Matthew Pearl is a sucker for underdog stories, origin stories and untold stories. Those all came together when the author of best-selling historical fiction thrillers such as “The Dante Club” and “The Poe Shadow” asked: Who were America’s first detectives? And … Read more
As a senior editor commissioning science features for Smithsonian Magazine, Jennie Rothenberg Gritz gets tons of freelance queries. Yet few cold pitches result in an article. Why not? The Pitch In an occasional series, Storyboard examines the elusive art of … Read more
The 22-minute “Vice News Tonight” documentary “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” provided a chilling look at the white supremacists behind the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August. It quickly went viral. Read more
Magazine pitches are an elusive species. You hear talk of them at journalism conferences and in freelancer forums. You see evidence of their existence in the stories they beget. But it’s rare to catch a glimpse of a specimen in … Read more
In March, The New York Times announced that its India-based South Asia bureau chief, Ellen Barry, would relocate to London to become chief international correspondent. Accordingly, Barry loaded everything she owned onto a container ship in Mumbai that was already … Read more
Over his career at the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Curwen has written and edited for the Outdoor section, the Book Review, the features desk and the Metro desk. Despite his wide-ranging interests, his enduring passion is for stories that, as … Read more
Mac McClelland is no stranger to risk and discomfort: This is a woman who has reported on rape in Haiti’s tent cities and genocide in Myanmar. But she didn’t expect to fear for her life when she set out to … Read more
Some people are made for what they do. Steph Curry was made to play basketball. Dave Chappelle to deliver jokes. You get that feeling with Kent Russell and his writing. He makes the difficult appear effortless. Don’t believe me? Why … Read more
Rich Schapiro is always searching. Whether he’s writing a quick-hit 800-word spot feature for the New York Daily News or a magazine feature that’s taken years to report, Schapiro is on the hunt for deeper meaning — a “character conflict,” … Read more
Profiles are hard. Too often they’re drenched in the writer’s attempts to make the subject seem larger than life. But good profiles have the opposite effect: Through their honesty and attention to perhaps mundane detail — and, as Outside Magazine contributing editor … Read more
