By Jacqui Banaszynski y house crackled with energy for a couple of days last week as I hosted a young friend who is in the prime-time of a reporting/writing career — even if she can’t see it herself right now. She was in Seattle for a series of interviews and needed a place to st … | Continue reading
By Kim Cross here are many worthy books about the narrative craft of great storytelling. But the story behind a story — the hurdles, dilemmas, ethical quandaries and logic puzzles invisible in a seamless final draft —can be the best (and most specific) teacher. These tales are th … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: In this installment of our occasional series on effective editing, we featured a Q&A with Lynda Robinson, an enterprise and narrative editor at the Washington Post, and follow it with his annotation below of a sensitive story, by reporter Peter Jamison, that she co … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: For other posts in the occasional series about effective editing, read our interviews with Mike Wilson of The New York Times and Scott Stossel of The Atlantic. By Carly Stern or longtime journalist Lynda Robinson, stumbling into the editing track was a happy accide … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski awoke on a recent morning thinking about death. Not morbidly about my own — though at this age, the clock ticks more loudly, so that’s not a far reach. These thoughts were about the too-many friends I’ve been visiting who are seriously ill and the too-many o … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski he 2023 novel “North Woods” by Daniel Mason is about apples, or about a patch of land where a disaffected traveler grew apples, or about the house he built that then crumbled, or about all of that — and also none of that. Apples are a thin throughline and oc … | Continue reading
By Chip Scanlan ournalists who write profiles don’t go in cold. They pre-report to prepare for crucial interviews. They read widely and research previous stories that have been written about their subject. They think through questions they need to ask. To profile Geoffrey Hinton, … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski ast Thursday was momentous news in these dis-United States, bringing news I doubt I need to recap. I confess that I was held captive to radio and news sites for the six weeks of the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump. There was no radio or TV … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: In this installment of our occasional series “What Makes a Good Editor,” we featured a Q&A with Mike Wilson of The New York Times “Great Reads” and follow it with his annotation below of a long-term reporting project he edited. Divided by Politics, a Colorado Town … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: The interview with Mike Wilson of The New York Times is another in our occasional series “What makes a good editor” will be followed by his annotation of a story by Chicago correspondent Jonathan Weisman, about the political rift in a Colorado mountain town. By Car … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski t’s Memorial Day in these dis-United States. The news won’t take a holiday. There are too many active war zones, notably in Ukraine and Gaza; the armed conflicts that persist in a number of countries the Middle East and Africa; drug and gang wars in Latin Am … | Continue reading
By Lauren Kessler he book arrived in the afternoon mail: “Jimmy Breslin: Essential Writings.” I opened to the first story, figuring I’d take a quick look. It was a longish piece written in 1960 about some jockey I’d never heard of. Despite the recent news about Kentucky Derby tho … | Continue reading
By Ben Yagoda ne day in the very late 1960s, my father brought home a copy of Esquire magazine. Out popped a card offering an annual subscription for, I believe, $1.99. He filled it out and mailed it in, and subsequently the magazine, which was just a little past its New Journali … | Continue reading
By Laurie Hertzel t’s a standard story for American newspapers: the story-behind-the-story of someone who has died suddenly and tragically. But when Keith Duggan wrote about the life and death of Sarah McNally for his newspaper, the Irish Times, it became a different kind of stor … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski he dance of editors and writers. Oh, the stories we all could tell! Mine, during 20 years as a reporter, involve a lot of bratty behavior that would not be tolerated in today’s newsroom culture. I was far from alone in my impertinence, and far from the cheek … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of an occasional series interviewing story editors about how they do their jobs. By Carly Stern ny grateful writer can attest to the power of a strong editor — a trusted voice of reason who tactfully guides a draft through the revision process, ma … | Continue reading
By Laine Cibulskis s a young tween, life’s turbulence often led me to pick up my pen and write poetry. I was prolific. I filled journals upon journals and clogged my phone notes with words. I started performing, and got very comfortable telling my story lyrically. Then I landed i … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski ack in March, The New York Times published a how-to piece on styling bookshelves. It was written by Tim McKeough and featured Jeremiah Brent, who is on the cast of the Netflix series “Queer Eye.” (Brent must also an influencer because the story mentioned his … | Continue reading
By Ruth Tam teve Almond has lived many lives in pursuit of his most elusive dream: publishing a novel. He’s been an investigative journalist, tortured poet and author. Before he published “All the Secrets of the World” in 2022, he worked on five fiction manuscripts that did not f … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is our final dispatch from the 2024 Power of Narrative conference. For earlier posts, see deadline narratives by a Wall Street Journal podcast team, the braided structure used by The Atavist for complex stories, practical tips on empathy as a reporting tool an … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski t’s awards’ season in the journalism industry, and with that comes your free continuing education. And with it comes a chance to refresh and refocus your journalism — for free. There are plenty of award skeptics out there. I get that. The work itself, and th … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth dispatch from the 2024 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. For previous posts, see deadline narratives by a Wall Street Journal podcast team, the braided structure used by The Atavist for complex stories and practical tips on empa … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This essay is a share from our friends at The Poynter Institute, with gratitude. By Roy Peter Clark ll good writers play with words, even when they write about grave matters. The device that makes such word play the most visible is the pun. My first sentence contai … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski f walls could talk, the tales whispered through the rooms of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong would hold me in thrall. The club is a throwback to another time in our profession. It welcomes you like a comfortable hug after assignments that left … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski recent social media post from a journalist-turned-professor sparked my interest. The professor told a quick story about a student who went into an interview with trepidation (don’t we all?), and then was thrilled when the source complimented her on an especi … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third dispatch from the 2024 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. For the others, see deadline narratives by a Wall Street Journal podcast team, and the braided structure used by The Atavist for complex stories. By Esther Landhuis s a sci … | Continue reading
By Line Vaaben uch of my shaping as a journalist traces back 25 years, when I covered a deadly fire in Sweden. But it wasn’t until I returned to the scene a quarter-century later that I realized how the original story lingers in my mind — and in my body. * * * The rocky […] | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of ourdispatches from the 2024 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. For the first post, see deadline narratives by a Wall Street Journal podcast team. By Madeline Bodin ow can you make a story twice as rich, twice as intense and tw … | Continue reading
recent phone conversation has me thinking about construction. Not of the firewood holder waiting in the garage to be assembled (a spare Allen wrench, anyone?). I’m thinking of construction as it applies to stories. I was contacted by an admired journalist who now also teaches at … | Continue reading
By Madeline Bodin t’s a chronic problem with narrative journalism. No matter what media you work in, no matter what genre, no matter whether your deadlines are short and solid or long and adjustable — it never feels like you have enough time to produce the best story. But conside … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski lassic news narratives tend to follow a single primary character through a story. There are other characters, of course, including people connected to the main character or more official or expert sources to provide context and perspective. Such classic narr … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski bove are a couple of spring daffodils for you as the world passes the spring equinox, and the tilt of time once again shifts. I send them for no other reason than it’s spring and daffodils are both happy and wonderfully determined. These popped up through th … | Continue reading
By Trevor Pyle hen reporter Kavitha Surana and photographer Stacy Kranitz profiled a Tennessee mother forced to endure a life-threatening pregnancy shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, they could have let the story end on its bittersweet final sentence: She whispered a quiet … | Continue reading
By Chip Scanlan he best narrative writers know they need not just to interview after the fact, but to observe in the moment. They want to be on the scene, where they see characters and action unfold in real place and real time, providing a less-filtered view of complexity and hum … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski try to take notice of writing approaches in all manner of places. As a kid, I read the back of cereal boxes, which probably were promo-style or maybe kid-type stories. I read the “Green Pages” of the Milwaukee Journal, which were a stylized features section. … | Continue reading
By Jyoti Madhoosoodanan (from a Facebook post) urrently in an email thread that is 70 messages long (and growing) — all to check the accuracy of a 3,000 word story, with a special focus on a few sentences. Those sentences are not wrong, but we’d like to be sure that people who im … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski sign of the times… or, to be wordier but more precise, a sign of my obsessed mind in these divisive times in these dis-United States … My closest friend’s husband reads comic strips. He has done this as long as I’ve known him, which is some 45 years now. He … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thomas Gibbons-Neff served with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan; he now writes for The New York Times, covering the war in Ukraine. Karl Marlantes served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam; he is the author of three novels, including the acclaimed Vietnam novel “Matt … | Continue reading
By Kim Cross izzie Johnson was a young reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle in 2018, covering local and state politics, when the deadliest wildfires in California swept through the region, all but destroying the small town of Paradise. Johnson raised her hand to go, soon turni … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski otten Tomatoes didn’t think much of “The Da Vinci Code,” the 2006 film adapted from Dan Brown’s best-selling novel of the same name. The movie only rated 25 percent on the Tomatometer; the Critics Consensus called it “dull and bloated.” I can’t argue that it … | Continue reading
By Chip Scanlan and Casey Frechette ieman Storyboard contributor Chip Scanlan and Casey Frechette worked together for more than a decade at The Poynter Institute where they created online courses in reporting and writing. Casey is an associate professor and former chair of the jo … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski our long-time friends stopped for a lunch at an old-style diner in the rural ex-urbs of Philadelphia. We hadn’t all been together since before COVID and were fully absorbed with catching up. But we were barely seated before we were distracted by the collecti … | Continue reading
By Laurie Herzel t had been seven months since I’d retired from the Minneapolis Star Tribune after nearly 50 years in journalism, and, like retired people everywhere, I realized it was time to clean out the basement. On the metal shelves in the laundry room were stacked dozens of … | Continue reading
By Chip Scanlan he best storytellers are driven by an insatiable need to know. Give them a mystery and they will dedicate themselves to trying to solve it. That relentless inquisitiveness propelled John Branch of The New York Times on a three-year odyssey to find out what happene … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski e received a lot of thumbs-up in response to the two-part post (November 2023) featuring nonfiction author Kim Cross. Our pieces featured an interview with Cross about how she landed a contract for her book, “In Light of All Darkness,” after eight years and … | Continue reading
By Jacqui Banaszynski ne way I suss out my interest in a book is to read the blurbs from book reviewers and other writers. I note what people say about a book to determine if it suits my reading mood at the time. But I pay just as much attention to who is promoting a book, […] | Continue reading
By Anne Saker on Franklin, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and an author and teacher who fomented the late-20th century revolution of literary journalism in American newspapers, died Jan. 21 in Annapolis, Maryland. He was 82. Franklin died at Hospice of the Chesapeake after a Jan. … | Continue reading
By Sophia Chen ast autumn I traveled with two friends, Monique and Jacob, to a cabin in the western mountains of Maine. We called it a writing retreat. Monique brought books on craft; I carried around more pens than fingers. And we did write — outdoors at a lake’s edge, and indoo … | Continue reading