By Jacqui Banaszynski Enjoy an end-of-summer delight, courtesy of Ashley Lodato, a columnist for the Methow Valley News in the far north Cascades of Washington state. Lodato’s writing has caught our attention before; we featured a Why’s This So … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski One of the back-to-school things I looked forward to in grade school was the Weekly Reader, a tab-sized newspaper that was handed out in class. I suppose it carried some features and news stories. But I … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the spirit of transparency, Korrina Duffy wrote this post after attending a weeklong writing workshop I teach through the Madeline Island School of Arts. By Korrina Duffy “The more specific, the more universal.” … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski I sat down to watch the State of the Union address this week out of a sense of obligation and, to be honest, a somewhat dark curiosity. How scripted would it be? How predictable? How long? … Read more
By Chip Scanlan When Rick Rojas became a national correspondent for The New York Times, a colleague told him to focus on the second word of his new title. As correspondents, Rojas says, “We are, in a … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski It’s a common theme when a Storyboard contributor interviews a journalist about a descriptive analogy or metaphor in a written piece: How did you come up with that analogy? The same question comes up again and again when … Read more
Haven’t we all been tortured by those nights when, no matter how hard we try or how desperate we are for rest, we cannot fall asleep — often when we need it most? It is such a universal experience … Read more
“The White Lotus” scorches like burning sand on bare feet. A satire about wealthy white tourists in Hawaii and a mysterious death that springs from their visit, the HBO series poses spiky challenges to viewers and critics grappling with … Read more
If you have read the novels of Dennis Lehane (among them “Gone, Baby, Gone,” “Mystic River” and “Shutter Island,” all made into movies), you know that place is a powerful character, even a protagonist, in his … Read more
Clichés are a bane of original writing. Unless you turn a worn and tired cliché on its ear (I sure hope you notice what I did just there) and make it new. Then all the meaning people attach to … Read more