By Chip Scanlan The best narrative writers know they need not just to interview after the fact, but to observe in the moment. They want to be on the scene, where they see characters and action unfold in real … Read more
By Mallary Tenore Tarpley Up until I started writing my first book, I wasn’t a big outliner. I spent the earlier part of my career writing news and feature stories about the media industry, then transitioned into writing personal … Read more
By Chip Scanlan When Thomas Curwen of the Los Angeles Times decided to write about mental health care in California through the lens of one patient, he faced a daunting challenge: tracking the erratic chronology of … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of two posts about a complex tale of crime, assumptions and mental health published by The Atavist. Today we talk with writer Katia Savchuk about how she found and reported the story. Tomorrow, Atavist editor … Read more
The subjects that draw author, lecturer and essayist Andrew Solomon are never easy or light: Racial bias, gender and sexual identity, the changing definitions of family and, perhaps most notably, mental health. His 2012 book … Read more
Dementia — the inexorable erosion of memory that erases the mind and eventually robs the body of its most basic abilities — is growing to epidemic levels as America ages. It brings the same fear today that a cancer … Read more
