Over his career at the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Curwen has written and edited for the Outdoor section, the Book Review, the features desk and the Metro desk. Despite his wide-ranging interests, his enduring passion is for stories that, as … Read more
We’ve become too familiar, sadly, with the narrative of destructive PTSD as troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the hands of Los Angeles Times writer Thomas Curwen, we find a quieter but no less devastating picture of … Read more
In honor of Halloween, here are a few “ghost” stories that got the Storyboard treatment in years past. All treats, no tricks. Enjoy! “Why’s this so good?” No. 33: Michael Paterniti’s painted ghosts High Country News’ Michelle … 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
My first memory of reading something by Tom Curwen is like one of those dreams where you wake up and you want to hold onto it, but it slips away and you’re left wondering if it ever happened. Read more
Registration is now open for “The Latest in Longform,” the new, small-scale narrative journalism conference at the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Organized by former Nieman narrative maven Constance Hale, the Nov. 8 conference is … Read more
Word nerds, you’ll want to stock up on yellow highlighters for Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, Constance Hale’s newest book on writing and language. In her follow-up to Sin and Syntax, Hale, a journalist and writing teacher, autopsies and … Read more
It was summer; it was winter. The village disappeared behind skeins of fog. Fishermen came and went in boats named Reverence, Granite Prince, Souwester. Whenever I find my writing drifting into the simple staccato of basic exposition, whenever I question … Read more
Our latest “what we’re reading” draws on the stalwart print newspapers and magazines that have carried the banner of long-form narrative for so long. From a 5-part investigation of a shipwreck to a story of an athlete’s final months, these … Read more
Narrative journalism has been dogged for years by the idea that it is too subjective or somehow less capable of conveying hard numbers to the public than a traditional news story. In a world where data mining and visualizations have … Read more