aunt Janice’s house before dawn and they’d lay me down on a pallet in the living room. Country music played … Read more
Our February Roundtable looks at “Law creates barriers to getting care for mentally ill,” by Meg Kissinger. In her narrative, Kissinger touches on violence, mental health and 40 years of debates over patients’ rights. The story of Martha … Read more
Our January Editors’ Roundtable looked at “After the battle, Mike Sword’s war within,” a story by Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy about the death of an Air Force veteran in Virginia after service in Iraq. A former Nieman … Read more
As a rule, I’m not one of those readers who flips ahead to the last few pages of an article or book before committing myself to reading it. I like a little mystery in my life. Read more
Our latest Notable Narrative, the story of a mother convicted of killing her adopted son with salt, comes from Pamela Colloff of Texas Monthly.A two-time National Magazine Award finalist, Colloff has been … Read more
There’s a video of Britney Spears shot in 2007, not long after Valentine’s Day. She’s pacing around a tattoo parlor, where she’s just gotten a pair of bright red lips inked on her wrist and a cross etched onto her … Read more