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Triple muses: a lake, a children’s book and a long shower
Bayfield, Wisconsin, is a charming little village, population 500 or so, that sits on the northernmost peninsula of the state, along the southern shore of Lake Superior. It looks out onto a ice-clear...
View ArticleSolstice stories
Hanukkah came early this year. Christmas is on the near horizon, with Kwanzaa a day later. Other cultures have other traditions this time of year, some religious, some that have nothing to do with...
View ArticleThe peak posts of 2021: Hemingway, sensitive sourcing and self-editing
Another year, another trove of excellent journalism — so much that I’ve given up on keeping up. I take some comfort in that as our profession continues to struggle with issues of trust and solvency....
View ArticleThe wisdom of babes, the sounds of music, and tasty stories to chew on
It would have been easy but discouraging to spend an entire year of Storyboard featuring stories about homelessness, climate woes and, of course, COVID-19. It would be tempting to identify the...
View ArticleEpic history that inspired epic storytelling
At the end of each semester, after all the discussions of craft, I remind my reporting students at the Missouri School of Journalism the why of it all: the larger purpose their journalism serves. By...
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How Rachel Aviv of The New Yorker exposed the “troubled teen industry”
Untold stories remain one of journalism’s and society’s starkest gaps. The plight of the mentally ill and homeless, the Sisyphean struggles of the working poor, ingrained prejudice against minorities...
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“Because the universe is made of stories …”
If this seems dated (it’s inspired by a Christmas movie, after all), consider this: The best of stories are, or should be, universal and timeless. And thus a breath-catching moment early in the recent...
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Reconstructing 72 hours of life and death under the “heat dome”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Temperatures in the Pacific Northwest were sitting in the single digits, with rare snow in the cities along the I-5 corridor, as this piece came in for editing. Long-time weather-watcher...
View ArticleKari Howard: An editor and mentor who loved good stories and storytellers
“I’d told a few friends but asked them to keep it under their hats,” Kari emailed me in the spring of 2016. She had just been appointed editor of Nieman Storyboard, and we weren’t quite ready to make...
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The bold Joan Didion story you probably never read
In 1990, Joan Didion received an assignment from Bob Silvers, editor at the New York Review of Books, to write about a highly publicized, emotionally fraught crime almost nobody wanted to read about...
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The making of Joan Didion: From fuzzy facts to peerless prose
Joan Didion died on December 23, 2021, and by Christmas internet searches were returning page after page of obituaries that described her as a “peerless prose stylist.” She has long been celebrated as...
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An Atlantic writer turned a fatal blow into a sensitive study of boxing,...
Atlantic editor and writer Jacob Stern can sum up in a single word, as flickering as a blurred jab, what he knew about boxing: “Nothing.” But when Stern embarked on a story about a boxer returning to...
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An editor’s sensitive guide to interviewing victims of trauma
EDITOR’S NOTE: Narrative editor Jan Winburn created a class focused on trauma reporting last semester at the University of Montana, where she was the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor. For the...
View ArticleAn obit gets honest and goes viral
“A plus-sized Jewish redneck lady died in El Paso on Saturday.” That’s the first line of the unforgettable obit of Renay Mandel Corren, who died in December at age 84. Written by her 52-year-old son,...
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Reporting trauma: John D. Sutter on Hurricane Maria
“Some things about the world, if you look them straight in the eye, are truly unsettling. There is a time and place to ask people to look at that.” John D. Sutter is a journalist and documentary...
View ArticleWhen writing sparks writing
Earlier this month, we posted a short “One Great Moment” piece on a dazzling line of dialog from the new-this-season Netflix movie “A Boy Called Christmas.” Dame Maggie Smith is telling three fidgety...
View ArticleSticking a story together — and nailing the structure
I’ve heard that most writers struggle with structure. But when you’re alone, surrounded by a mountain of notes and staring at a blank computer screen, it can feel like you’re the only one who hasn’t...
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Reporting trauma: Jessica Ravitz on farmer suicides
“It’s scary.” Jessica Ravitz, a freelance reporter and storyteller, reported on the prevalence of suicide in rural America for CNN Digital in August 2018. According to a 2015 CDC report, Montana led...
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Viewing the COVID divide through tensions in one rural community
It’s no surprise to Tim Sullivan that major news outlets like CNN or his employer, the Associated Press, are taking flak from conservatives for peddling “fake news.” But he was taken aback when a...
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Reporting trauma: Moni Basu on following an earthquake survivor
“When you don’t see something with your own eyes, it’s almost not real.” Moni Basu wrote three stories about Falone Maxi, a young woman who was with her friend, Mica Joseph, for six days after the...
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