While there are no dearth of journalism textbooks on the market, many skim over well-trod territory rather than dive deep into a specialty field. And those that do take that deep dive — whether writing about how to interview … Read more
When I first discovered that Earl Shaffer — the first man acknowledged to have hiked the entire 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine — lived nearby, I went through his brother John Shaffer with an interview request. It … Read more
Why is it great? Nabokov is masterful here, not just stylistically but emotionally. He interrupts Humbert Humbert’s grotesque pursuit of Lolita by having him address the reader directly with an abject plea for understanding, a jarring moment that makes us … Read more
Marion Abrahams-Welsh grew up with four generations of her family on hilly Sheppard Street in the Cape Town neighborhood known as District Six. Fourteen of them shared a small home filled with love and possibility, even though they had little … Read more
Sometimes the idea for a book springs from what you don’t know. David Grann had never heard of the “Osage Murders” until a historian he was talking to mentioned the series of mysterious deaths among members of the wealthy Osage … Read more
As the 1960s came to an end, America was on the brink of a revolution, with the ascendant counterculture challenging nearly every aspect of American society at home while the Vietnam War continued to wage on abroad. Clara Bingham recounts … Read more
Dale Russakoff spent 28 years as a reporter for The Washington Post before writing her first book, “The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?” Russakoff, who took a buyout in 2008, was near the end of a long recuperation … Read more
When Buzz Bissinger visited the Nieman Foundation last week, in some ways he was coming home. Twenty-six years ago, he finished his Nieman year inspired to do new and different work. He’d made his career in newspapers, most recently at the … Read more
“Our brains are hard-wired for story” is one common argument for why narrative is useful in journalism, in writing, in life. The phrase has always made me uncomfortable, because while humans have been telling stories for thousands of years, we … Read more
Any piece about New York City has a heavyweight champion to contend with – E.B. White’s “Here Is New York” – but André Aciman’s “Shadow Cities” comes out swinging. “On a late spring morning almost two years ago,” … Read more