Access is everything when it comes to documentary photography. Of all the challenges that immersion storytellers face in their work, perhaps none is more formidable. “Humanity should always come first. What better way to help a person carry on … Read more
You could say there’s a certain symmetry to the fact William Melvin Kelley, the black “lost giant of American literature,” as The New Yorker called him earlier this year, was “rediscovered” by a white writer. One question could … Read more
The third-grade students in Misterbianco, a small town at the foot of Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, watched, rapt, as the heavy puppets moved on a school auditorium stage. The kids laughed, open their mouths with astonishment, then clapped. When … Read more
Six years ago, in the early days of the Syrian uprising, a group of anti-government activists in a Damascus suburb decided to start their own newspaper. “If I look back to myself reporting at that time, we were amateurs. Read more
It isn’t often that you open a book and leap into your childhood. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I flipped through New York-based photographer Ayesha Malik’s book, Aramco: Above the Oil Fields. “We don’t … Read more
Few topics are as misunderstood by the media as mental health. Despite advances in treatment paradigms, reporters too often fall back on dated stereotypes, distort the nature of illnesses and recovery and rely on shaky sources. Those are some of … Read more
The Power of Narrative: Telling True Stories in Turbulent Times March 23-25 Boston University Boston, Massachusetts It looks like the longest-running narrative journalism conference is making a point of spotlighting great female journalists and writers this year. Read more
Just a stone’s throw away from the high-finance hustle of the World Trade Center in NYC, I came across a simple blue-and-white sign on a glass door that read: The Poets House. The first thing I noticed was the … Read more
I read poetry. Chalk it up to an English degree, perhaps too much Milton or Wordsworth as an undergrad, or a line or two that I once might have penned one dark and stormy night. But as a journalist, I … Read more
Almost all of us have home movies of our families somewhere, from the flickering black and white of 8-millimeter film to the Instagramable perfection of an iPhone video. We like to think of them as a kind of homespun cinema … Read more
