The hell with my lede. Let’s start with his: I’m sitting in a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, waiting for a call from a man who doesn’t trust me, hoping he’ll have answers about a man I don’t trust, which … Read more
There’s long-form narrative, and then there’s book-length narrative. Both are “long,” but a story that’s 300 pages long is a different proposition, for both writer and reader, from one that’s 3,000 words. Writers embarking on their first book-length project respond … Read more
Continuing the Nieman Foundation narrative writing speaker series set up by Paige Williams, journalism legend Gay Talese appeared on campus two weeks ago in conversation with Esquire’s Chris Jones. The Harvard Writers at Work lecture series co-sponsored … Read more
Esquire writer at large Chris Jones came to the Nieman Foundation two weeks ago as part of the Narrative Writing speakers series I started at the foundation last year, and spent a couple of hours talking about craft. Jones began … Read more
There are two stories from the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, that to me remain better than all the others. R.W. Apple wrote a news analysis that ran on the front of the New York Times on Sept. Read more
Our November Editors’ Roundtable looked at “Hecho en América,” a story by GQ correspondent Jeanne Marie Laskas about migrant blueberry pickers in Maine. Laskas’ work has been featured previously on this site, and has won her a slot … Read more
Magic and writing tricks differ in at least one happy way: A writing trick’s delights only increase once you see through the sleight of hand. In “Inhaling the Spore,” writing about a visit to a very peculiar museum, Lawrence … Read more
It’s hard to think of a single magazine piece that exerts as world-historical an influence upon its genre as Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” the 1966 Esquire profile that redefined the way that long-form journalists write … Read more
“Our brains are hard-wired for story” is one common argument for why narrative is useful in journalism, in writing, in life. The phrase has always made me uncomfortable, because while humans have been telling stories for thousands of years, we … Read more
This week’s Editors’ Roundtable dives into Jessica Pressler’s story “A Holly Golightly for the Stripper-Embezzlement Age,” from New York magazine. A contributing editor and blogger for New York since 2007, Pressler has profiled a wide range of … Read more