EDITOR’S NOTE: Cathy Henkel, a retired newspaper reporter and editor from Seattle, was wintering on the west coast of Mexico when borders closed because of COVID. She turned a hobby of shell-and-stone creations into a daily practice and posted it … Read more
The retirement of newspaper editors is usually the stuff of insider industry news. Occasionally one breaks through to merit attention far more broadly. Martin Baron is one of those. The announcement of his retirement, effective Feb. 28, 2021, as … Read more
By now, you’ve no doubt seen a few dozen — or several thousand — of the creative memes featuring Bernie’s Chair. Or is it properly thought of as Bernie’s Mittens? Maybe we need an art naming contest: “Bernie on … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of two posts today analyzing the power of the presidential inaugural poem delivered Jan. 20, 2020, by Amanda Gorman, and reflecting on its place in history. The one below, by Roy Peter Clark, is cross-posted … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of two posts today analyzing the power of the presidential inaugural poem delivered Jan. 20, 2020, by Amanda Gorman, and reflecting on its place in history. The other, by writing teacher Roy Peter Clark of … Read more
Question to a successful writer (newspapers, magazines, book) who now does contract editing for top mastheads: What are your expectations for a clips search when a writer pitches a story? Answer: That they did one. After we stopped laughing, … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: This essay and analysis on journalistic language was first published by our friends at The Poynter Institute, and is shared with permission. One of my favorite songs by the great Aaron Neville is “Tell It Like It … Read more
Worthy books are released almost every day. No doubt more than a few authors bemoaned the publication of their hard work this past year, when so much of the world’s attention was distracted by a lethal pandemic and lethal … Read more
Oh, to study those yellowed pages, with words pecked by a typewriter, then crossed out and scribbled over and typed on more pages. To marvel at those scrapbooks — more than two dozen of them — holding clips dating … Read more
The email that pinged my inbox Wednesday, as an assault on the U.S. Capitol was at its most intense, was quick and blunt: “Aren’t you glad you’re not out there?” I responded with similar blunt speed: “No. Read more