Archive
Writing once featured on the original Gangrey blog.
Ramsey noticed this spare, driving narrative by Marc Santora: Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped. His last words were equally defiant. "Down with the trait…
Read John Doherty's story: The problem with the driver of the SUV seemed obvious enough. He was making crazy-wide turns around corners and drifting over the center of line of city…
Read his story: A quiz for aspiring burglars: You've just stolen $25,000 or so from a church safe during Christmas morning Mass. There is a witness, a man who asked you what you we…
Just the other day, I was scanning through a book of poems by Billy Collins when I noticed one called The Death of Allegory. Here's how it begins: I am wondering what became of all…
From Sara Rosenbaum: Mike Zorr stopped in at Einstein's Bagels last week for coffee. He had been visiting family in Virginia and was on his way back home to the Keys, where he live…
I've never done anything for radio but I stumbled onto a story with radio potential, so I wandered over to This American Life to see how to pitch them a story. The section on their…
Read Corey Kilgannon's story: It bears no plaque, nor mention in any local guidebook as a cultural landmark, but local residents recognize the two-story cape as the historic home t…
Richard Harrington's appreciation for James Brown: This time James Brown is gone. No more faux faints to the floor, no more hasty cape-covering or furious cool-down fanning by conc…
Erin Sullivan covers a tornado: Paul Lilley was dialing a neighbor Monday to tell him bad weather was coming their way when he heard a terrible rumble, looked out his window and sa…
Here's to making some stories of our own this Christmas. Turn off the computer. Go be with your friends and family. We'll return to business on Tuesday.
Listen to his Christmas special if you've never heard it.
William Neuman in this morning's NYT: "Chucky!" The regulars are restless as they board the sixth car on the 7:22 p.m. to Huntington out of Pennsylvania Station. The train has been…
Read her story: Shane Sheil wrote his Christmas list last week. He asked for only three things. He didn't think he had a prayer of getting any of them. But hey, it's Christmas. Wha…
Andy did his first three part series that ran earlier this week. If you've never taken on such a project, it's a process full of trials. I asked him for a how-to and this is his re…
Everyone does recaps. I couldn't resist. From tense debate on story forms to The Day of the Rope, here are the top 12 Gangrey posts of the year, according to the number of comments…
An interesting conversation over the last couple weeks over at WriterL: How two-sided should an "interview" be? How much should you give up, in other words, to get what you're look…
For all you procrastinators, Gangrey.com has assembled a few gift ideas for help as Christmas nears. All are sure-fire hits, gifts which will undoubtedly stir toothy smiles and bac…
Read Kim Severson's story: Even at the soup kitchen, everyone's a critic. The multicourse lunch that Michael Ennes cooked in the basement of Broadway Presbyterian Church last week…
Reporter as cameraman: Mr. Wilson showed no reaction. A glaze cast across his eyes and remained as his erstwhile friends ascended the witness stand one by one to identify him. They…
Michael Brick in court: By his own description, the contract Jessie Jacobus signed with prosecutors offers a warm letter to his sentencing judge in return for his pledge to "be tru…
Corey Kilgannon in this morning's NYT: In a wooded patch between a schoolyard and a row of backyards, Danny Azzato perched himself 20 feet up a tree and nocked a razor-sharp, carbo…
This comes from Jessie Bonner via Poynter: She blinked and wondered how long she had been asleep. She saw the Chanel ads and Vogue magazine pages taped to her white walls. She blin…
Read Jennifer 8. Lee's story: Paul Iversen had not seen his aging parents in three years, even though their homes are but a mile apart in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They had a falling ou…
(Via Romenesko) A reader asked Howard Kurtz to list the top ten newspapers in the country. His reply: "It's an entirely subjective exercise, of course. I think that the NYT, LAT, W…
Check this out from Shauna Stephenson at the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle: The idea was if I can do it, anyone can. But I don't believe that anymore. There were 300 grueling miles ahead,…
Some interesting stuff in the Post's review of the new Eggers book: And he's talking about one thing readers of "What Is the What" can't say for sure: How much is fact and how much…
Read Sara Rosenbaum's story: The boy is wired into the computer. He is 8 years old and has gray cat-eyes. A little blond mohawk sticks up on his head like a strip of uncut grass. H…
Sent along by David Finkel and very much worth discussing: Reader Mario Possamai of Toronto raised a good question last week that can come up with longer stories written from an in…
Read Corey Kilgannon's story: But on the field Saturday, the trappings of their current lives fell away, from the opening kickoff until the game was called when another group of Tu…
Read Emily Nipps' story: People who don't live in Tampa Palms' Lancaster and Ashington Estates neighborhoods might not see the subtle differences. They might not notice that Ashing…
Charlie LeDuff with the latest edition of American Album: Off a bleak and empty interchange midway through the Dallas sprawl stands a Burger King. It's past midnight, the rain sizz…
Gay Talese in A Writer's Life on newspaper fuddy-duddies … FIFTY years ago: The top editor of the Times, the Mississippi-born Turner Catledge, had made it known that he hoped the n…
From Tom via my inbox: This, my friends, is a test case for deadline narrative. Here we have a story — a first-day exclusive story, no less — that delays its gruesome punchline til…
Read Tom's Story: Mariesa Weber vanished three days before Halloween, leaving her purse and new suede jacket. She was 38, loved rock 'n' roll, lived with her sister and parents. Sh…
The following was the first paragraph on a 1A centerpiece the day after Thanksgiving in the 10th largest newspaper in the country: "Though deep in grief about the mauling death by…
"It comes out the same every time." Listen to Frank Deford on NPR. Or you can just read it here.
There's some new stuff at Nieman Narrative Digest. If you haven't listened to it, check out Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's The Ground We Lived On at Soundportraits.org. She did a useful Q…
Seriously. Hope you all get some time with your families. Here's to you this Thanksgiving Day.
Mark Johnson passed along this piece by Mark Leibovich with a note: "This guy does some great work on Washington politics, a subject I thought I was pretty much sick of. Some nifty…
From Tuesday's Washington Post: Katherine Harris, who is trying to become a U.S. senator, says she is writing a tell-all about the many people who have wronged her. This includes,…
Calvin Trillin, who, by the way, is a keynote speaker at this year's Nieman, in American Stories: I sometimes described what I was looking for as a story that had a beginning and a…
The challenges of writing an intimate story on Kirby Puckett's last years were many. Says Laurie Hertzel: how do you profile someone who is already dead? how do you profile someone…
For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style. — Ben Johnson There is no wa…
John Barry at a truck stop. Wil Haygood on Deval Patrick. Michael Lewis on what keeps Bill Parcells up. Dan Barry is good. Steve Lopez helps reunite classmates: a homeless guy and…
Roy Peter Clark in Writing Tools: Reports convey information. Stories create experience. Reports transfer knowledge. Stories transport the reader, crossing boundaries of time, spac…
From Saturday's NYT: It's not every day that a great big rock shows up on your block. But it happened on Vanderbilt Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The rock is jagged, seven feet…
Tom Mulvoy in Writing For Your Readers: The best writing in the Globe comes from those who are disciplined, who take a theme or situation and develop it along narrative lines that…
Ramsey Al-Rikabi in court: Early on the morning of Oct. 20 of last year, Marie Jedraszak, during a fight with her husband, walked outside to the garage, plugged an electric chain s…
Mark Singer in Somewhere in America: One thing I'm not on the lookout for is the proverbial "colorful" or "weird" character or narrative, especially now that exotic behavior of the…
Yikes. What's so unsettling about this is that implicit in the idea that there is specifically "good" news is that there is also specifically "bad" news — when, in fact, there's ju…
Bruce DeSilva on endings: A good ending absolutely, positively, must do three things at a minimum. It must tell the reader the story is over. Must do that. It also needs to nail th…
Tom Wolfe on Jimmy Breslin in The New Journalism: Breslin's work stirred up a certain vague resentment among both journalists and literati during the first year or two of his colum…
Anybody read the piece by Malcolm Gladwell a couple weeks back in the New Yorker in the media issue? It was called The Formula and it was about these people who have developed a sy…
Read Michael Brick's story: That night, he said, yogurt vanished and computer gear was broken and again Nixzmary lied and he threatened her with a belt. He said he asked her to exp…
Jon Franklin in Writing For Story: The technique is foreshadowing, and it's one of the most powerful pieces of magic in the storyteller's bag of tricks. Foreshadowing is the techni…
The idea has been floated: If we're all going to get together at Nieman, should we try to reserve a room at the hotel or a restaurant? The thought is we'll take contributions from…
Susan Orlean in her introduction to The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: What I wanted to write about were the people and the places around me. I didn't want to write about famous pe…
Rick Bragg to Kelley Benham in Orange Journalism: "While it's true people read less, while it's true that it is difficult to marry up with technology, I think the main reason that…
Check out Brady Dennis' story: An hour passed, and then another, and finally Jerrick Blue went searching for her. He slipped out of the small concrete block house on Osborne Avenue…
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc in New New Journalism: Q: What is the first thing you do when you begin reporting a story? A: I drive around and observe. Then I work up the courage to…
From Ben: She didn't seem to notice the odd juxtaposition of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial replica next to the Westfield Brandon mall, the names of 58,000 dead soldiers situated be…
From Fast Company: Curley--"just a nerd from Kansas," as he puts it--hasn't won a Pulitzer or worked at a major daily. But since teaching himself to build Web sites 10 years ago, h…
Joseph Mitchell in Joe Gould's Secret: Joe Gould is a blithe and emaciated little man who has been a notable in the cafeterias, diners, barrooms, and dumps of Greenwich Village for…
Read Andy Newman's story: The boat is called the Empty Vessel. The name was meant to conjure infinite possibility, a floating tabula rasa on the Gowanus Canal in the form of a 6…
Hank Stuever in the preface in Off Ramp: I am unassigned, mostly. I was a child born and raised and now living in a permanent Elsewhere, and because I didn't have a beat, I gave my…
Gary Provost in Make Your Words Work: This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what i…
NYT's Alan Feuer, who wrote this one on the recent plane crash, takes his lumps: T.R. looked at his screen. What was there? A crash. A fire. A dead man. A dead body. Two dead b…
Here's his story: When Casey was done talking, the next sounds included scribbling pens and checks being torn out of checkbooks because of what Democrats say this race means: A Cas…
Ira Berkow with a heavy lifter: Phil Pfister, who owns a Ford Crown Victoria, is an unusual kind of motorist. Not only can he drive the car, he can lift it, too. "One day we wer…
Samuel G. Freedman in Letters to a Young Journalist: "It takes time to acquire expertise. It takes time to hear out the innermost truths of individuals. It takes pateince and wisdo…
Philip Gourevitch in We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: In the province of Kibungo, in eastern Rwanda, in the swamp- and pastureland near the…
-- Bryan Wooley from the Dallas Morning News takes us back. -- Kurt Streeter on how an Iraqi girl wound up in LA: IT WAS shrapnel that brought her to Los Angeles. Hot and sharp,…
Walter J. Ong in Orality and Literacy: Narrative is everywhere a major genre of verbal art, occurring all the way from primary oral cultures into high literacy and electronic infor…
The NPR reporter at the pulpit: A major problem with these new technologies is that they allow reporters to stay in the newsroom rather than hitting the streets to find the real st…
The success of the Mets this season brings to mind one of my favorite Dan Barry columns, from days when things were a bit darker: Mr. Met does not have the ability to speak. Th…
Charlie Pierce in the preface to Sports Guy: They are throwaways, these celebrity stories, and they teach lessons as simple and as tedious as flat blacktop. Oh, there is occasional…
Cormac McCarthy in No Country for Old Men: What's the problem, officer? he asked. Sir would you mind stepping out of the vehicle? The man opened the door and stepped out. Wha…
Read his column: Cory Lidle wasn't just another Yankee to me, wasn't just another pro athlete I covered. He was closer than that, and getting closer by the day. In the last coup…
Stephen King in On Writing: "Paragraphs are almost as important for how they look as for what they say; they are maps of intent."
Carlton Stowers, a true crime author and writer at the Abilene Reporter-News, launched a serial narrative on the murder of Abilene television reporter Jennifer Servo. Looks interes…
I must've missed this one: With all the spectacular ways to die in this dying city, the fate of a man named Allan was almost pathetic. There he lay, in a weedy lot on the notorious…
This was fun: Then, from behind a thicket of acacia trees directly off our front left bumper, a huge female emerged — ''the matriarch,'' Okello said softly. There was a small calf…
Arthur O'Shaughnessy, 1844-81: We are the music makers And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lonely sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World losers and…
Jon Franklin the other day on WriterL: The idea of a green zone and a red zone comes, of course, from Iraq. The green zone is where it's safe, and the red zone is the real world ou…
Michael Lewis in The New New Journalism: "Characters are always so much more interesting when they are moving through space than they are when they are at rest (especially when the…
From Origins of a Nonfiction Writer in The Gay Talese Reader: "The shop was a kind of talk show that flowed around the engaging manner and well-timed questions of my mother; and as…
John-Henry Doucette is theVirginian-Pilot's newest columnist (bottom of the story). Congrats to John. We worked together at the Times Herald-Record a few years ago. John does some…
Buy this book. Yoder was Rick Bragg's intern back in the day. He put his book out a while back and it's some damn book.
Probe of anthrax casts shadow on brothers For recruiter, saying 'Go Army' is hard Review of Cormac McCarthy's new The Road In Brooklyn, unusual show of sympathy for arson…
I'm sure this could have been lost among the daily doings of Pinellas criminal court. Chris worked it for all its potential. Read his story: This is a story about a guy who didn't…
** Update: His last story. Obit here: R. W. Apple Jr., who in more than 40 years as a correspondent and editor at The New York Times wrote about war and revolution, politics and…
From Lon Wagner from the Virginian-Pilot: "Dear Gangrey: "The Virginian-Pilot narrative team hosted our annual (it was the second one, so I think I can call it "annual" now)…
Michael Brick has it down. Read his story: The case, Justice Albert Tomei of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn reminded the jury, was entirely circumstantial. So instructed, 12 citiz…
Read this now: The heart of the heartland, the exact geographic middle of the continental United States, is owned by a middle-aged Kansas man named Randall Warner. He exports wheat…
Tom French tells life stories of a tiger and a chimpanzee: Let us pay respect to fallen royalty. His early life unfolded like something coauthored by Dickens and Darwin. As an i…
At these "writers'" conferences it's almost always all about the reporting. This is important. Today at the National Writers' Workshop here in hot, breezy South Florida, it came up…
From USA Today: Newspapers grappling with declining circulation and profit margins can turn themselves around if they quickly develop publications and affiliated websites packed wi…
Jeffrey Gettleman in Mogadishu: They call her the "Black Hawk Down" lady. And in the corner of her dirt yard, beneath rags drying in the sun and next to a bowl of filthy wash water…
Read his story: The old man still dreams about the bottom of the sea. He dreams about sponges, about tiger sharks, about big-hearted men he figured would live forever but are now g…
Gangrey exclusive from Alex Zesch: It wasn't a congratulations on your new baby visit. The woman said something about her van and her dog was inside and her insurance company. I ga…
Michael Weisskopf loses a hand in Iraq. Tamara Jones talks to the First Lady about steamy books. Janine Anderson on the closing of an old theater. Sudarsan Raghavan on the price of…
Read his story: If you believe their confessions — and the accused say the signed statements cannot be believed — the $2,500 Taco Bell heist was staged, a piece of criminal theater…
I defy you to find more good stuff inside the Monday edition of a regional newspaper anywhere in the country. Sports columnist Gary Shelton makes eloquence seem effortless. Read h…
Michael Lewis with The Ballad Of Big Mike: As he drove into Memphis in March 2004, Tom Lemming thought that everything about Michael Oher, including his surname, was odd. He played…
Read his story: The friendless death of Nixzmary Brown in Brooklyn last January demanded a reckoning. She was broken and starved, 7 years old, left in a den her brothers and sister…
I came across this piece of physical description in Stephen Hunter's review of the movie, "All The King's Men." I've always had trouble with physical description of people. This on…
Read her story: The voices had been bad that morning, angry and insistent, screaming through Justin's head. He sat behind the reception desk at Vincent House, swiveling in the chai…
Ramsey Al-Rikabi says this made his day: The Q train announcement was, actually, decipherable. That's not to say it was easy to comprehend. "This train is being delayed. There is a…
* Michael Brick on the sounds a train makes. * Tom Lake on a gator. * Gawker helps readers understand the NY Times' redesign. * Jeb Phillips on a dead soldier. (The Army suited him…
Lincoln's Colleen Kenney writes for Gangrey: After a martini, two margaritas and half a beer last Friday night in Texas, I said this to some Florida journalists I met at a conferen…
A friend up north pointed out an ongoing series by Bob Shaw at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Shaw is documenting — in narrative fashion — the changing of a century-old farm into a yu…
Read Corey Kilgannon's story: Juliet the carriage horse held forth for about two decades on the south end of Central Park taking tourists on slow romantic rides through the park. S…
Save my wife: Prudence Lemokouno was lying motionless on a bed in the bleak hospital here, her stomach swelled with a fetus that had just died, her eyes occasionally flickering wit…
Brady Dennis with Pain and patriotism, Adam Smith behind the scenes on some mud-slinging and Rob Farley on the guy taking on Scientology. What are you reading today?
Read her story: He stood holding his lip. Blood was pouring out, but he kept his voice calm, level. "Good girl," he said to Rula. "Easy. Easy." The tiger listened to his voice, set…
Mike Wilson is the AME for newsfeatures here at the SPT. He did a brown bag session Thursday called What I Learned About Writing By Editing. The best thing he talked about: "closin…
Here's the story: The place is a hole in the wall, one of those newsstands where a blind guy peddles newspapers, coffee and pastries. The man behind the counter is "Big Jack," not…
Northern Colorado backup punter arrested: The University of Northern Colorado's reserve punter was arrested Tuesday, accused of stabbing his rival in his kicking leg. Mitch Coza…
I'm going to keep a running list of the good stuff to come from this anniversary. Please drop your links if you see something we should read. UPDATES: Wow. Wow. Wow. Read Gary S…
Michael Brick's story: Five years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Downtown smelled like Coke cans and hair on fire. It was tel…
Read Brady Dennis' story: The stares begin each time he approaches the stage, his hand searching for the familiar touch of the keyboard. He never knows how many pairs of eyes are f…
Michael's brother Bjorn Kruse with a rant (it began as a brother-to-brother email) about the changing Frosty: Last week, out on an aimless drive, I stopped at a Wendy's franchise f…
Damon Hack with Tiger Woods: A game marked by chance has become something else over the past two months, a treatise by Tiger Woods on what is possible with a crooked stick and a di…
* Wright Thompson following a prep star. * Dan Barry. * Chris Goffard with Father, son and holy rift (read this). * And the first thing I thought when I read of 'Crocodile…
Now that he's been arrested in Sudan and charged with espionage and "writing false news," one of the best reporters in the country is finally on the national radar screen. He shoul…
Mark Johnson writes: "The L.A. Times had a haunting narrative this week on a preacher's wife who killed her husband with a turkey gun. The writer, Peter H. King, makes it more than…
Read his story: Every community that doesn't have a Mark Opsasnick needs to get one. He is a tall and obsessed man from Greenbelt who quietly rages against forgetting. What he resc…
Bruce Nolan recreates the storm: Two hours before dawn, at the threshold of the darkest week in the history of New Orleans, a hand shook Cyril Crutchfield awake in lower Plaquemine…
* Hank Stuever's When photos, memories are a little hazy * Corey Kilgannon's The Hudson, and the lure of blue claws * Charlie LeDuff's For 56 years, battling evils of Hollywood wit…
Lane DeGregory with i am pretty sure that i know u, and Dan Barry's back down south, following the corpse on Union Street: More than a week after Hurricane Katrina nearly leveled t…
I call it: Fun With Archives. It's something I do while waiting for someone to call and say, Go home. And why not share. Here are a few from Rick Bragg in the late 80s and early 90…
Sunday, Sept. 3. 6 p.m. My place in Tampa. One requirement: bring something to read aloud. Email me for directions.
Read John Barry's story: O mighty is man's lust for Mount Everest that a team of climbers recently pronounced a frozen companion dead and left him behind in their quest for the sum…
Read her profile: Matt Farrell, a video producer, needed an attorney after he had been charged with growing marijuana. He hired Allison Margolin, "L.A.'s dopest attorney," on a fri…
As he collected his things this afternoon after his brown-bag talk, Ken Fuson grabbed my hand. "No fat jokes on the blog," he said. Damn. In that case, I want to point out somethin…
The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid talks with Terry Gross of "Fresh Air" about his response to pleas for help while covering the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon. Here's the l…
Read it: The doe's face smashed against the driver's side window and its body sheared off the mirror. There was no blood. Pam Fix knelt by the doe, which at about 140 pounds weighe…
Read his essay: With a man in custody claiming to have killed JonBenet Ramsey — in just the plausibly improbable way her parents and certain forensic experts had all along claimed…
Read his story: See the green Corvette blazing east toward the dawn, miles beneath the moon, seconds beyond the law. Pasco County, nine winters back. A pursuit call crackles into S…
* From the Dallas Morning News — Mary Ellen's Will: The battle for 4949 Swiss * Andy Newman walks around Staten Island (video of his trip here) * Anne Hull reporting on John Mark K…
Swing by the Nieman Narrative Digest for a few on the theme of "deadline narratives."
DeNeen Brown on the smell of memories: The smell of summer and dying marigolds, and mosquito spray and cut grass. The smell of melting tar and telephone poles and Chinese kitchens…
Read it: Though it is murder on the soul, celebrity gossip does keep us young, if only in the sense that it renders us childish and reliably gullible, the way some children can sti…
Brick: Fred Wheezy, an orphan with half a working lung who recovered to win fame as a detective, to star on Broadway and to contemplate a teaching career, was killed on Wednesday b…
Mark Johnson pointed out that Jill Carroll's story in the CSM "is written in a very unusual way. Jill writes large sections directly from her experience then a colleague, Peter Gri…
He's been gone from the pages of the NYT since he left to try his hand at pictures. Now, please welcome back (every Monday?), Charlie LeDuff: CAMPO, Calif. — Five miles past th…
Time to start thinking about Nieman. Registration is now open. The conference (in a yet another new place this year) starts Nov. 17 with a keynote by Calvin Trillin. Early-bird reg…
Read T. Lake's story: Cecil and Denise Allred's Sunday night began without incident. They ate dinner at KFC. They returned home to Randee Road. He stepped outside to feed chicken s…
Read Wright Thompson's story: A great love story ends today. For 73 years, Elden and Mildred Auker were married, inseparable. Their romance was the stuff of paperback novels an…
Mark Johnson writes: "AP narrative ace Todd Lewan has an interesting two-years-in-the-making tale that a number of papers have been running this week. He's a superb writer. There a…
When he splits for his thinking stint, that town's not going to wake up with stuff like this or this in its paper: Barbers tend to be generalists -- they remember heads of hair and…
Read "Baby, Give Me A Kiss": Joe Francis, the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" empire, is humiliating me. He has my face pressed against the hood of a car, my arms twisted hard beh…
I must have missed Mark's series from a few weeks ago. I'm seeing this for the first time this morning. You know Mark from his Pulitzer-finalist series last year, and, of course, f…
Forgive the no-post yesterday. I was a little busy. Here's the NYT's metro kids on the heat wave ("it was a morning and night of a million little miseries"); and check out B. Scott…
Read Hank Stuever's story: MTV turns 25 today, which is still a few months younger than Justin Timberlake. The typical way to go from that sentence would be to bemoan -- in snar…
Whatever you do today, don't miss Dan Barry from Saturday: A MONTHLY calendar, courtesy of a gas station on Jerome Avenue, hangs in the kitchen of a spare apartment in the Bronx. T…
Read Kelley Benham's story: It got dark. Out came flashlights. They still hadn't gathered all the dogs. They didn't know what to do with them all, and they didn't know how many the…
Hank Steuver on "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?"; Michael Brick on a police shooting; and if you missed it, Dan Barry reviews Springsteen doing Seeger: THIS is what you would do. Clo…
A buddy asked the other day for advice on cover letters for job applications. I haven't written cover letters for my last three moves, so I'm not the best person to comment. Beside…
One good thing about strife over there? Anthony Shadid comes to play. Read his stuff here, here and here.
It does my heart good to see so much good long work in the newspapers today. I'm sure I've missed a hundred others, but it's because I've been wrapped up in these. Michael Levensoh…
Mark Johnson spotted this story on Thursday: Inside the chill of the county coroner's office, the detective and the forensic anthropologist stood over soot-covered bones arrayed on…
How do you make a feature about a car shop come alive with drama and tension? Take a lesson from John Barry's story: Let's say that back in the day, you were hell on wheels. But yo…
We talked a while back about Doyle Murphy's idea for the Greeley Stampeed, the annual rodeo that draws the same boring coverage year after year. Doyle wanted to try something diffe…
I started at the San Angelo Standard-Times at 21K in 2000, and Jenny and I lived in the best apartments in town. So I don't know what this kid is bitching about. But it's an intere…
Robert Thompson of the Times of London says, "An important concept for newspapers to contemplate is that of "complementary content," as each medium has its strength and weaknesses.…
From Mark Johnson: "AP just ran a well-written Everest narrative. I especially liked the places the writers chose to end each section. The parallels with the fatal Mallory expediti…
Read her story: "I need one egg," says the manager at Johnny D's Diner in Newburgh. "A raw one." A baffled cook rolls a medium grade A onto the stainless steel counter. Johnny K (f…
Read his story: The lawyers in a triple-murder case filed some paperwork, the judge named some dates and then the court officers called the next case: a skinny 17-year-old with a g…
Check out Gary Smith's profile of Andre Agassi in this week's SI. What else is good out there this weekend?
Read her story: Republican Ron Paul missed out on the 19th century, but he admires it from afar. He speaks lovingly of the good old days before things like Social Security and Medi…
Read Among The Ghosts: Heroes and Grand Plans: AT the end of a long week, I went searching for her tomb. I spoke first to the priest at the Armenian Orthodox Church, who pointed me…
For the first day of jury selection in the John Evander Couey trial, Kruse brings us this: Jessica Marie Lunsford, 9½ years old and not quite 5 feet tall, in the early morni…
Read his story: New Yorkers, it has been said, like to complain. Finally, there's proof. It comes from the bowels of the municipal archives on Chambers Street, where thousands of c…
Here's Tamara El-Khoury on Vanessa de la Torre's story about a closed Krispy Kreme: "I liked it because I knew exactly what she was talking about. "That smell. Remember?" Talking a…
I think Hank's best when he's going off on under-appreciated America. Check out this piece from last week, if you haven't already: What if the government had left Route 66 intact a…
Sorry about the troubles with the site. Completely out of my control. Keith Goldberg stumbled onto this one: Anna Fiorello has been at Ray and Alice Allen's barn at Historic Tra…
Read his story: RAMADI, Iraq, July 4 — The Government Center in the middle of this devastated town resembles a fortress on the wild edge of some frontier: it is sandbagged, bar…
Check out Dan Barry on the smart car, and on Orange, Tex.; and read Dexter Filkins from Post 1: It is a lonely night on the rooftop of the government center in this rubble-strewn t…
Happy Independence Day everyone. I'm heading out of town for the weekend, so here are a few to keep you busy. Dan Barry from Cameron, La, Lane DeGregory on the reality of a deve…
Mark Johnson writes: You've probably come across Dexter Filkins' story in today's Times. It's a good example of storytelling in a war zone in the tradition of Ernie Pyle and others…
Brick's tell-it-like-it-is quickie in court today read like something from the old days, didn't it?
So David Barstow suggests that standard investigative journalism — which tends to include the "a (fill in the blank) investigation shows … bullet, bullet, bullet" nutgraph and thre…
I liked this, this, this and this. (And I'm loving these World Cup photos.) What are we reading today?
Stuever on the building beat; Barry on squeegee men; Goffard on an old pedophile.
I got this email from Doyle Murphy: "I've pitched a project idea, and I hoping Gangrey readers can offer some advice. We have a giant rodeo called the Greeley Stampede that lasts f…
I have a friend and colleague who often comments on my stories. Usually he says nice things. But today he had criticism. It started with a question. "When is a news story to be wri…
My man Charles Fishman passed this along (and even if you don't much cotton to business journalism, his bestseller The Wal-Mart Effect is a virtuoso example of explanatory narrativ…
Read her story: There are a lot of really crummy ways we could all die, including nuclear annihilation or a flu pandemic. And then, of course, there's the possibility that we'll be…
Read his column: Smiling and hugging and screaming and dancing and blowing kisses and raising index fingers and pounding on their hearts and high-fiving and laughing and raising th…
Read his story: Pardon me while I go off now on the beauty in blank asphalt, and office buildings, and sky. A reverie about what's not there, a newspoem, a secret: I am having an a…
Read his story: All trees and farmland, the tribal chief said. With hard acres of green where cattle grazed, adults trapped game, and boys and girls of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe…
Read his story: OCALA – He's a 33-year-old Democrat with no political experience, a Republican wife and a college sophomore running his campaign. And on this Thursday afternoon, he…
Read his story: It's the morning after his 78th birthday, and T. Boone Pickens is staring at a monitor, watching the energy futures market. He's already been to the gym, done his d…
Read her story: There are girls out there in ponytails and basketball uniforms who dream their own hoop dreams, bouncing balls on blacktops, stepping on the night's black air for l…
Today's piece from Lakeshore, Miss.: If you were to fly over rural Hancock County here, you would see more than 9,000 of them, white rectangles clumped in sun-bleached parks and sc…
A secret source suggested this series called Juice Vs. Justice, a hard look at the Vegas court system. (The other stories link off this page.) Anyone read this?
Congratulations to Janine Anderson and Colleen Kenney for their recent Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism. Kenney won for her series on problems at the Pine Ridge reservation,…
Read his story: "The typical listener is probably a male (but might be a female), most likely under 30 (but might be over), and is almost certainly listening in a house (but might…
Ramsey passed on Dan Barry (start of a series, yay!) from Biloxi, and then Bayou La Batre: "To understand a little about this small crustacean of a city nine months after Hurricane…
Read Jeff Klinkenberg's story: Gators are falling for each other all over Florida right now. Raging hormones have them on edge. Males are bellowing. Females are grunting. Boy ga…
Sorry for the slow posting this week. Finishing this story was keeping me busy. I'd love some criticism, if anyone gets around to reading it.
Read Corey Kilgannon's story: Pepe's Tire Shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, fixes flats for $6 apiece and is usually swarming with people trying to get patched up and back on the road.…
Read Mike Dawson's story: In our two-lane region, there is much we suffer trudging along our side of the yellow line. The slow turners. The school bus stops. The cell-phone gabb…
Read her story: In 1995, Sam Brownback sacrificed part of his body and wound up closer to God. He discovered a melanoma and had to have two surgeries, during which a "big hunk of f…
Read Dave Sheinin's story: This is a story about fate, a story about a curse -- if you care to believe in such things. It is a story about coming to grips with them, and maybe, jus…
So I lost Ramsey's cell number when my phone broke a month back, and I started missing the booger, so I called the 800 number for the Times Herald-Record, where my boy handles nigh…
Read Richard Serrano's story: Richard Lee McNair's job in the prison factory was mending U.S. mailbags. Thousands of the leather pouches were routinely delivered to the shop at the…
Mark Johnson writes: This is one of the strangest features you're likely to read. It's one of the finalists for an alternative weekly newspaper contest. It's not narrative there ar…
If you expect to write about a flood or hurricane or snow storm in the future -- most likely everybody not on a sports staff -- please give this piece in Slate a read: "The earth p…
Check out Kalani Simpson at the Star-Bulletin: here, here, here and here.
Anybody see anything out there today we all should be reading?
You remember that cowboy from West Virginia who won $314 million in the lottery a few years back? If you do anything this weekend, read the rest of the story. I know it's old; read…
Meg Martin from Poynter writes: Just chatted with 25ish fourth to eighth graders and their teachers at Writers Camp. Teachers came up to me later to ask about Irish oral storytelli…
Here he is with the pacifist and the warrior: One minute Stacy Bannerman is stuffing envelopes to promote an upcoming peace workshop. The next her husband, Lorin, unexpectedly appe…
Ramsey Al-Rikabi tells a tale without wasting words: The Sunday midnight shift for Deerpark police Officers Mike Conklin and Ed Josefovitz began quietly. No calls. Routine patrol.…
Sorry for the problems with the site today. What do you expect? Should be worked out by now. Peace, Ben
Read his story: When the metal door bangs shut, the daylight is gone. Distorted guitars climb a mountainous drumbeat and a voice snarls Spanish. Thin strands of neon shine dim pink…
Good catch and good access. Read Tamara El-Khoury's story: Tiffany punches something special on the jukebox. She and Peggy take the stage. They start off slow. Late on a Friday aft…
Sorry for the malfunction this morning. Not sure what happened, but we're back. Don't miss Tomas Alex Tizon from Hawaii, Lydia Polgreen in Darfur, and Andy Newman following some an…
Keith Goldberg passed along this piece from AJR about the frequency of long narratives devoted to harsh disease afflicting young people, and the author explores a few good question…
There are gold nuggest throughout SI's Q and A: SI: (On his DiMaggio profile) Your friend David Halberstam called the piece the best of sportswriting of the 20th century. Did you t…
Read Corey Kilgannon's story about the Samurais: "You're looking for the samurais?" said the girl sitting in the hallway. "They're up there." She pointed up a staircase to a small…
Read John M. Glionna's story: For 16 years, Dane Johnsten has been a pain-in-the-neck panhandler in this city's Castro district. On some days, the gangly 39-year-old in the filthy…
Read Roy Wenzl on a real educator, and Colleen Kenney on a man found dead: Mikey Kelly died the other day, alone on the floor near his kitchen sink. No one is sure when he died. Th…
Read Stuever's story: We are 50 floors above Central Park on a recent afternoon, and wouldn't it be great if this serene, impossibly gorgeous actress jumped up, kicked out the wind…
William Booth: CANNES, France — Richard Kelly looks not good. His face is the color of a mollusk. He is as clammy as a gym towel. His eyes are these little itchy, red-hot BBs. He c…
Could've been one of those quick and ridiculous ride-alongs, but this one is much more. Turns out not many people know what happens after they take the gators away. Read Tom's stor…
Theresa Vargas on a stamp's story: In the stamp collecting world, often the tiny square on the outside of an envelope is all that matters. It is the commodity that is coveted and t…
She showed up about 9:32 p.m., and her momma was smiling into the pain and blood, eyes closed, just smiling, smiling. God, she had said over and over before the pushing was finishe…
He asked for some Gangrey feedback on his chilling story of a girl named CoriAnn McDevitt: The party started at 7 p.m. It's already 7:10, and 13-year-old CoriAnn McDevitt's jeans a…
Jon Franklin in a recent post on WriterL: "It has been my observation, over the years, that journalists for some reason are impervious to outside critique of their craft. As long a…
Big stuff these days for our guy Wright Thompson, Gangrey poster, sports writer for the last four years at the Kansas City Star — and now the latest newspaper talent to be plucked…
Wright Thompson passes on a fresh voice from KC. Wright on J. Brady McCollough: "a michigan grad, a high school reporter for us (but not for long). He is an amazing story teller an…
Haven't heard of this series until this morning. Anyone read it?
Corey Kilgannon goes upstate: It took a brass band to make it happen, but peace broke out last week in the Ulster County Legislature. It was a brief but harmonious disarmament, las…
Cindy Lange-Kubick passed along this piece from Cory Golden: Lako Tongun turned cold when he spotted the name. It took him back to the early 1980s, when Tongun was part of a large…
This time from the Boston Globe: Q: As a writer, you show a great deal of interest in the working methods of your subjects. What is your own working method? A: I do a lot of readin…
All this Hallman talk seems to stem at least partly from the assumption that the kind of reporting "the Tom Hallmans" do is somehow different than any other kind of reporting. It g…
Ever notice that? Somebody does some digging, checks some records, and suddenly the story needs a line that says "a [Your Newspaper's Name] investigation shows ..." and about 17 bu…
He can write. Mark Johnson passed on this MediaBistro Q and A from '05: Q: You started out as a police reporter at The Times. Did you like that beat and what were the plusses an…
Chris Goffard; Colleen Kenney; and Zack McMillin: "There he stands, sentry to Aisle 13 at Hubbard's Hardware on Summer Avenue, one of the oldest living hardware men still going, th…
On June 1, Gangrey.com will be a year old. Ahhh. I remember the days when HTML was just a bunch of letters. The site has grown in popularity thanks to metions from a few people…
Read John Doherty's story: On William Street, far from the Renaissance city of the riverfront festivals, the news travelled fast: Hargrove heard before Rivera's family did. If…
David Finkel said once that narrative writers 10 years ago had the benefit of the readers' doubt, but it's different now. We must be honest and transparent with our work. I thought…
Simple wreck, in an area where they happen every day. Simple story, in a business where we refer to them as "fatals" and holler "brief it" across the newsroom. Tom Lake shows us wh…
From the current Esquire: On Sept. 1, 2004, The New York Times reported a new form of terror unfolding at School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia: "Heavily armed insurgents, some with explo…
Read his story: Out of ideas and low on cash one cold morning, the man with the biggest badge in town put his meaty fingers on a keyboard and tapped out a letter to the leader of M…
Read his story: For a long time, Ann Nelson's laptop computer remained dark. It had been returned to her family in North Dakota, along with the other belongings she left behind…
Roy Wenzl passed along the following: "We have a highly motivated young sports reporter here named Jeffrey Martin who I believe you will hear about in coming years. He's got a musc…
The Atlanta Journal Constitution is half way through a 22-part serial narrative by Jane O. Hansen called Through Hell And High Water. Chip Scanlan has some background, and there's…
Jeb Phillips on Mother's Day: All of it, every second, has been a gift. Lisa Norman knows this because she and her husband, Jack, prayed for a year and a half for a baby and th…
And Michael Brick is there to document it: And then, despite complaints of arthritis and gout, Mr. Gargiulo re-enacted the fight, his voice rising and accelerating, hands waving, f…
Jeb Phillips passed along this piece from the Baltimore Sun: Paul had been shot in the side of his face, but the freckles of gunpowder on his cheeks were covered with makeup now, a…
One of our veteran reporters here at The Commercial Appeal is the insatiably curious and always energetic Cindy Wolff. She attended Nieman for the first time in 2004 and it has bee…
Read Lane DeGregory's story about a family that took in a 14-year-old and her baby and never expected what would happen next: "The last time I came in here,'' she told Amy, "I w…
Read his story: In court yesterday, he wore a matching blue sweatsuit and handcuffs. His dreadlocks were disarranged. Mr. Rothstein told the judge that doctors at Bellevue Hosp…
Check out this stuff from Jeb Phillips from The Columbus Dispatch: Here, here, here and here. I especially liked this: "There's no easy way to say this, but the spirit world is cer…
In this morning's editorial in the Times: "Newspapering is not a philosophy, it is a way of spending a lifetime," Abe Rosenthal concluded when his time running this newspaper ended…
Read Alan Cowell's story: He had been shot at in Zambia, stung by bees in Gambia. There had been volcanoes, arrests and accidents. But when the round-the-world cyclist Heinz St&uum…
Read Mike Dawson's A Legend At The Lake: On Windermere Avenue, where the CVS and post office now stand, there was a long expanse of open pasture. There, the boys would play sandlot…
This ran a few days ago, but check out Thomas Lake's piece on a man who was arrested while trying to tend to his daughter: After the car crash, after the paramedics came, after the…
Mark Johnson passed along this must-read from Esquire: Humanity has paused on Jones Street near the summit of Russian Hill in San Francisco. Tourists, businessmen, café workers, th…
Sometimes, if I have reason, or even if I don't, I end up pulling up some of Finkel's stuff from long, long ago here at the "SPT, and it never doesn't make me say ... GAWWLLLY. Ser…
Samuel Freedman's Letters to a Young Journalist led me to Alan Dershowitz's Letters to a Young Lawyer -- doing the courts beat makes you buy funny things off Amazon -- and this pas…
She asks: "What happens when semi-famous-people-from-Hollywood meet people-who-might-be-slightly-famous-for-Washington? "Is one more powerful than the other? Or is it like matte…
From the NY Times in-house self study on its own writing: "First, I think the Times should be striving for kinetic energy at every opportunity. It should be thinking about topsp…
Here's Anne Hull on the racial divide in Durham (Three miles from the Gothic splendor of Duke, NCCU is plunked down on a stretch of Fayetteville Street near a plaza with hot wings,…
So we've got these cool weekly "brown bag" shop talk lunch sessions here at the SPT with people who either work at the paper or come in from somewhere else -- Anne Hull did one, an…
Talking about his new book on NPR today: David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, says he often finds himself in the "loser's locker room." There, he tells Robert Siegel,…
Ramsey writes: For Gangrey, or, as is it sometimes known, the Unofficial Michael Brick Fan Club. I think this first-person piece has about as much info as I've ever known about…
Wright Thompson on a horse town's last breath: A telephone rings in the racing office. Lee Smith, light twinkling off the oversized belt buckle bearing his name, reaches across his…
Read his story: Two succulent, naturally raised chickens with good farm references are in the oven, snuggled up in a roasting pan like doomed lovers. Fat, perfect carrots are peele…
Let's congratulate Gangrey contributor Zack McMillin. He learned a few days ago that he was awarded a Knight-Wallace Fellowship. Huge honor. If you know Zack, you know he's a hell…
Was Corey Kilgannon's shot at sports perfect? "Everything seemed perfect for Anthony Velazquez going into yesterday's game. "Anthony, 17, made history by throwing perfect gam…
This story feels familiar, like maybe we've talked about it before, but as I sought some inspiration tonight for a tough-to-assemble crime piece, I came across Matt James' Inside T…
Doyle Murphy was kind enough to pass along his notes from this weekend's National Writers Workshop: Leonard Pitts, new Pulitzer-winner Stan Tiner, Hank Stuever, Jack Hart and Ga…
Since every person I've interviewed has led a life unique to them, they have something to say about the world that I couldn't get from anyone else. That gives them a value that tra…
In case you missed the former LA Times editor's speech: It is important for us to explain to the public why journalism — real journalism, practiced in good faith — is absolutely es…
Read Michael Kruse's story: Stuart Harvey killed a dog. He shot it dead and has never said he didn't. Is he necessarily guilty of animal cruelty?
Sorry. I slipped out on business for a few days. Hope all is well out there in NewspaperLand. Mark Johnson asked Dan Barry for his Pulitzer entries, and here they are. Forgive the…
Here are Hank Stuever, Tom Hallman Jr. and Michell Roberts, and Tomas Alex Tizon. Please post something good if you see it out there.
Here's Mike Dawson: The man just wanted to start his lawnmower. But things this afternoon got complicated and dangerous. Fast.
Read Lane Degregory's story: Find him if you can. Stake out the sidewalks. The poet is as elusive as his verses. He signs his work in script: Jacob Christiano. A lyrical name. It's…
Read Wright Thompson's story: Zack Greinke is alone, something that seems to both comfort and frighten him. The normally busy baseball facility has gone silent. Just green grass an…
Read Michael Brick's story: In the days after the disappearance, the Randall family had a backyard party. Neighbors later told the police of a foul odor; Ms. Randall said that a fa…
Check out Chip Scanlan with Samuel G. Freedman: There's a temptation, once you've mastered a certain skill or form, to endlessly repeat it, especially if you're praised for doing i…
Meg Martin wrote the other day about Alex Wolfe's tips on doing the historical feature. Fantastic opportunities exist for that, although we don't do many in the news pages. We've t…
I asked Mark Johnson for a link to his fantastic Pulitzer finalist piece, and he sent this: "Feel free to let us know what worked and what didn't and what we could have done to mak…
We've talked about Andy Newman's story a few times (here and here) but if there's ever been one worth revisiting, it's that piece. Kruse hit him up for some more info. Read it agai…
David Finkel won the Pulitzer for explanatory reporting for his piece on exporting democracy to Yemen. And check out who was a finalist for explanatory: "Mark Johnson and Kawanza N…
Read Thomas Lake's story: One week ago today on a boulevard in Jacksonville, an uncommon woman punched her accelerator and rolled west toward the skyline. She drove a dark SUV full…
Read David Finkel's story: In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun h…
Read Chris Goffard's story: He said the Brotherhood killed one gang member for engaging in openly homosexual activity, and killed another inmate for informing to authorities. He sa…
Read Corey Kilgannon's story: He lives in a small room he rents for $400 a month in Woodside with a bathroom in the hall he shares with three other men, all Colombian and in a simi…
Read S.I. Rosenbaum's profile: In Clancy Huffman's life there have been 825 moments of pure happiness. They haven't been his. But he was there. He was close enough to see the bride…
Read Finkel and N.C. Aizenman from a few days ago: On most days, Mohammed Butt and his older brother, Imran, can be found in an office decorated with photographs of their family ba…
I asked Alexa James from the Times Herald-Record in upstate New York to give us some background on her series about a high school musical. Alexa is a still-new-to-newspapers beat r…
SI's Tom Verducci, in a handout, from a breakout session called "Bringing a magazine sensibility to the daily paper": "The bottom line is I think newspapers think in terms of sn…
John Doherty on a rally in Newburgh: It took 10 minutes for them all to pass. They sang in Spanish, carried signs in English and chanted seamlessly in two languages. They carried f…
The story of Mike Russell: Out on the corner, some people drive by and shout FREAK, others tell him to ROCK ON, MAN, and then there are some who sit at red lights and put up their…
Check out Colleen Kenney's piece from Huron, S.D.: This is the first thing he remembers: It's dark. Maybe 3 a.m. He's in his hospital bed in Rapid City about a month after the seiz…
This year's Masters was all about Damon Hack and Wright Thompson.
Read Hank Stuever's latest: Tony from Gardena, Calif., is calling: "My question is I'm in a band now and we're starting off and we came up with a name and want to know if any other…
Mark said it, and I agree. Anne Hull's latest is a lesson in journalism: Blake Johnson is almost 18. Tan and muscular, he plays third base for the Clarkdale High School Bulldog…
Doyle Murphy passed along this piece by Mike Peters from the Greeley Tribune, on a schizophrenic who killed his folks a few years ago: Just above his bed in Ward F-7 at the Colo…
Guess who Nell Lake just threw up at the Narrative Digest. (Hint: We talked about it.) Nell has a fantastic critique of the piece. "We like the spareness of this story's telling…
Thomas Lake's St. Pete Times debut: Yvonne Holcombe stood firm as night fell on her husband's mind. She busied his hands with household tasks. She watched as he wandered the back y…
I'm posting this again because I didn't realize it was a more than a single part. Man, I enjoyed this. Here's Alexa James' series on a high school play.
Check out S.I. Rosenbaum's story of trapeze artist Simone Dykes (click the link under Brandon Times), told in a comic. We ran this in the section, and they added the cool online co…
Read Hank Stuever's Ballpark Blues: No amount of Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton and Mariah Carey songs could mask the pain. One by one, until the wee hours Monday morning, the re…
Let's hope Zack stays safe out there covering the tornados in Tennessee. His stories are stellar. Read them here and here: The saddest hillside in Gibson County was clogged with th…
Check out Alexa James' piece in today's Times Herald-Record: On a December night, in the high school auditorium, junior Noah Meyer finds himself steaming across the Atlantic on a l…
Read his story: The old musician died on a southbound Q train. It was after midnight on a Sunday and the body of the old musician rode to Stillwell Avenue where the subway tracks e…
From Donald Murray, Pulitzer Prize winner and writing teacher: "The more pofessional we become, the greater the danger that we will see what we expect to see. Experience, of course…
Saundra came in a few weeks ago talking about a wacky obit she ran across. Turned into a damn fine story: Magdalena and Andres married and had six children together; she worked in…
The morning of a big sports night, especially when it involves a team from L.A., Plaschke, of course, is a must-hit on the Web run. Read up heading into tonight's game: "Th…
I can't say enough how important it is that you read W.C. Heinz's Death of a Racehorse: They were going to the post for the sixth race at Jamaica, two year olds, some making their…
Dan Barry with A Safe Haven, but Not Safe From All; T.O. does Dallas, so the Morning News finally makes it to Alexander City, Ala.; Robert L. Smith in Cleveland with Ohio new 'bord…
Feinstein is known best for his sometimes long, padded, sappy books, but he does know a thing or two about access — and, like in this story, how to use small details to show bigger…
I go back to this piece once in a while for a reminder of the power of brevity. I remember watching Steve work on this story. He listened again and again to a tape of Charlie speak…
First this, then this this one yesterday. Makes me think Andy Newman is just a read-to-the-end kind of guy.
I could give flip about Mizzou basketball, but this is why people know Wright Thompson's name: Truman the Tiger sat in a darkened hallway, mascot head by his side. A small crowd ha…
Read John Mangels' seven-part series, Plagued By Fear: Dr. Thomas Butler was the government's go-to guy if you were worried about a plague attack – and in the hair-trigger months a…
Roy Wenzl watches people watching a game; Zack McMillin watches a man run; this one from the Oregonian could have been a narrative; the Seattle Times with a massacre that left seve…
Check out Dan Barry on a circus in a circus; Wright Thompson on ending the song where it began; Erin Sullivan on a bird man who cries; Colleen Kenney with The Ghosts Of Whiteclay a…
I meant to post this a few days ago. Please read Jeff Klinkenberg's story about a man who won't give up: Through the open door Freddie spots the Cadillac, looking for parking space…
Read Doherty's story on commuting gangsters: "Mobsters are just like everyone else – it's simple demographics. The money is moving to the suburbs and the Mafia follows the money,"…
Kruse dropped this piece in the Hernando edition on Tuesday.
Michael Brick's continuing coverage: Most murder defendants do not testify in court; the strategy is too risky. But then, most murder defendants do not take on a SWAT team with a k…
Found the StoryCorps site last night and spent an hour being blown away. This is good good stuff. You guys think there is a way to do this sort of thing in print? "Sweetie, your re…
Read Kelley Benham's piece on an unhappy swamp rat: It is, by almost any standard, a nice house. There's a Beware of Dog sign in the bay window and some junk cars around back, but…
Please read Andy Newman's story about a guy who bought a table and got a New York story: Funny how a piece of furniture can bring strangers together. Beau Willimon and his girlfrie…
Jeffrey Gettleman, good guy and proud alum of the Hernando County bureau of the St. Petersburg Times, is back in Iraq for the NYT. Check out the ending on this bad boy (and the beg…
My former wiffle teammate, Cory Branan, is releasing his second album, and anyone lucky enough to pick up his first effort, The Hell You Say, knows why it's much anticipated. Anyon…
More Hank Stuever: For woe unto the manly. So scorned, so sublimated. When was the last time you could throw a punch? Not in the professional world, with its PowerPoint, no-I-in-te…
Read John Jeremiah Sullivan's Upon This Rock: But as my breakfast-time mantra says, I am a professional. And they don't give out awards for that sort of toe-tap, J-school foolishne…
The lesson here is always read the classifieds. Damn. Read Jim Walsh's story from City Pages in Minneapolis/St. Paul (Thanks, Sara): He placed his first ad in the "I Saw You" secti…
Read Malcolm Garcia's story: He walks the aisles of the supermarket, scrutinizes prices against his coupons. It was here by the meat counter one afternoon a woman stood and stared…
I love it when a reporter becomes a character. It adds tension to Michelle O'Donnell's A Haunted House, Clinging To Secrets: Every winter, when the trees drop their leaves, a certa…
Read Wright's piece on Buck O'Neil: Heading toward the stadium, the SUV ate up highway. Inside, O'Neil was talking about his family's tribe in Africa, and he was asked how he had f…
This is off topic, and I fear it reveals something about me I'm not sure I wish to make known, but what? How could Travis not pick Moana?
Why my man Geoff Calkins is so well-loved here in Memphis. "I love you more than you love me," Kimberly would say.
Corey Kilgannon on a gadfly in a Queens co-op; Kelley Benham on measuring memories; Hank Stuever on The Blue Tarp.
There's an energy and sense of wonder in Libby Copeland's writing that makes me jealous. Here's another one from Turin: The Americans just attack the snow with their fierce wills,…
Ralph Blumenthal with the story of a big small town: What it does have is the Boot Track Café (open mornings), a post office, a gas station and the yellow Deco two-story cou…
Lauren Collins in Talk of the Town: Some breaches of decorum are easier to rectify than others. Perhaps you have been invited to attend a memorial ceremony at Auschwitz and you arr…
Kruse pointed it out, and I'm in agreement: Libby Copeland's stuff from Turin is fresh, energetic and, unlike a lot of stuff from the Olympics, readable. Here are a few of them. Ci…
Read Kelley's story: They cruise the bus station, Campbell Park, Lake Maggiore. These aren't places homeless people cluster. They were the kinds of places Tom hid. He was a loner.…
Brick's Suspect In Murder-Attempt Case Has Something To Say, Dan Barry's Away From Mardi Gras, Glints Of Life As The Hopeful Trickle Home, Corey Kilgannon's At $2 A Dance, A Remedy…
Read Erin Sullivan's story from Daytona: The man they call Wild Bill Owen sat at the bar, looking through photo albums of his hero. "There's the man." "And there he is." "There he…
Read his story: "Trumpets sounded, drums pounded and the feet of a city marched in place, tapping an anticipatory beat on asphalt. Someone gave the noontime signal for a parade to…
Michael Brick in court: "From a juror's vantage, much of the strange courtroom imagery goes unexplained. The disembodied faces on trial are represented by a row of four men seeming…
Goldberg passed along this story from the AP's Desmond Butler: O'Pharrow, known to friends as "Jimmy O'," has been a mentor to Salita since he taught the young boxer to jab at the…
A threatening voice mail from a thug name of Monty has me frantically finishing off the first-ever Gangrey.com two-CD Narrative Song extravaganza. Also, we're trying to cajole Mich…
For those of you who remember Sonia Nazario's Pulitzer-winning piece, Enrique's Journey, here's the latest chapter.
Dan Barry and Adam Nossiter advance a parade: The first Mardi Gras parade of 2006 will strut and shout up Napoleon Avenue and then along St. Charles on Saturday, trumpeting a plain…
I'm sure everyone has seen this, but this is the first time I'm reading Steve Coll's two-parter on the death of Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal free safety who, after 9-11…
Read Hank's story: "These are all things Weir's mother, the equally outspoken Patti, did. "She raised a kid who would grow up to nickname himself "J. We" and "Tinkerbelle" and tell…
We want more stuff like this: To get to the place where they like George W. Bush more than any other place in America, you fly west for a long time from Washington, then you drive…
Make that five: "Hall has red hair and pearly skin. She was born in Kankakee, Ill. Chili pepper lights hang in her kitchen; Southern folk art and pink flamingos abound. In the midd…
In advance of her coming story on "young, poor mothers in the swamps of Louisiana, their children, and a nurse who is trying to change their lives."
Former Times Herald-Record publisher Jim Moss: "And there's a question for us at the newspaper. Do we simply hold up a mirror and report dispassionately about what we see, or is th…
Sometimes, when I really, really like something I read online, I click the print button twice with a kind of subliminal string – Maybe this will disappear from the WWW, and then ma…
Four in a month? I'm not complaining. Anne Hull's latest on a post-Katrina Dickensian encampment in a place called Arabi.
Stumbled across The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers. Looks pretty good. From the pitch: Ian McEwan: "The dream, surely, that we all have, is to write this beautiful par…
Kruse passed on two pieces from the West Coast, back to back: "Both used I (not only that, but "I" was a major character, and HAD to be), and both made me read to the end. Definite…
Check out Mike Dawson's subtle use of scene in his short story on some neighbors. It makes this story, and is not something you get on the phone.
"After passing the Bar exam on his fourth try, Charley Demosthenous wasn't exactly a hot property. Even his father thought he should go sell screwdrivers. Representing the poor and…
So Susan Orlean has a pretty fancy summer home in the Hudson Valley, and she told the NY Times all about it. She even did voice-over for the slideshow, talking about how her home i…
And when you were finished reading, he'd roundhouse kick you in the face.
How I Got The Story essays from 2005 Alt-Weekly award winners.
Kurt Vonnegut says we're smart only four hours a day, and that what we do after the age of 45 is crap.
Zack passed on this nugget from Slate's conversation with 24 writer Michael Loceff on why complex narrative works: Slate: In the last five years or so, television has experienced s…
Gregory E. Favre: We are going through a period in our industry, at this moment, in which we seem to be searching for our souls; in which the feeding frenzy over the future of news…
The Salem Oregon Statesman Journal talks to Bragg: "Writers are crazy anyway, we're just looney, and I don't mean that in any romantic sense. We're just generally a restless and u…
When Mom Is Over There: I am driving a hulking Expedition with a yellow ribbon on the bumper that says "Support Our Troops." In the grocery store parking lot, a man nods at me. I'm…
The folks at Nieman have added a program to Public Radio Exchange on rehabbing our business. Here's the description: "Rehabbing the Fourth Estate" is a broadcast special from the N…