School Shootings

Insight from the other side of the notebook

By Matt Tullis• Narrative News• April 16, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Mass shootings have become a tragic American story. School shootings are an especially searing chapter in that narrative. This week marks the 20th anniversary of Columbine, a high school in Colorado where 13 students were … Read more

Ripping up the narrative arc and fumbling your way to structure

By Monique Brouillette• Story Craft• April 3, 2019

  Every story has a beginning, middle, and an end. But in the telling, stories don’t necessarily conform to that neat order. For Dave Cullen, freelance journalist and bestselling author, there is plenty of room for … Read more

Q&A: How a letter, honesty and patience won the trust of a shamed school cop

By Pat Walters• 5 Questions• August 16, 2018

This week marks a return to school for students around the country, including at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, where six months ago a gunman shot and killed 17 students and staff members. The massacre in Parkland … Read more

“The fact was it felt good to be angry, to yell and curse, because if she wasn’t angry then she was mostly afraid: of nightmares, of being alone, of the shadows in the church parking lot across the street, of cars backfiring, of the sound of knocking coming now at the door.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• June 28, 2017

Why is it great? This week we’re spotlighting stellar literary journalism about America’s gun violence epidemic, and this stunning story by Eli Saslow takes an intimate, often uncomfortably close look at the life of a shooting victim after all the … Read more

5 Questions: The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow and “A survivor’s life”

By Francisco Vara-Orta• October 20, 2016

In a media landscape quite dependent on quick takes on Twitter and videos transmitted by smartphones, Eli Saslow’s byline offers reassurance of the staying power of the written word. We know what follows will offer a depth of humanity that’s … Read more