Archive: Mar 2017

“This is a love story, and I apologize; it was inadvertent. But I want it clearly understood from the start that I don’t expect it to turn out well.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Moment• March 15, 2017

Why is it great? Have you ever read a book and found it hard to get over a terrible first line? You want to move on, and the other 100,000 sentences in the book may be just fine, but that … Read more

5(ish) Questions: Diarmid Mogg and the crazy-compelling “Small Town Noir”

By Kari Howard• Strictly Q&A• March 14, 2017

Anna Mae McNeil stares past the camera, the smudge of an old bruise under her right eye. The words “New Castle, Pa., No. 220” are written in white ink below her face. It is Feb. 5, 1933, and Anna … Read more

Let’s hear it for women writers like Dorothy Parker and Zadie Smith the *other* 364 days

By Kari Howard• Narrative News• March 10, 2017

This week, International Women’s Day really grabbed the spotlight with the Day Without a Woman protests and homages to role models on social media (shout-out to Nieman Lab’s great Instagram posts on inspirational women journalists). But the crowds weren’t … Read more

5(ish) Questions: Jesse Lenz and The Collective Quarterly magazine

By Don Bartletti• Strictly Q&A• March 9, 2017

In today’s world of impossibly speeded-up journalism, with Twitter bursts its high-velocity symbol, a small group of renegades has resolutely slammed on the brakes to practice what it calls “slow journalism.” “Anyone can photograph a sunset in a … Read more

“Hazel Morse was a large, fair woman of the type that incites some men when they use the word ‘blonde’ to click their tongues and wag their heads roguishly.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Moment• March 8, 2017

Why is it great? With this opening line to her famous short story, Parker does so many things: She gives us an image of Hazel that’s Kodachrome clear: I can almost hear the old-fashioned pop of the flash. She also establishes Hazel … Read more

Notable Narrative: Bernt Jakob Oksnes and “The Baby in the Plastic Bag”

By Kari Howard• Notable Narratives• March 7, 2017

The words appear on a blank white screen, accompanied by an atonal, ominous peal of music. “One frosty October morning, a newborn baby boy is found inside a plastic bag inside an Oslo graveyard. The baby is about to die.” … Read more

The politics of language, from terrorists vs. freedom fighters to “carnage” in Chicago

By Kari Howard• Narrative News• March 3, 2017

We seem to have two recurring motifs going on this week on Storyboard — animals and the politicization of language. On the animal front, we have Christopher Solomon’s “cute even when it’s dead” otter, and a mouse climbing a wall in … Read more

5(ish) Questions: Latino USA producer Marlon Bishop on the backstory of the NPR show’s most downloaded episode ever

By Julie Schwietert Collazo• Strictly Q&A• March 2, 2017

To the FBI, he was one of the most dangerous revolutionaries in the United States. To his supporters in the Puerto Rican independence movement, he was a freedom fighter. An important part of the mission of Latino USA is … Read more

“He watched a mouse saunter up the electric cord leading to the nonfunctioning clock over the hotel bar and asked the Chinese waitress in German whether it was a tiger.”

By Steve Chawkins• One Great Moment• March 1, 2017

This vivid, funny, terrific sentence could have been drawn from Lewis Carroll, but it’s from the middle of a deadline story on the frustrations of two “peace commissions” that were unable to keep the peace in Vietnam.  The observer is a Polish Army … Read more