Yesterday, our Editors’ Roundtable dissected “Ala. tornado twists two families together” by Stephanie McCrummen, which follows the development of an unlikely connection in the aftermath of a tornado. Late last month, McCrummen talked with us by email about the piece. An enterprise reporter for The Washington Post, McCrummen joined the paper in 2004. Before that, [...]
Tag Archives: David Finkel
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 [...]
Tom French on zoo stories, narrative nonfiction and the pleasures of playing anthropologist
September 14, 2010 – 12:38 pm
In 2007, St. Petersburg Times reporter Tom French delivered a nine-part series about Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo, which led to the writing of “Zoo Story,” published in July. In his book, French focuses on the lives of a number of mammals, including Enshalla (a tiger), Herman (a chimp) and Lex Salisbury (the director of the zoo). [...]
David Finkel on The Good Soldiers: “I’m not obligated to these men, but I do want to tell a story that they recognize”
May 3, 2010 – 4:35 pm
Tomorrow, Washington Post national enterprise editor David Finkel will receive the 2010 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for The Good Soldiers, a bruising account of a U.S. Army battalion’s service in Iraq during 2007 and 2008. The $10,000 prize, announced by the Nieman Foundation and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, is given for excellence [...]
Tom Shroder, former Washington Post Magazine editor, on dinner plates and well-done narrative
October 28, 2009 – 2:03 pm
This week, I had a chance to talk by phone with Tom Shroder, who took a buyout from The Washington Post earlier this year. Shroder specializes in long-form narrative stories and recently launched his own editing site, and so I was curious what he would have to say about the current state of narrative journalism.
In our conversation, he dishes on a common mistake made by narrative freelancers, talks about the genesis of one of the best newspaper narratives ever written, and a offers up a considered defense of poop jokes. Here’s a taste:
Where a lot of narrative journalism went wrong was that it became all about the writing, and not about the details for the story and the facts behind it. People felt they could throw some words at people and dazzle. But even good writers need to start with an exceptional set of facts.
