The thing about being the first pick in the NBA draft – especially if you’re 19-year-old Kwame Brown, the youngest No. 1 pick ever – is that you become the subject of a lot of newspaper stories.
By April 2002, the end of Brown’s rookie season with the Washington Wizards, dozens of reporters had dutifully written profiles about [...]
Category Archives: words
“Why’s this so good?” No. 30: Sally Jenkins picks Kwame Brown
by Megan Greenwell |
January 31, 2012
Beth Macy on Edna Buchanan, sources in conflict, and stories too sad to tell
Our January Editors’ Roundtable looked at “After the battle, Mike Sword’s war within,” a story by Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy about the death of an Air Force veteran in Virginia after service in Iraq. A former Nieman Fellow, Macy has also been a contributor to the American Journalism Review, Parade, and O, the Oprah Magazine. She [...]
Pamela Colloff on storytelling, justice and letting readers think for themselves
Our latest Notable Narrative, the story of a mother convicted of killing her adopted son with salt, comes from Pamela Colloff of Texas Monthly. A two-time National Magazine Award finalist, Colloff has been at Texas Monthly since 1997, and her work has also appeared in The New Yorker and three editions of “Best American Crime [...]
“Watching the detectives” at the New Yorker Festival
We were sad to miss the New Yorker Festival a ways back, but have finally had a chance to look at some videos from the event, and wanted to deliver a few highlights relevant to storytellers. There were a lot of tempting sessions – Atul Gawande! Janet Malcolm! David Remnick! – but given the number [...]
“Why’s this so good?” No. 27: Christopher Goffard tracks love in flight
by Mark Johnson |
January 10, 2012
One drawer of my desk – the largest – contains a mound of stories, the best I’ve found in newspapers and magazines over the last 20 years. In addition, three or four “great writing” folders float around the top of my work space; faux-wood fragments of the desktop are seldom visible.
Then there are a handful of individual stories [...]
Ben Montgomery on a cold case: building a story and taking names
This week’s Notable Narrative recounts the murder of Claude Neal by a lynch mob in 1934 and introduces his family, which has been waiting for decades for someone to name the killers and hold them to account. Tampa Bay Times reporter Ben Montgomery talked with us by phone this week about reporting and writing “Spectacle: [...]
When journalists become authors: a few cautionary tips
by Peter Ginna |
December 15, 2011
There’s long-form narrative, and then there’s book-length narrative. Both are “long,” but a story that’s 300 pages long is a different proposition, for both writer and reader, from one that’s 3,000 words.
Writers embarking on their first book-length project respond to the challenge in different ways. Some panic, staring blankly at their screen as fine beads [...]
When I write the book: Nieman Reports on journalists who wrestle with long long-form
The Winter issue of Nieman Reports, with the theme “Writing the Book,” is now online. It includes contributions from digital publishers, narrative writers, and a passel of journalists who have gone on to tackle book-length projects. Here are a few highlights:
In “Writing a Life, Living a Writer’s Life,” former Nieman fellow Gaiutra Bahadur recounts her [...]
Gay Talese has a Coke*: reflections of a narrative legend, in conversation with Esquire’s Chris Jones
Continuing a Nieman Foundation narrative writing speaker series set up by Paige Williams, journalism legend Gay Talese appeared on campus two weeks ago in conversation with Esquire’s Chris Jones. The Harvard Writers at Work lecture series co-sponsored the standing-room-only event, where Talese and Jones were introduced by current Nieman fellow Adam Tanner of Reuters. What follows is [...]
Chris Jones on reporting for detail, the case against outlining and the power of donuts
by Paige Williams |
December 1, 2011
Esquire writer at large Chris Jones came to the Nieman Foundation two weeks ago as part of the Narrative Writing speakers series I started at the foundation last year, and spent a couple of hours talking about craft. Jones began his career as a sportswriter for the National Post in Toronto, where he covered boxing, which became [...]
