Here is a self-editing origin story: I was back from my first truly big reporting assignment, which was to cover the 1984-85 famine in the sub-Sahara. I was exhausted, emotional about what I had seen, and … Read more
Writers usually stuff facts in dispatches from the front or the cop shop or the accident scene. All those W’s and H’s, jammed together. Generally, the formula works. But individual facts, as well as individuals, can become lost in … Read more
Who can say what causes a reader to pause, in one moment, a line or passage she might zoom through at other times? Some sudden notice of the melody of language? Some echo of a forgotten conversation? For me, … Read more
My mother’s reverence for education, a solid grounding in middle-school grammar, and a long career in old-school journalism has chiseled me into one of those people who honors language, and tries to be precise — at least when I … Read more
