For several years, I have been captivated by a porpoise. The cetacean in question is the vaquita, a Mexican marine mammal that is shy, adorable, and totally screwed. The reasons for its imminent demise are too complex to … Read more
Dear Reader, As the holiday weekend approached, a newspaper friend asked me why, as editor of a community newspaper, I reprinted the editorial “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” on Christmas day every year for 15 years. Usually … Read more
One honey-glazed autumn afternoon, I watched a tangle of fifth-graders playing Capture the Flag in a park in Boise, Idaho. Their favorite soundtrack blared in the background: Alexander Hamilton. My name is Alexander Hamilton. And there’s a million … Read more
The Facebook post was conversational and almost light-hearted: And on Day Two of Camp Fire coverage, I spilled water all over my notebook and laptop (tips?!). Seems fitting that the only legible line is this: “But I don’t live … Read more
Sometimes I push writing students to look for new ways to tell stories. Should you start with the “small” things? Is there a story in the way a character dresses? How about the things they hang on the wall … Read more
New York Times sportswriter John Branch is best known in the journalism world for “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek.” His gripping long-form narrative, which reconstructed a fatal avalanche in the Washington … Read more
I sat on a bench with Wade Livingston the other day. We talked about an alligator attack, a woman who drowned, and the people who saw fit to condemn her for the audacity to up and die while walking her dog. Read more
The opening paragraph of Rebecca Solnit’s new LitHub essay, “Why the President Must Be Impeached,” is a single sentence, 88 words long. It is one of the shortest paragraphs in a 20-paragraph soliloquy about her take on the … Read more
The story started in one direction and ended up going in a jarringly different one. But when the time came to write a feature on the Auburn Tigers softball team, ESPN’s Tom Junod went back to where he’d … Read more
“We walk through life influenced by all sorts of weird stuff,” says “Letter of Recommendation” editor Willy Staley. His column in The New York Times Magazine offers a place to celebrate those obsessions, fascinations and private joys, in a tight … Read more
