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Probing a Mind for a Cure

By Notable Narratives March 14, 2007

This story received the AAAS best science writing award in 2006 for newspapers and appears in Best Science Writing 2007, edited by Gina Kolata. It’s a fine example of both matching hard science and human narrative and using strong writing … Read more

Drugnet

By Notable Narratives January 4, 2007

Shiffman and his editor, Avery Rome, made a very complicated story readable and highly engaging by sticking closely to narrative technique. Read “Drugnet,” by John Shiffman … Read more

Writing for Their Lives

By Notable Narratives August 31, 2006

As we read this series, we thought of Chip Scanlan’s discussion of using private records for insights into characters. This entire series is, in a sense, based on the private records of struggling kids. Through Snyder’s reporting on a … Read more

Black Hawk Down

By Notable Narratives November 18, 2004

We found the level of action detail in this gruesome series remarkable: Bowden traces what happened when—who got shot where, shrieked, said what, shot whom, with what—with striking clarity. We imagine that spelling out each thread in the bloody narrative … Read more