One honey-glazed autumn afternoon, I watched a tangle of fifth-graders playing Capture the Flag in a park in Boise, Idaho. Their favorite soundtrack blared … | Continue reading
A morning’s hasty scroll through Facebook earlier this week showed the above photo from Traci Angel, an author, teacher and freelancer … | Continue reading
This simple statement stands as a truism for all storytellers, regardless of platform or genre. Every writer, filmmaker, photographer, illustrator, podcaster, editor and teacher of … | Continue reading
The Facebook post was conversational and almost light-hearted: And on Day Two of Camp Fire coverage, I spilled water all over my notebook and … | Continue reading
That’s how Stan Lee introduced Spider-Man to Marvel Comics readers in 1962. The narrator pronounces these words, which so many of … | Continue reading
A story that garners wide acclaim, gets multiple plays across ESPN and draws tweets from Reese Witherspoon is not your everyday deadline … | Continue reading
Sometimes I push writing students to look for new ways to tell stories. Should you start with the “small” things? Is there a story … | Continue reading
A clear grasp of “voice” in writing has always eluded me. Not that I don’t have one. Everyone does. But I’ve never been able … | Continue reading
Growing up in a family of Chinese immigrant mathematicians and scientists, then ditching my PhD in biology for a career in journalism makes me … | Continue reading
How do you tell the story of an extremist without allowing your own judgment to cloud your reporting? How do you interview people who … | Continue reading
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of Polish journalist and media entrepreneur Zuzanna Ziomecka’s keynote at the 8th edition of The … | Continue reading
Power of Storytelling 2018, Bucharest, Romania Below is a post … | Continue reading
Early in his career, Eric Seals adopted a straightforward mission statement from a former colleague: “If you learn to shoot with your heart you … | Continue reading
The last time I posted One Great Sentence, it was with thoughts about how context informs and layers the meaning of a single line. Only … | Continue reading
There are known news conventions: something happens and someone writes about it and somebody publishes it and then maybe people talk about it. | Continue reading
The email response to my story pitch came from the senior producer. It read, more or less: We want this. But do you … | Continue reading
Editor’s note: At Storyboard, we’re always looking for moments of inspiration, epiphany and, yes, struggle that we can all relate to or learn from. We … | Continue reading
Editor Kayla Webley Adler is a freelancer’s dream. She’s willing to gamble on unknown writers if they bring her a great idea. She’s written … | Continue reading
The tap water in Flint, Michigan, went bad more than four years ago, when the budget-strapped city stopped drawing its water from Lake … | Continue reading
Fernanda Jacqueline Davila The New York Times There is much … | Continue reading
The first time I met Tommy Tomlinson, he and his wife, Alix Felsing, took me to their favorite spot for breakfast in Charlotte, … | Continue reading
Notes on interviewing process Jacqui Banaszynski The panel was promoted … | Continue reading
Sentences can seem simple. Even the most tangled and complex are just a few words arranged between punctuation and white space. Ideally they … | Continue reading
John McPhee John McPhee, a master of nonfiction storytelling, became a teacher by … | Continue reading
New York Times sportswriter John Branch is best known in the journalism world for “Snow Fall: The Avalanche … | Continue reading
I‘ve always thought writing should be learned by osmosis. Like if you read enough good books you shouldn’t need to know the … | Continue reading
An award-winning author writes a break-out novel, and then another, and then… It has been 10 years since Minnesota novelist Leif Enger‘s … | Continue reading
Before anyone could even unfold the tree pulp, The New York Times Magazine wanted readers to know the magnitude of the story it … | Continue reading
Standing in the lobby of the gloriously ornate Chicago Tribune Tower, gazing at this James Madison quote, I am filled with pride. And fear. | Continue reading
Who knew there was a beat called “fire coverage,” or it was a job they would learn to love? Certainly not … | Continue reading
I sat on a bench with Wade Livingston the other day. We talked about an alligator attack, a woman who drowned, and the people who saw … | Continue reading
There are endless memories and memorials marking yesterday, the 17th anniversary of 9/11. I find it impossible to post about something else, but impossible to … | Continue reading
Before Christopher Solomon took on the case of the wolf researcher who ignited a political firestorm, the situation had sparked plenty of regional coverage. | Continue reading
This passage – not quite a Haiku, but with that feeling – comes as part of Mary Oliver’s poem “Sometimes.” It is introduced in … | Continue reading
The opening paragraph of Rebecca Solnit’s new LitHub essay, “Why the President Must Be Impeached,” is a single sentence, 88 words long. It … | Continue reading
Erika Hayasaki was an award-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times when she left the relative security of the newsroom for the feast-and-famine … | Continue reading
On May 3, 2018, volcanic fissures opened in a residential neighborhood on the island of Hawai‘i, forcing more than 2,000 people to evacuate their … | Continue reading
Geraldine Brooks laid that line down in “Secret Chord,” her deeply researched and richly reimagined novel about the life of biblical King David, … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: Erika Hayasaki’s conversation with Storyboard contributor Katia Savchuk explores what it took to earn a regular byline in magazines. She also shared the … | Continue reading
This week marks a return to school for students around the country, including at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, where six months … | Continue reading
Sometimes a sentence stops me for reasons I can’t entirely explain, or even defend. Often it includes a moment of description or metaphor that teases … | Continue reading
America’s debate over immigration has played out to the recorded cries of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, to … | Continue reading
Editor’s note: Reporter and teacher Shaheen Pasha (2018 Nieman Fellow) met John J. Lennon when she interviewed him for a larger package she did on writing … | Continue reading
Why it’s so great: This isn’t a particularly elegant sentence. It may even come across as disingenuous – a popular, successful Hollywood actor who, at … | Continue reading
Why is this great? Writers wade into the world to witness it in all its dimensions, then remake it in the hieroglyphics we know as … | Continue reading
Editor’s note: Our third Shop Class – part of our Story Craft posts – grew out of breaking news stories and blogs that offer rich lessons … | Continue reading