In our latest Notable Narrative, “Did My Brother Invent E-Mail with Tom Van Vleck?,” Errol Morris rejects many of the standard rules of narrative writing. Best known for his films “The Fog of War” and “ … Read more
Truman Capote’s profile of the depressive, incoherent, brilliant Marlon Brando is one of the greatest of all time. Published in 1957 in The New Yorker, it nominally takes place one evening in the Miyako Hotel in Kyoto. Read more
We’re excited to announce a new feature that we’ll be rolling out next week on Nieman Storyboard. “Why’s This So Good?” will explore what makes classic narrative nonfiction stories worth reading. Alexis Madrigal, a senior editor at The … Read more
A man with advanced ALS heads out for a fishing trip with his wife. A reporter goes to Walt Disney World with his children and a reefer-addicted friend. A Korean-American sportswriter over at the intriguing new Grantland site reflects … Read more
In our last post, the Editors’ Roundtable looked at a Seattle Times column about a record-setting Girl Scout cookie-seller who got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Seattle Mariners game. Today, we hear from the Times’ … Read more
We’re fine-tuning our Editors’ Roundtable, moving toward more frequent postings and smaller groups of editors looking at each story. As part of those changes, today we highlight our second June Roundtable (if you missed the first, you can see it … Read more
How can environmental writers craft emotionally involving stories from disasters that are slow-moving and attritional, rather than explosive and spectacular? This is a particularly pressing question for our age, as the news cycle spins ever faster, as the media venerates spectacle, … Read more
Our latest Notable Narrative, “A Groom’s Tale,” introduces us to Ozyr Khul, who is about to get married in Oqa, Afghanistan. Anna Badkhen, who wrote the story for Foreign Policy, has been in and out of Afghan homes since … Read more
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 … Read more
For the first Roundtable of the month, our editors looked at “Ala. tornado twists two families together” by Stephanie McCrummen from The Washington Post. The story, published early in May, covers an unusual connection between strangers after a … Read more