“If you know what you want to say, you’ll figure out how to say it.” That’s what Steve Padilla, editor of Column One at the Los Angeles Times, told a virtual gathering of the San Diego Press Club on … Read more
Somewhere in the early pages of “Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process,” John McPhee gives a nod to daily news reporters. The author and New Yorker writer was explaining his own, wildly successful writing … Read more
John McPhee John McPhee, a master of nonfiction storytelling, became a teacher by accident. In 1974, when he was a fast-rising star at The New Yorker, his … Read more
Before Christopher Solomon took on the case of the wolf researcher who ignited a political firestorm, the situation had sparked plenty of regional coverage. In particular, The Seattle Times, where Solomon reported for six years before his leap to … Read more
John McPhee’s great subject has always been work. From his first book, “A Sense of Where You Are,” which came out in 1965 and portrays basketball star and Rhodes Scholar Bill Bradley, to “Uncommon Carriers” (2006), with its truckers and … Read more
If you wanted to do a word cloud of the literary journalism conference I just attended in Nova Scotia, the word “feel” might be the largest image. Then imagination. And memory. And voice. And trust. You’ll see above that I … Read more
This week I left the snows of New England for a visit to my old stomping grounds in California. It was a bit head-spinning for a couple of reasons: When I left last year, California was in drought. Now it’s … Read more
Here’s a highly curated list for you. Robert Atwan, the editor of the “Best American Essays” series, has selected for the Publishers Weekly website his top 10 essays since 1950. Atwan is careful to point out that he chose the best … Read more
Before Rebecca Skloot published the bestselling The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she wrote magazines stories about science and about animals. You may remember her New York Times magazine piece “Fixing Nemo,” about goldfish surgery, and her O, … Read more
A story without sound lies too dead on the page. Imagine “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster,” by Jon Franklin, without the pop … pop … pop of the operating-room sensors. Or Tom Wolfe‘s “The Girl of … Read more
