There are two stories from the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, that to me remain better than all the others. R.W. Apple wrote a news analysis that ran on the front of the New York Times on Sept. 12. Hank Stuever wrote an essay that ran on the front of the Style section of the [...]
Tag Archives: St. Petersburg Times
Brady Dennis on “After the sky fell”
November 2, 2011 – 12:54 pm
This week’s “Why’s this so good?” post looked at Brady Dennis’ 296-word story about a toll booth operator’s love for the wife he lost to cancer. The piece ran in 2005 as part of the St. Petersburg Times’ occasional series “300 words.” Dennis has since moved on to The Washington Post, where he is an [...]
“Why’s this so good?” No. 18: Brady Dennis goes short
November 1, 2011 – 10:44 am
A few years ago, a bunch of us were sitting around the front porch of this crumpled old resort in the Catskills, knocking back drinks and talking shop. I can’t remember how it began, but when the sun went down we developed a game: Tell a story in a minute.
It started off cool enough, and [...]
Exhuming a life: Michael Kruse recovers the lost history of Kathryn Norris
August 12, 2011 – 10:51 am
What would happen if you disappeared today? What if no one noticed?
In our latest Notable Narrative, St. Petersburg Times reporter Michael Kruse collects relics of the life of Kathryn Norris, a woman whose mind progressively destroyed her ability to hold a job, to maintain a marriage, to keep friends, and even to talk with her [...]
Lane DeGregory on diving into Florida dreams
July 6, 2011 – 12:58 pm
Our first Editors’ Roundtable of the month looked at a story from Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times, in which a young couple arrives in Florida hoping to start a new life. DeGregory won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2009 for “The Girl in the Window” and has received many other awards [...]
July Editors’ Roundtable No. 1: the St. Petersburg Times’ snapshot between before and after
July 5, 2011 – 1:07 pm
For the first Roundtable of July, our editors looked at “Diving headlong into a sunny paradise” by Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times. The story follows a young Wisconsin couple on their first day starting a new life in Florida. Appearing in print on Memorial Day, DeGregory’s piece was edited by Mike Wilson, the [...]
Ben Montgomery explores a mystery: “This is a story about grief”
May 5, 2011 – 11:17 am
Yesterday our Editors’ Roundtable looked at “When a diver goes missing, a deep cave is scene of a deeper mystery,” by Ben Montgomery. An enterprise reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, Montgomery was a 2010 Pulitzer finalist with the Times’ project “For Their Own Good,” which we featured on this site. He talked with me by [...]
May Editors’ Roundtable: St. Petersburg Times dives into missing man mystery
May 4, 2011 – 11:02 am
This month, the Editors’ Roundtable looks at “When a diver goes missing, a deep cave is scene of a deeper mystery” by Ben Montgomery of the St. Petersburg Times. The story, our first newspaper narrative for the Roundtable, tells the tale of Ben McDaniel, who disappeared at Vortex Spring in August of last year.
Each month, we talk [...]
What we’re reading: the long arc of reporting on Scientology, a different kind of drug war, and a new narrative collaboration
February 15, 2011 – 11:46 am
The long-form buzz this last week has been all about Lawrence Wright’s piece on Scientology for the New Yorker, “The Apostate.” It’s ostensibly a profile, but it’s also investigative journalism and a compelling narrative. Wright’s deft storytelling was recently addressed on this site by Roy Peter Clark, who looked at a passage from “The Looming Tower,” [...]
Lane DeGregory’s 10 tips for editors at AASFE 2010
October 27, 2010 – 1:30 pm
Pulitzer Prize winner and St. Petersburg Times reporter Lane DeGregory spoke at the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors Conference in Florida earlier this month. She has made a name for herself as a reporter and a storyteller during more than two decades of newspaper reporting. Singing the praises of the editors she’s worked [...]
