Journalism’s most idealistic missions are well-known and, despite the sine wave of attacks throughout history and the economic disruptions of the digital age, remain immutable: Give voice to the voiceless. Hold power accountable. Serve the public … Read more
A sentence that grabs you by the heart and hooks you into the narrative is one of the most powerful ways to become one with the pages. It also keeps the reader thinking days later, kind of like a … Read more
You can’t turn around in the U.S. these days without bumping into a cry of “Fake News!” or a news story decrying the same. Not that spin is a modern phenomenon. Throughout human history, propaganda has been a tool … Read more
Novelists often speak of their characters as real people. They are people who have lives that existed before the moment the novel begins and outside its frame, and who reveal their full selves over time, as the writer writes. They … Read more
Jill Lepore is not a florid writer. No trickery with words. No embellishments to wow the reader. Rather, her writing typically demonstrates deep curiosity, methodical reporting, and clear connections. If another writer or student asks me for examples of intelligent, … Read more
As the Memorial Day weekend approaches in the United States, war stories become part of an annual narrative commemorating those who served and died in battle. The stories often are woven from threads of horror and honor, of despair … Read more
Now and again, in the wonderful world of reading, you stumble across a sentence that not only evokes a response or feeling because of what it says, but because of how it says it. This is one of those sentences. Read more
This sentence contains everything that good narrative writing should. There’s the specific detail of the narrator, and there’s universality — the wonder we humans experience when faced with a child growing up. It seems remarkable to me that we … Read more
Why I like it: I imagine my high school grammar teacher, Ms. Weiner, trying to diagram this sentence. We all seek characters to drive our stories. Here, Kerouac lists requirements for the characters that attract him — … Read more
