As we try to get the mildew out of the swimsuits we left in the corner over the weekend, we wanted to leave you a pile of stories for when you take refuge from the baking heat of August and are looking for something to read other than the rusty box of Old Bay seasoning [...]
Tag Archives: The Dallas Morning News
What we’re reading: in which we consider segregated high school reunions, the vanishing middle class, notes from a Pynchon conference and “death in the age of the Internet”
August 9, 2010 – 4:21 pm
Choosing Thomas
October 9, 2009 – 12:00 am
Our latest Notable Narrative, Lee Hancock’s “Choosing Thomas,” offers readers a spare account of parents who welcome a baby into the world despite knowing that he will not survive. The two-part serial, which ran last month in The Dallas Morning News, eschews the overwrought language of medical drama for a restrained recounting of family tragedy.
Hancock [...]
The Fight for Sugar Hill
January 4, 2008 – 12:00 am
The story we’ve chosen this month, “The Fight for Sugar Hill,” centers on an itinerant pastor’s efforts to help the residents of a dead-end housing project in Texas’ richest county. Dallas Morning News reporter Paul Meyer and photographer Melanie Burford take readers through three years filled with teen pregnancies, imprisonment, eviction, and death, narrating Pastor [...]
Rosie’s Journey
November 30, 2006 – 12:29 pm
This is a sad tale about mental illness, the toll it takes on families and the ways that more could be done for those who are ill. It’s a nice example of using narrative in investigative work, of revealing wrongs through the story of one victim.
We asked O’Neill for some background on the series. Here’s [...]
A Writer Begins: Adventures of a boy reporter
September 25, 2006 – 12:00 am
We enjoyed the understated, you might say manly, voice of this piece. In 1953, while still in high school, Woolley decides he wants to be a reporter—and gets his chance. The story follows his quest, its triumphs and setbacks. What makes the piece truly entertaining is its evocative portrayal of a newsroom, and news reporting [...]
Healing the Healer
April 4, 2005 – 4:00 pm
This piece is structured around transitional sentences that repeat material: “He is thinking,” “the boy” “the father.” These phrases help create a sad, almost elegiacal tone.
The structure of the piece is complex, repeatedly moving forward and back in time. It’s a sort of downward spiral of a structure, in which with each turn around the [...]
