A top reporter and storyteller, Eli Saslow was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing two weeks ago for his story about a struggling swimming pool salesman.Today, in the latest installment of our Annotation Tuesday! series, we’re looking at another of Saslow’s pieces, one that he wrote for ESPN The Magazine, about Rumeal Robinson, a former University [...]
Tag Archives: David Finkel
Eli Saslow on detail, dignity, nut grafs, patience, reporting v. writing, and what’s in his notebook
November 23, 2012 – 12:49 am
Our latest Notable Narrative is an Eli Saslow story called “Life of a salesman,” about a swimming-pool salesman struggling in a terrible economy. Yesterday, we listed some of the story’s virtues. Today, we talk to Saslow, an award-winning Washington Post staff writer and ESPN The Magazine contributor, about the story and plenty more. Storyboard: Frank Firetti [...]
“The Power of Storytelling,” Part 4: Chris Jones on why stories matter, Pat Walters on endings, Walt Harrington on integrity
November 2, 2012 – 8:59 am
In Part 3 of our recap of Romania’s “Power of Storytelling” conference on narrative journalism, radio producer Starlee Kine talked about story forms and themes; Esquire‘s Mike Sager talked about listening, and about suspending disbelief; and Pulitzer winner Alex Tizon talked about writing one’s own story. In Part 2, Pulitzer winner Jacqui Banaszynski wrote a short essay about why she and eight other North American [...]
Junot Díaz on imagination, language, success, the role of the teacher, the health of American literature and Star Wars as a narrative teaching tool
October 12, 2012 – 8:31 am
To hear the novelist Junot Díaz talk about writing is to have your mind augured open to new ways of processing the human experience and to feel swept up in the poetics of the real. A Dominican Republic native who moved to New Jersey at age 6, Díaz teaches at MIT and writes primarily about the lives of [...]
David Finkel on winning the MacArthur “genius” grant
October 5, 2012 – 8:17 am
David Finkel of The Washington Post won a MacArthur “genius” grant this week for his body of long-form narrative journalism, particularly his coverage of the war in Iraq. In awarding him the coveted $500,000 prize, the MacArthur Foundation singled out his 2009 book The Good Soldiers, which recounts nearly a year in the life of [...]
Turning a newspaper project into a book: Christopher Goffard on “You Will See Fire”
February 24, 2012 – 12:50 pm
We recently noticed that Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard had expanded a series he had done for the paper into the book “You Will See Fire.” We’ve talked with other narrative journalists who have done a similar thing (David Finkel, Tom French), but in this case, we thought it would be interesting to focus [...]
Eli Saslow on writing news narratives, creating empathy and characters’ defining moments
April 29, 2011 – 8:09 am
Our latest Notable Narrative comes from The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow, who wrote about a Wisconsin man’s attempt to understand what the federal budget debate means for his family. In addition to working seven years at the Post and serving as a visiting professor at the University of Montana School of Journalism in 2010, Saslow [...]
Robert Caro, Stacy Schiff, Diane Ackerman and more: narrative conferences and workshops in 2011
January 20, 2011 – 11:53 am
Was one of your resolutions in 2011 to become a better storyteller? If so, here are a few conferences and workshops slated for the coming months that can probably teach you a thing or two. These sessions range from one-day conferences to week-long writing intensives, and none of them are free (they range from less [...]
