First there was Nathalie, an English language learner who whispered that she’d never done well in English, never liked it, but this course was different. And her writing was getting better. Then there was Nseandra, who avoided the news … Read more
A group of journalists clustered along a table at a lovely restaurant in Bergen, Norway, late last month, chattering about our work and how good it was to be back in the wrap of the narrative tribe after our … Read more
In the spring of 2021, when President Biden announced the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, Anand Gopal knew there was an untold story concealed in the flood of media attention that the withdrawal would trigger. About a … Read more
Moni Basu was a news reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) when she was sent to Baghdad to write about a Georgia-based military unit. It was 2005. The 48th Infantry Brigade, a National Guard unit, hadn’t been called … Read more
Story craft surrounds us, not just in journalism but in pretty much everything I can think of. Proof, I guess, that humans are hard-wired for story. It teaches, informs, entertains, enlightens, cautions, guides us and more. I have been … Read more
A few years ago, Line Vaaben was eating a traditional Christmas dinner at her home in Copenhagen. Vaaben, a 2014 European Press Prize finalist, remembered a story that followed a potato from the field … Read more
Every morning I wake up and do exactly what selfcarefederation.org and everydayhealth.com and verywellmind.com and all those other “take care of yourself” sites and blogs and organizations tell me not to do. I dive into the news of the … Read more
The Queen is dead. Long live the King. OK, that may be the most predictable line I’ve ever written, but a version of it has been working for the Brits for, what, about 1,100 years … Read more
As I write these words I am propped up in bed, six days into COVID, chipping through my fugue at a 6,000-word story that was due before I got COVID. It’s 99 degrees outside my window in Boise, Idaho, … Read more
A stray remark during a visit with her grandmother sent newspaper reporter Casey Parks, then a college journalism student, on a years-long quest to unearth the story of a trans man in Louisiana. As the project evolved — from … Read more
