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Tag Archives: Gay Talese

Top 10 Storyboard posts of 2012

We welcomed thousands of new visitors to Storyboard this year along with exciting new contributors and content. Thanks for your continued enthusiasm and support, and for helping to further the storytelling aspect of the Nieman Foundation‘s journalistic mission, which celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2013. To stay in closer touch, join us on Twitter at @niemanstory [...]

“Why’s this so good?” by the numbers: Readers’ choice

We’re coming upon our  65th installment of “Why’s this so good?” – in which notable journalists dissect their favorite pieces of narrative journalism. Our contributors have included Adam Hochschild, Jennifer B. McDonald, Eli Sanders, Megan Garber, Wesley Morris, Ann Friedman, Chris Jones and Ben Yagoda, and covered Joan Didion, Calvin Trillin, Michael Paterniti, Nora Ephron, John [...]

“The Power of Storytelling,” Part 4: Chris Jones on why stories matter, Pat Walters on endings, Walt Harrington on integrity

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 [...]

“What’s on your syllabus?”

Every narrative journalist can point to a story or a book, or two, that changed their lives, and that made them want to tell true stories. What story does it for you? Where was your love born? When we asked about influential writing via Twitter, answers came in a flurry. Wright Thompson said North Toward Home, [...]

Video narrative, #longreads and more

Keeping you up to date on all things Storyboard, we’d like to point out a few new features and opportunities you might have missed. *We’ve collected some of our most popular chats with narrative storytellers in a new #longreads section, where you can read Q-and-A’s with David Grann, Pam Colloff, Buzz Bissinger, Gay Talese, Jeanne Marie [...]

David Grann on the making of “The Yankee Comandante”

From the moment David Grann’s “The Yankee Comandante” appeared in the New Yorker last week, readers have been talking about it, hailing the tale of political intrigue, passion and heartbreak as unforgettable, as a masterpiece. Grann, of course, is known for memorable long-form narratives such as “Trial by Fire” and “A Murder Foretold” and for [...]

Work we love: a multimedia look at secret slavery, a portrait of fantasy baseball’s founder and dueling Robert Caro profiles

Our bookmarks have been busy lately what with all the good stuff to read and watch and hear. Some of our recent favorites hail from CNN.com, Grantland, the New York Times magazine and Esquire. In case you missed them, here are four pieces worth your time: Slavery 360° For the CNN.com multimedia narrative “Slavery’s Last [...]

“Why’s this so good?” No. 40: Roy Blount Jr. lets Jerry Clower talk

Over the years Roy Blount Jr. has written a number of superb magazine articles, one of my favorites being “Knock ’im Out, Jay-ree!” a profile of the great Southern raconteur Jerry (pronounced Jay-ree) Clower. The piece, which appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1973, possesses many virtues, among them its substantial length. Clower, a regular on the [...]

“Why’s this so good?” No. 39: Gay Talese diagnoses Frank Sinatra

Just shoot me now. That might be a normal journalist’s reaction to news that the subject of a mega-profile for a magazine cover story has declined to be interviewed for the piece. But in the mid-1960s Gay Talese was anything but a “normal journalist.” When Frank Sinatra offered not so much as a “Buzz off!” [...]