Clik here to view.
Thomas Curwen and “Surgeon races to save a life during L.A.’s shooting season”
Over his career at the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Curwen has written and edited for the Outdoor section, the Book Review, the features desk and the Metro desk. Despite his wide-ranging interests, his...
View Article“The fact was it felt good to be angry, to yell and curse, because if she...
Why is it great? This week we’re spotlighting stellar literary journalism about America’s gun violence epidemic, and this stunning story by Eli Saslow takes an intimate, often uncomfortably close look...
View ArticleClik here to view.
5(ish) Questions: Mark Follman and “The True Cost of Gun Violence in America”
Few journalists are more versed in guns and gun violence than Mark Follman. As national affairs editor for Mother Jones, Follman has led a series of landmark investigations into everything from mass...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Here’s some of the best literary journalism about the scourge that is gun...
This was a special week on Storyboard: We spotlighted stellar literary journalism about America’s gun violence epidemic from the Huffington Post’s Highline, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notable Narrative: Luke Mogelson and “The Desperate Battle to Destroy ISIS”
Many journalists covered the battle for Mosul, the capital of the self-styled Caliphate of the Islamic extremist group ISIS. American author Luke Mogelson, on assignment for The New Yorker, viewed it...
View Article“Well I chased him through them county roads / Till a sign said Canadian...
Why is it great? This is the first lyric to feature on “One Great Sentence,” and of course it had to be Springsteen. I chose this not because it’s my favorite lyric by him, but because this song is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
5(ish) Questions: Mary Pols and the rural lyricism of “Death of a Dairyman”
It was a tragic wreck, and dramatic, in a rural Maine way. A Toyota Corolla collided with a milk truck. Milk spilled across the interstate. A man was dead. From this bit of news from January, Portland...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Storylines shot through with darkness and despair, but also flashes of...
A feeling of loyalty and loss runs through this week’s posts. In Iraq, a local SWAT team tries to avenge their families — and save their city. In a Bruce Springsteen song, a highway patrolman with a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
5(ish) Questions: Steve Oney and “A Man’s World” (both the song and his new...
In today’s America, the word “masculinity” is almost a Rorschach test. When you look at it, do you see a patrimony that is raging, raging against the dying of the light? Or do you see an assault on the...
View Article“And one day he made an error, and then struck out, and it sounded like all...
Why is it great? Yes, it’s more than one sentence. But in this one short stanza, Cramer has captured all the rage and sorrow and loneliness and drive of the legendary Red Sox hitter Ted Williams. This...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a South African cookbook-memory book, recapturing a life that was lost to...
Marion Abrahams-Welsh grew up with four generations of her family on hilly Sheppard Street in the Cape Town neighborhood known as District Six. Fourteen of them shared a small home filled with love and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On identity: men who created it, women who lost it, a writer who escaped it
This week, identity is the theme that courses through the posts. Writer Steve Oney talks about masculinity and the creation of identity as an act of will. In South Africa, the women of the District Six...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Katherine Boo’s 15 rules for narrative nonfiction — now this is a “must-read”
When I first came across Katherine Boo’s work in journalism school, I was immediately taken with her ability to expose injustice while weaving gorgeous narratives. I carved up her stories in The...
View Article“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in...
Why is it great? I love how Lee has written this line: It tumbles out of Scout’s head exactly like the thoughts of a 6-year-old child, all “this and this and this and especially this.” And it also...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sarah Lyall and (the hilarious) “Paying a Price for 8 Days of Flying in America”
Whoever said “It is better to travel than to arrive” wasn’t sitting next to Sarah Lyall aboard American Airlines Flight 1886 en route from Iowa to Arizona at the moment she tried to open her single...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Katherine Boo, Sarah Lyall and Harper Lee: It’s grrl power week on Storyboard
This week is women’s week on Storyboard. We spotlight wonderful writers like Katherine Boo, Sarah Lyall, Harper Lee and Elizabeth Bowen. But get this — all the writers of the posts are women too. Kind...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why’s This So Good? David Foster Wallace and the brilliant “Consider the...
To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of...
View Article“Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the...
Why is it great? Nabokov is masterful here, not just stylistically but emotionally. He interrupts Humbert Humbert’s grotesque pursuit of Lolita by having him address the reader directly with an abject...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notable Narrative: Nicole Lucas Haimes and “Who Killed Julian Pierce?”
The article “Who Killed Julian Pierce?” was unusual on at least three counts. It was the author’s first magazine story. It took nearly 30 years to write. And it came close to solving a murder. “I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Lolita,” lobsters and David Foster Wallace: Now that’s what we call a party
The annual Maine Lobster Festival is underway, so it seemed like a good time to go big on lobsters. Of course, festival organizers might not have been huge fans of David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the...
View Article