“But the sea, too, took its toll.”

Why it’s great: Deadline reporting of natural disasters is a tightrope walk. Too little drama and events are reduced to factoids that don’t take hold … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Learning to see: A landscape of ice, a blind boy’s eyes, a grizzly bear and a wall stain

Editor’s note: This is our second edition of Shop Class, a new Story Craft feature. The goal is to break down the work that goes into … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“Gary Robinson died hungry.”

Why is it great? My mentor Ron Speer of the Virginian-Pilot liked the opening line of the Bible for Greatest Short Lede Ever. I go … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Take Two: Avi Selk on spiders, aggregation and writing fast

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yesterday, we featured contributor Rebecca Boyle’s interview with Washington Post general assignment reporter Avi Selk about his intriguing, elegaic story of the … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Avi Selk eulogizes the long life and too-soon death of Spider 16, and what she taught us

EDITOR’S NOTE: Writing about science and animals (creatures?) can be challenging. It is essential to get it right. It is also essential to make it … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Can you say … Thanks, and we miss you?

Editor’s note: We have written about Tom Junod’s 1998 Esquire profile of Mister Rogers before. The release of the documentary film, and the climate … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“She’s just telling what’s real out there that she sees.”

Why it’s so great: Tyler is a novelist, not a journalist. But the work of writing is the work of writing. In this New York … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

American flag, somewhere over Lake … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Shadows cast on the love of a game

The story started in one direction and ended up going in a jarringly different one. But when the time came to write a … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“You can’t hit or write your way out of a shadow.”

Maryland Capital Gazette deputy editor Rob Hiassen Joshua McKerrow, … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Learning to see beyond first sight

Editor’s note: We are trying out a new feature. Call it writing practice (with a nod to Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones,” where I … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals.”

WHY IS THIS SO GREAT? Or … is it? This might cause eyerolls as a “great sentence” pick. It’s not what most would call high … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Feeding the world – and feeling despair

Editor’s note: The tragic news last week of suicides by creative celebrities Kate Spade and Andrew Bourdain captured headlines and emotions. But despair does not … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“A singing bagpipe joined the wind in the pines.”

Why is it so great? I have come to love bagpipes, perhaps because they conjur special moments in my life, perhaps because they are rooted … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Beyond Boko Haram: Pictures from Nigeria

Nigeria is a country rich in stories and in storytelling. Nigerians have long traditions of sharing their testimonies through literature and visual communication. The work … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“…you can’t write about this stuff and be boring. That would be a sin against God.”

Why is it great? I read Allison’s “Bastard Out of Carolina” when it was first published, about the time I was covering a range of … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

The Pitch: At the Guardian’s Long Read, no rigid formula or geographic limits

Sex robots, violence in Mosul and the plan for Queen Elizabeth’s inevitable death. Those were among the subjects of the best stories last year … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Welcome to pizza, potluck and a story potlatch

I’m writing this from a mash-up of a magazine newsroom in Bucharest. The walls are smelly and stained from a recent flood in the apartment … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Steve Almond and “Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country”

In the first half of my Nieman Fellowship, a great number of class discussions revolved around analyzing the outcome of the election that brought Donald … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Altered states of storytelling at the L.A. Times Festival of Books

The L.A. Times Book Festival, held over the weekend of April 21-22, is an annual celebration of reading and literary culture in a town often … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

5(ish) Questions for Michelle Mizner and Katie Worth and “The Last Generation”

Fans of the PBS program “Frontline” are familiar with the news documentary series’ format: its staccato theme music, vaguely reminiscent of a typewriter; the sober … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“Man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

Why is it great? Fresh from celebrating Earth Day, we’re focusing on the environment and climate change this week at Storyboard. What better than a … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

5(ish) Questions for Douglas Haynes and “Every Day We Live Is the Future”

Douglas Haynes spent nearly 10 years working on his book “Every Day We Live is the Future: Surviving in a City of Disasters.” So when it was finally published late last year, he was understandably gratified that his decade-long project following the lives of two Nicaraguan women … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Five immersive photographers share their experiences on gaining trust

Access is everything when it comes to documentary photography. Of all the challenges that immersion storytellers face in their work, perhaps none is more formidable. Being immersed in people’s personal lives is a visceral experience that brings unique depth and dimension to a sto … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“sweet spring is your time is my time is our time for springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love”

Why is it great? You know how it seems like spring will never arrive, you wait and you wait, and it’s dreary and cold, and then suddenly, in one day, it seems to arrive? In New England they call it the greening, which is a wonderful. The rush of words in cummings’ poem is like [… … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

The Pitch: The story ideas Mother Jones’ managing editor wants to see

Mother Jones is known for its hard-hitting investigations, like Shane Bauer’s 35,000-word undercover account of working as a private prison guard in Louisiana, which won a National Magazine Award for reporting last year. That doesn’t mean editors at the San Francisco-based magazi … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“London is a very dangerous subject for a writer, because it will always betray you”

This week we pay tribute to London, a city that seems like it’s being pulled in two directions: toward its tremendous past and its wildly creative yet uncertain future. As the blogger known as “The Gentle Author” (see post below) says: “London is a very dangerous subject for a wr … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

It came from the sewers of London: the utterly disgusting (yet fascinating) fatberg

“We walk through life influenced by all sorts of weird stuff,” says “Letter of Recommendation” editor Willy Staley. His column in The New York Times Magazine offers a place to celebrate those obsessions, fascinations and private joys, in a tight 900 words. The brainchild of staff … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“The Sun specializes in short items unlikely to tax the mental capacities of its target audience: one-paragraph news articles, one-sentence paragraphs, one-word sentences.”

Why is it great? Well, first of all, it comes from the great Sarah Lyall, who was the longtime London correspondent for The New York Times. She has such a wonderful voice: charming, funny, intimate. This comes from her book about her years living in England (highly recommended). … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Sharing a cup of tea with London blogger “The Gentle Author”

“In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London.” The tagline for the wonderful London blog called “Spitalfields Life” resonated deeply with me, and not only because I woke in the midst of life to find myself doing th … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Point of view: a powerful narrative tool

Point of view is a powerful narrative tool. Take, for example, the Newest Americans project that we spotlighted this week. For some politicians and hate-mongerers, immigrants are a scourge. But in this project, immigrants get to tell their own stories of their journeys to America … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

The New Yorker’s “Lost Giant of American Literature” and the prism of race

You could say there’s a certain symmetry to the fact William Melvin Kelley, the black “lost giant of American literature,” as The New Yorker called him earlier this year, was “rediscovered” by a white writer. After all, Kelley’s first novel, “A Different Drummer,” published in 19 … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”

Why is it so great? When I was looking for a One Great Sentence dealing with immigration, I was struck by the differences between America’s two presidents named Roosevelt. In the one above, FDR reminds us of our common bond; it is a sentence of inclusion, not exclusion. And what … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Newest Americans: stories of immigrants who help make the country great

When Mexican director Guillermo del Toro won his best directing Oscar recently for “Shape of Water,” he said: “I am an immigrant. The greatest thing our art does is to erase the lines in the sand. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper.” Del Tor … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Ida B. Wells and Roxane Gay — fierce women of color born a century apart, writing of difficult truths

Looking back at this week’s posts, I was struck by the similarities between two of the writers we spotlighted. Ida B. Wells was a brave, pioneering investigative journalist who fought for women’s rights and campaigned against lynching. Born a century later, the writer Roxane Gay … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

The Power of Narrative conference captures the #MeToo zeitgeist

This year’s Power of Narrative conference seemed to capture the #MeToo zeitgeist, with speakers like author Roxane Gay and the Boston Globe’s Sacha Pfeiffer talking about the uncomfortable truths of sexual abuse. Judging from the line-up at last weekend’s gathering at Boston Univ … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“I’d rather go down in history as one lone Negro who dared to tell the government that it had done a dastardly thing than to save my skin by taking back what I said.”

Why is it so great? I found this quote from the absolutely amazing Ida B. Wells after The New York Times righted an old wrong by publishing her obit — almost exactly 87 years after her death. She was so fearless, and fierce. She took on those in power and fought to end the impuni … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Amy Padnani on The New York Times’ “Overlooked” obituary series

When Amy Padnani moved from The New York Times’ news desk to its obits department last year, she was charged with the task of “exploring different ways of storytelling with obituaries.” The seven-year NYT veteran, whose new title was digital editor of obituaries, was up for the c … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

As spring begins, a last look at winter and its juxtaposition of beauty and hardship

This week we celebrated the vernal equinox, this moment of rebirth and hope as we ease out of winter. (Of course, New England got hit with another snowstorm, as if winter was all Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction” and “I won’t be ignored!”) So we took one last look at some beautif … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

In Sicily, an old oral storytelling tradition tries to renew itself in the 21st century

The third-grade students in Misterbianco, a small town at the foot of Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, watched, rapt, as the heavy puppets moved on a school auditorium stage. The kids laughed, open their mouths with astonishment, then clapped. When the curtain fell, some sighed, ask … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy.”

This 1961 book has haunted me since I first read it about 15 years ago. Written at the birth of suburbia, and the accompanying conformity of such neighborhoods, it tells the story of a couple who believe they’re different from all their banal neighbors. They’re the “creative” one … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Katharine Seelye and “Life on an Island: Silence, Beauty and a Long Wait for the Ferry”

“Have you ever heard the absolute silence?” So asks a young lobsterman on Maine’s Matinicus Island, one of the handful of people who live year-round on the island, 22 miles out to sea and smaller than Central Park. Until I moved to Maine a few years ago, I would have protested th … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Polar opposites: Exploring some very cool writing, the he said/she said version

As a near-spring Nor’easter hit New England this week, we showcased two recent stories about polar exploration. What intrigued me were the very different perspectives of the writers and subjects. In David Grann’s piece on explorer Henry Worsley, the focus is on endurance and suff … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Eva Holland and “Get Schooled in the No-Nonsense Art of Survival”

Adventure narratives thrive on the nearness (or near miss) of doom’s heavy paw, but Eva Holland gives readers something other than a saga of suffering and survival in her recent account of her slog across the frozen sea near the Arctic Circle. Holland, a freelance writer and edit … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

“If I were hauling 600 miles across the Arctic, I’d choose J. for stamina and his uncomplaining nature; A. for her medical skills and ability to play music; N. because he’s optimistic and multilingual; H. for her understanding of the natural world; T. for her scientific mind, though she probably would not hesitate to fry and eat my liver if I died.”

I’ve held on to the entire March 20, 2016 “Voyages” issue of The New York Times Magazine because I can’t bear to part ways with Leanne Shapton’s story within, which includes this smart, hilarious sentence. Although Shapton maintains she is not a reporter, but visual artist, her f … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Writing through a whiteout: David Grann and “The White Darkness”

The lede came to David Grann a year before he would complete his epic story and a year after the events it describes: “The man felt like a speck in the frozen nothingness. Every direction he turned he could see ice stretching to the edge of the Earth.” It was February 2017, and G … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

We’re as mad as hell and we’re going to go on Twitter and say so

I watched the movie “Network” again the other day and was unnerved by how accurately screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky predicted today’s media and political environment. The line between news and scripted stories blurs, and truth is an old-fashioned concept. Middle-aged journalists wa … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago

Syria’s “selfie teen” highlights the devastation of the war — and the fog of war

The fog of war is especially thick in Syria, where access is nearly impossible for foreign journalists and accounts of the war often reach the outside world via social media. In the besieged Eastern Ghouta region, a blond, baby-faced teenager posting video selfies is the latest t … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 6 years ago