I’m in Nova Scotia for a literary journalism conference (more on that in the coming days), and it’s been incredibly heartening to see such passion for the genre. I’ve heard wonderful discussions on everything from John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” written … Read more
A scene from the annual Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism conference. Courtesy Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism As the Arab Spring began to … Read more
Why is it great? We annotated this wonderful story last year, and the focus of the annotation was the rarity of humor in longform. This line makes me laugh even without the context of the story, which is … Read more
The word “lament” is a sadly beautiful thing, its layers and meanings distinct, yet entwined. In music, it is a song of loss, of missing someone or something that is no longer there. As a verb, it expresses grief, … Read more
This was a special week on Storyboard, because we shone a spotlight on some journalists who often don’t get the recognition they deserve. Latina journalists, a minority within a minority in the field, are doing some standout work, among them … Read more
Why is it great? When I moved back to New England last year after nearly a lifetime away, John Cheever’s debut novel about a quirky New England family was the first thing I read. This sentence, near the beginning, captured … Read more
Filmmaker David Layton isn’t a stranger to the newsroom. Before he produced and directed documentaries, he was a newspaper reporter, so perhaps it’s not surprising that his next project, “The Newspaperman,” is a film about one of the 20th century’s … Read more
Numbers can tell a story, but they can also be relentlessly abstract. That was certainly the case for Ciudád Juárez, which over the course of four years faced a relentless wave of cartel violence. From 2008 to 2011, the Mexican … Read more