Joan Didion died on December 23, 2021, and by Christmas internet searches were returning page after page of obituaries that described her as a “peerless prose stylist.” She has long been celebrated as a journalist, essayist, novelist and memoirist, … Read more
In 1990, Joan Didion received an assignment from Bob Silvers, editor at the New York Review of Books, to write about a highly publicized, emotionally fraught crime almost nobody wanted to read about after it was, in theory, solved. Read more
This week we spotlighted talented women on Storyboard — be they writers, performers or proto-feminists of the 18th century. I love this quote from Adrian LaBlanc, one of the women included in “The Stories We Tell” anthology below: “I won’t be … Read more
The 1967 edition of the annual “Best Magazine Articles” anthology has six names on the cover: Gay Talese, Gore Vidal, Stephen Becker, Conrad Aiken, Conrad Knickerbocker and Tom Wolfe. Underneath those names it says, “and others.” … Read more
In her memoir about the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, Joan Didion writes about the night she lost the man who can only be described as her other half. She recalls how a social worker described her to … Read more
Just in time for the weekend, here’s a little list of some of the things I’ve been listening to and reading this week, some of it online — Storyboard included, natch — and some of it on vinyl or actual … Read more
Why is it great? This essay has a more famous line, which is being quoted a lot these days: “Then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in … Read more
We just posted our 100th “Why’s This So Good?,” Abeer Najjar’s look at the Susan Dominus story in the New York Times Magazine, “Hana.” Nearly twice a month since June 2011, we’ve had accomplished journalists … Read more
Editor’s note: In his second and final installment from last weekend’s “Power of Narrative” conference at Boston University, current Nieman Fellow Gabe Bullard explores strategies for storytelling as outlined by author Joshua Wolf Shenk during his session at the … Read more
