I learned much of what I value about writing from a man who lost his voice. A slender, black-eyed Panamanian, José Quintero was a legend in the American theater and a guest artist at Florida State University, where … Read more
The director wasn’t satisfied. “Do it again,” she said, after we finished the scene. We did. “Do it again.” We did. “Do it again.” And so on, until we got it right. Or close enough. It was my first … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: This week, in honor of Pride Month, we feature three posts about transgender issues. Read how Lane DeGregory of the Tampa Bay Times handled a profile in 2002, when there were few other journalistic models … Read more
My daughter Zara, who just turned 9, attended her first reporting interview as an infant, napping next to my chest in a snuggly baby wrap tied around my waist. Read more
First, the COVID lockdown. Then retirement. After nearly 40 years as a news professional and 10 as a journalism professor at the University of Idaho, I found myself isolated and bored. Acts I and II of my career were … Read more
I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year. However, I did launch a new morning routine. Every morning I get up, make coffee, get the woodstove going, sit in my reading chair, and: write three pages in my … Read more
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 TV reporter is just another TV reporter, one more mid-market face, holding a microphone, speaking in clipped vowels, an interchangeable local news personality with the kind of interchangeable local news name that promises neither great ambition nor wild … Read more
Fred introduced me to Jerry Jeff Walker — by that, I mean that Fred sent me home, from the Lone Star State, with two purple CDs, one of which shimmered with a track called “Sangria Wine.” I labeled the … Read more
I’ve been struggling to find the right term for the nonfiction writing I most admire. Whether written by Joan Didion, David Grann, Susan Orlean, Héctor Tobar, Isabel Wilkerson, or Gene Weingarten, these are articles, essays, and books that combine … Read more
