Archive
Writing once featured on the original Gangrey blog.
Lane Degregory: SARASOTA — Every morning, Susan Stanton wakes early and takes three pills. They help her suppress who she was and become the person she believes she should be. At 9…
Erin Sullivan: SAN ANTONIO — David Roth had a simple Christmas; at home with his mom and dad andhis older brother who flew in from New Jersey, sharing good food, playing outside wi…
Thanks to Baird for passing on the following essay by James Lee Burke, whose recent book, The Tin Roof Blowdown, is supposed to be pretty good. Check it out: I have never thought o…
Lee Hill Kavanaugh introduces us to a woman who escaped a death sentence in Iraq. Shawn Windsor profiles the new man at Michigan. Reid Forgrave goes for a narrative on deadline. Ma…
Back in my Jacksonville days, I used to play poker with a rookie reporter named Brad Schmidt. He was the smartest player in our group, although, for some reason, that rarely transl…
Somehow, this story manages to be touching and hilarious all at once. In fact, on balance, I think I like it better than the one about taquitos.
Please consider making a donation to this fundraiser to help get the Mike Levine Journalism Workshop off the ground. And spread the word. (The site accepts donations via PayPal). B…
Andy described writing this gem of an obit thusly: "Like trying to put a playing card between two wood blocks. The one wood block is easy praise of the dead, the other is being unn…
David Ferrara: This is a collection of stories from the sometimes cyclical world of consumerism. Stories about getting what you paid for, about what it means to have something othe…
Clark Kauffman (thanks, Nigel): Unbridled lust! Unspoken passion! Unemployment! A Sioux Center woman has been fired from her job at an industrial equipment manufacturer for working…
From Oliver Mackson: I hesitate to throw a bucket of cold water on warm season's greetings, but I'm glad this year is over. It's been a tough one in Middletown. Pick your reason: I…
Here: INTERLACHEN – Curled in her crib, asleep on a pink pillow, the little girl looks perfect. "Good morning! How's my baby?" her mother says quietly, coming into the room. She be…
Scott Waldman: Mimi Martin had 30 minutes. She was trying not to count them. It was April and her husband, Shawn, was leaving for war. The drive to the drop-off point was going too…
Libby Copeland: Mo- mehn- tum — the very word sounds convincing, ending with that hard M, as if the subject is closed. Campaigns and pundits and reporters speak about it with rever…
Ken Fuson gives us a Christmas story. But notice the photo caption gives away the entire story, ending and all. Do any of you have policies at your newspapers that stop this from h…
As we do every year, here are the stories that drew the most comments this year. Enjoy the memories. Prebits? 14 Why all writers should start in sports. 14. Wright Thompson makes u…
Barbara Mahany (thanks, Dan): Police didn't know who he was, the old man killed Tuesday by a van near Devon Avenue and McCormick Road. They found newspaper clippings — about a half…
Here: Long the home of razzle-dazzle TV highlights, ESPN has been stocking up on reporters' notebooks and ballpoint pens. For more than a year now, the Walt Disney Co.-controlled e…
So glad this was in my morning paper: If you are merely scanning the headlines, if you have no patience for the theoretical, if you have never found yourself pondering some cosmic…
Big deal. Big news. Backstory before anyone else: PORT JERVIS — Maryann Venechanos laid out her fears about her husband last year, 14 months before police shot Peter T. Venechanos…
Watch this (thanks, MEM): On June 23, News & Observer photojournalists Travis Long, Takaaki Iwabu, Ethan Hyman, and Juli Leonard visited the Eno Quarry in Durham to shoot video and…
John Barry: YBOR CITY – Long ago at the Columbia Restaurant, a waiter made his way through the tables, flaming cocktail teetering aboard his tray. The drink was called "Spanish Fla…
Tom Lake: TAMPA — The arena was cold and quiet and full of children. Nearly 400 of them, heads down, pencils in hand, deep in thought. It was nothing less than a thinking contest.…
Jon Lee Anderson: Joint Security Station Thrasher, in the western Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya, is housed in a Saddam-era mansion with twenty-foot columns and a fountain, now dry, t…
Jose Antonio Vargas: NEW YORK — Aboard the crowded D train, rumbling into Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge, the inevitable rant explodes. A rant courtesy of Faye Anderson, whom we'…
Dorsey Kindler with William Langewiesche: Back in Davis, Langewiesche was about to finish his second Heineken when he mentioned one of his pet peeves – the mini-industry that had c…
Chivers: First Lt. Aaron W. Childers stood before a doorway inside a mud-walled compound while an Afghan and American patrol searched behind him. Paratroopers swept metal detectors…
Here's to getting better, and to helping each other along the way. Happy Thanksgiving. Dar Williams: Amber called her uncle, said "We're up here for the holiday, Jane and I were h…
Gettleman: The people here are hungry, exposed, sick and dying. And the few aid organizations willing to brave a lawless, notoriously dangerous environment cannot keep up with thei…
Eric Neel: "At some point — maybe after your parents have died and you're not trying to please them anymore — at some point you have to decide what truly matters to you and what yo…
Stuever: Even now — in the era of erectile-dysfunction television commercials, or teenage girls extolling the latest in cardboard-applicator tampons — we still don't quite know how…
Check out Emma Downs: This is a story about people and pies. But it's also a story about the domino effect of a good deed. Specifically, how one good deed – the purchase of a coupl…
Would you name her? From Rex Smith, editor of the Albany Times Union: I'm doing something here that's not very nice: I'm letting you know that I know something you don't know. And…
From the Post and Courier in South Carolina, Glenn Smith, Tenisha Waldo and Schuyler Kropf: A chorus of flushing toilets fills the silence as inmates wake for breakfast. At 6:31 a.…
In the department of Books That Have Been Out A Long Time But That I Just Discovered How Awesome They Are, I would submit a Richard Preston title called The Hot Zone. It was not a…
Libby Copeland: Politics and Judi Giuliani have not always gone well together. In recent months, as her husband's presidential campaign heated up, Giuliani was pilloried in the New…
Dwight Garner channels Richard Ford on Springsteen: It is a uniquely American celebrity, rewarding excellence that's unquestionably native, prizing an apparently natural phenomenon…
Michael Brick: The definitive history of New York night life may one day make note of Stephen Sakai in a short chapter called Downtown Bouncer Violence.
Paul Salopek: MOGADISHU, Somalia — Abdulrahman Habeb was a man with problems, the most pressing of which involved a barrel of tranquilizer pills. The barrel — containing 50,000 cap…
Yesterday was the Great American Teach-In. Roll-your-eyes assignment, right? Check out Leticia Stein's story: TAMPA – Betty Boudreaux admits she panicked a little when she saw the…
Josh Levin (thanks, Jamal): In August 1994, on the occasion of the magazine's 40th anniversary, Sports Illustrated ran a 22,000-word story called "How We Got Here." Steve Rushin's…
This can't be a good thing, but if you Google "examples of fancy writing," guess what the first hit is? That's right. Try it.
Hank Stuever on Robert Goulet: In the shower, any man is Robert Goulet. On a clear day, rise and look around youuuu, and you'll see who you arrre. . . . Somewhere, my love, ther…
Libby Copeland: Comes now the newbie, the freshman senator, the bean counter with a nose for following the money. And at the moment she's following it -- not big money, not earmark…
Cindy Lange-Kubick: Her neighbors filled the courtroom, the air heavy with hate and dread. The alleged witch sat before them on the witness stand, shrunken as an old apple. Tillie…
We all read the AP briefs. Here's the rest. Wright Thompson: POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — Genarlow Wilson is lounging on his bed, watching a college football game. An old high school budd…
Hey, remember that haunting piece from a few months back about the guy who publicly soiled a building in downtown Jacksonville? Well, as several of us requested, Konrad Marshall of…
Go, now, and pre-order Dan Barry's City Lights. From the sousaphone playing tourist from Alabama to the monk whose bag was stolen in New York to the story of Anne Nelson's lapton,…
Richard Lake is scheduled to watch a man face death tomorrow. Naturally, he's apprehensive. He's looking for advice. Anyone ever do this? Any tips? Any examples of when it was done…
This story by The Chicago Trib's Louise Kiernan got my attention Sunday. It's the first of a four-part series. The quality of the writing in Part 1 had me looking for Part 2 today.…
A couple years back, my sister Liddy and I were driving up I-95 in a rented Chevy Cavalier on our way back from a Seven Mary Three concert in the Florida Keys when we got to talkin…
Dan Barry at the tryouts for the Mormom Tabernacle Choir. Reid Forgrave in Des Moines starts a three-part series on meth. Peter Slevin on brothers shipping out. Andy Meacham watchi…
Adam Bosch is working on an essay for grad school and he's looking for some help. He's taking George Orwell's essay "Why I Write" and comparing it to the persuasions of current-day…
Neil Swidey (thanks, Mackson): Just after 4 o'clock, when John Ferreira was looking the other way, a prankster pushed him into his pool. It's a gorgeous pool, rimmed by smooth boul…
Erik Hedegaard in Rolling Stone: As a child, Mario Lavandeira spent most of his time in bed, watching TV. He watched Friends, Melrose Place, She-Ra, He-Man, G.I. Joe, The Wuzzles,…
Vince Bzdek: "I believe in the Church of Baseball," Annie Savoy says at the beginning of the great epistemological movie "Bull Durham." "I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the…
There are delayed ledes and then there are ledes that slam the reader head-on. Check out The Chicago Tribune's Salopek on Mogadishu Here are the first few paragraphs: There are so…
Diane Tennant's new series. Part I: VIRGINIA BEACH On the luckiest day of the year, a turtle crawled out of the ocean at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. On 7-7-07, a spotter on…
Stacey Stowe: THE rat took a nose dive on Third Avenue, pooling on the sidewalk like a downed parachute. Chaz Rynkiewicz swung into action. "Uh-oh," said Mr. Rynkiewicz, assistant…
Bill Dwyer (thanks, Doyle): A death often brings talk of the person's era. Shav Glick's triggers the plural. Eras. The career of the veteran Times sportswriter, who died early Satu…
Stephanie Earls: The heart. It is the body's most vital muscle. It is a perfect, four-chambered pump, sending blood pulsing, pulsing, pulsing through the lungs, where it is infused…
Check out these three: Maybe, just maybe, Raider's spirit lives; Driver kills father of three; and Clinging to hope, six are rescued.
Margaret Talbot profiles David Simon, former Baltimore Sun beat reporter and creator of HBO's The Wire (thanks, Craig): "To be a decent city reporter, I had to listen to people who…
I think this is why I stop to read everything that has By Robert McFadden at the top. He puts me there so the straight news can follow. By the third graf I feel I know the place: A…
Chuin-Wei Yap: ODESSA - Somewhere in the carpet of dust at 17918 State Road 54 lies a driveway, and somewhere in the driveway is a footprint. The footprint belongs to 3-year-old…
Dan Barry: Just a short drive from that spa of a community called Palm Springs, there exists another oasis, a place so exclusive that curious dawdlers need to keep constant watch f…
S.I. Rosenbaum: He'll tell you flat out: He did it. He shows no remorse, this 80-year-old man with bright blue eyes and a nose like a boxer's after one round too many. "I'm d…
Hey, let's give Susan Daker from the Mobile Press-Register some feedback on this story: Ethel Sanders, 81, was startled awake by noise coming from her laundry room on Monday mor…
Neely Tucker (thanks, Tamara): Let's pick it up, mid-action, according to Shaw: Mona demands to speak to a manager. A customer service representative says someone will be right…
Libby Copeland: Politicians tend to tailor their words to their audiences, so it came as no surprise yesterday when five presidential aspirants addressing a forum of Republican Jew…
Paul Meyer at the Dallas Morning News with a series (thanks, M): "Pastor Rock Carpenter says he has been called here through the dead brown eyes of a teenage mother. He saw her in…
Ben got hired at Floridian, which is a very cool thing.
It hurts me a little bit to say this, because I've written four of them myself, but out of the few dozen Encounters stories the St. Petersburg Times has run so far, I'm pretty sure…
This is lovely. John Doherty: There is a scrap of graffiti on a wall of the "Forbiten City" that reads: "Cowboy Loves Vivian." And that is about as good a place as any to start th…
Our boy Brendan Scott comes out of the gate at the NYP: America's greenest mayor generates enough greenhouse gas to choke the Lincoln Tunnel. Mayor Bloomberg - who has advocate…
Eli Saslow: The coaches had spent the previous two weeks teaching their players how to handle this moment -- how to cover their ears, or close their eyes, or pretend they were back…
Dan Barry: Let us take a walk in the woods. With no afternoon commitments, one of the great perks of retirement, this is what Jim and Eleanor McQueen decide to do: take a walk i…
Anne Hull and Dana Priest: Michelle Turner's husband sits in the recliner with the shades drawn. He washes down his Zoloft with Mountain Dew. On the phone in the other room, Michel…
J.A. Montalbano (thanks, Hank): One of the first things Don Schrader points out the first time he welcomes me into his apartment is that it measures 12 feet by 14 feet and that whe…
A Narrative Map of the World: "The parking lot gate was open, and we ran in with the skateboard. As I whipped around while holding my husband's hand and he showed me how to ollie,…
Roy Clark has a column suggesting it's our duty to read the print version of the newspaper. Lots of folks are arguing about it, some suggesting its a dated model of distributing in…
Missed this Sunday. Here's Dan Barry: With evening shadows encroaching, Nancy Watt has already worked a dozen hours at her coffeehouse on the courthouse square. But this is one of…
Nancy Franklin in the "On Television" column on "Friday Night Lights" in this week's New Yorker: Berg, who wrote and directed the first episode and is also one of the series' execu…
VH1's Michael Hirschorn in Rolling Stone's 2007 Hot Issue: "There's been all this apologizing for TV, people saying that it has to be more like the Web. But one of the overall tren…
Michael Brick: The hallways of the State Supreme Court building in Brooklyn are crosscut passages of venom and condemnation: on one floor, police officers daily stare down a man ch…
Chris Goffard, a recent Pulitzer finalist for a St. Petersburg Times series called The $40 Lawyer, just had his first novel, Snitch Jacket, published in the U.S. (It's been out in…
San Fransisco Chronicle: Journalist Chauncey Bailey infused black pride into his work for more than three decades, writing hundreds of stories about Oakland's African American comm…
Check out Lena Price, one of Corey's students in Lewisville, Texas, writing about Mom: The price for a 16-ounce cup of French vanilla coffee at 7-Eleven is no longer $1.29. May…
I'm so glad no one rushed this with a lame third-graph nut. "The sense of dread in this story is amazing," a colleague just said. Read Rebecca Catalanello's story: RIVERVIEW - Blac…
Henry Allen: When we got really bored, like on rainy days at the beach, my sister and I used to play a game with our dog, Colie. Play dead. Not Colie playing dead, us playi…
Diane Carman (thanks, Bill M.): Twenty-year-old J. David McSwane is the future of journalism. Smart. Confident. Audacious. Opinionated. Brief. Very brief. He writes tight.…
Ira Glass in his introduction to the new anthology The New Kings of Nonfiction: I don't see anything wrong with a piece of reporting turning into a fable. In fact, when I'm researc…
Members of the writing group at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have been discussing this story by The Oregonian's Inara Verzemnieks, a Pulitzer finalist this year for feature writi…
Four parts, 19,000 words, all online. Makes me want to work for ESPN.com. Best get started. Mike Fish: Early in the evening of April 22, 2004, a heavily armored vehicle in the trai…
Lee Hill Kavanaugh: Her hands stroke two fuzzy blankets that only hours earlier swaddled her babies. "They still smell like them," she says, and then she smiles — a little. S…
Katie in Kathmandu: When you imagine the future, there are certain things you picture: places, people, types of work, etc. Yet, lately I have had several moments when I stop, pause…
John Barry: A hospital call awakened Sue Schramek at 2:15 a.m. Eighty-year-old Hildy Werner had passed away. Sue got up, padded through the dark house, made coffee. She couldn'…
Series, from Josh Goldstein in Philly (thanks, Pia): The toddler's dry, cracked lips had taken on a blue tinge that Monday morning. In fact, Nadia Kadi's normally light-olive skin…
Toño Angulo Daneri (thanks, M): Every so often someone shows up in Aicuña asking about "the mysterious albino town." The curious or nosy make a twenty-hour bus ride f…
Jesse McKinley: ON SADDLEBACK MOUNTAIN, Calif. — Walk into Mike Gates's summer home here and the first thing you notice — the only thing you could possibly notice — is the view.…
Dwyer: More than most sports arenas, Madison Square Garden is the palace of a feudal-state, and its lords fly the flag of entitlement. They pay no property taxes on most of a squar…
We're here -- after 12 hours of drive time -- at Nags Head, N.C., Kruse and I, and we're getting ready to start talking shop tomorrow with some of the great people we met tonight.…
Libby Copeland (thanks, Leah): The nation's first family tree is about to gain a new branch. The future in-laws, it turns out, are not unlike the Bushes. Henry Hager, 29, who w…
Wal Bogdanich (thanks, ralrika): Eduardo Arias hardly fits the profile of someone capable of humbling one of the world's most formidable economic powers. A 51-year-old Kuna Ind…
Check out Joe Eaton: Terrell Hunter sets scrambled eggs and strips of turkey bacon on a piece of white toast. He slathers strawberry jelly on a second piece of toast and mashes the…
Read to the end of this little gem from Ben. It won't take you long.
Roy Peter Clark in the men's room. Dan Barry in Wilcox County. Michael Kruse at the idea festival, part one. Washington Post's Left of Boom. Steve Lopez with paths crossed.
The New York Times takes a look at SPT's model: DURING the next year or so, The St. Petersburg Times plans to continue pursuing deeply reported, long-term features about such topic…
C.J. Chivers: GROZNY, Russia — In the evenings, unexpected sights appear in this city, which less than two years ago seemed beyond saving and repair. Women stroll on sidewalks that…
Gangrey.com has become a consummate inventory of off-beat articles about fairs. We all gotta cover them at some point, right? Keeping with that tradition, here's Richard Lake: It i…
Alex Zayas: The flier taped to the door of a small Italian deli on Florida Avenue says it all: Mixing it Up At Merino's. Come join your neighbors and business owners at a FREE!! F…
Tyler Kepner is one of the very best on the baseball beat, and this is from yesterday's NYT — just a really, really fine example, I thought, of deadline work on a game story that w…
Andy Newman: On June 12, 2007, at 4:17 p.m., on a concrete floor behind the Sea Cliffs exhibit at the New York Aquarium, a strapping, 115-pound male Pacific walrus calf entered the…
Read this now. David W. Dunlap: Tania Head's story, as shared over the years with reporters, students, friends and hundreds of visitors to ground zero, was a remarkable account of…
The Rays play their last home game tonight. Reminded me of this classic by Dan Barry, which Kruse and I have relived many, many times: MR. MET does not have the ability to speak. T…
Jeb Phillips: It should be all joy, coming home after spending most of the past two years in Iraq. And it was for a while yesterday at the baggage claim. Blythe Bowen, 2, yelled "D…
Roy Wenzl: The boys from North High School sat slumped in chairs, stone-faced but curious. "Only three places you gonna end up if you stay in gangs," David Gilkey told them. "Dead,…
Tom Lake: PORT RICHEY — The salt springs run 320 feet deep. To the east is the movie theater, and to the west is the Gulf of Mexico, and all around are gray fox and manatee, and on…
Raja Abdulrahim (thanks, Ramsey): Chester — After a night spent watching "Cops" on TV, Thomas Keahon woke up to find a swarm of real-life cops banging at his door. Confronted on th…
S.L. Price (thanks, Keith): At first Tino Sanchez figured he had no choice but to quit baseball cold. Would anyone have blamed him if he'd stayed holed up in his hometown of Yauco,…
S.I. Rosenbaum: Sometimes at night, he murmurs in his sleep. She lies awake, listening hard, hoping to catch a word. Any word. But it's just sounds. She closes her eyes. Maybe one…
Matt Taibbi in the new Rolling Stone: You have to see it to believe it, the effect that Fred Thompson has on certain crowds. Reporters who describe his public appearances as "bland…
I've always found mime a chuckle, but when I heard that Marcel Marceau had died I wondered how someone would find words to describe what he did without them. I thought this AP obit…
I'd like to direct your attention to a report by Jeff Testerman of the St. Petersburg Times: PALM HARBOR — With hundreds of loan closings a month, business boomed at Gulf Coast Tit…
In the book Telling True Stories, which you ought to buy if you haven't yet, Susan Orlean asks five questions of the would-be nonfiction writer: "Why do you want to be a writer? It…
Warren St. John: When the Rev. Phil Kitchin steps into the pulpit of the Clarkston International Bible Church on Sunday mornings, he stands eye to eye with the changing face of Ame…
So check this out. Liam Dillon, a Gangrey reader who writes for the Naples Daily News, spent six months with a wounded soldier home from Iraq. Here's the story he came up with:…
Nigel Duara: Ask him about his life, his time in Cuba, his work as a welder, and Luis D. Hernandez will tell you about beaches and rafts and a revolution. But when it comes to t…
Grant Schulte: There was a time, long before the forklifts and bulldozers came, when Bill Giles could rise before the sun, step into his front yard, and stare through empty darknes…
Saul Friedman: Why can't reporters who cover their beats well and who become as expert as possible in that field–the law, courts, medicine, consumerism, politics, the Congress, eve…
Q and A with SportsMediaGuide.com: Q. As a long-form writer, are you a dying breed? A. I don't think so. The Internet has created a world where you can have all different forms…
Read Mark Johnson: The young geographer would tell strangers he was hunting uranium. In 1952, that explanation seemed more understandable than the truth about what he was doing in…
Andy Newman: "The interplay between them," he said, "is one of the most hideous, dysfunctional, psychopathic couplings between man and woman that I've ever read. I knew I had to se…
Ben from Sunday: Six dead soldiers from a place where the train still cuts through the center of town, where Snellgrove's serves up the Cowboy Burger and the bumper sticker on the…
The value of Fresh Naps: Here's an assignment for you. If you are having trouble organizing your stories, use the five packet paradigm. Before you sit down to draft your story or w…
There's a cliche about stories that grab the reader by the throat. Very few stories actually do this without a letup at some point. I found no letup when I read this Gary Smith sto…
Check out Brendan Buhler: Consider the baby. Consider it as a fashion accessory. An accessory infant has several advantages over nonbaby fashion items. First, although it's c…
I'm recommending this one on good faith, since I haven't read it yet. John Ed Bradley's It Never Rains In Tiger Stadium. I've heard good things. Anyone read this yet?
Roy Peter Clark is taking nominations for the Seven Wonders of the Journalism World: Thanks to a recent international competition, we now have a list of the Seven Wonders of the Mo…
Michael Brick: The courtroom filled past its capacity of 107. Row on row of uniformed officers stretched into the hall. The stenographer dropped her bulky brown purse onto a table,…
Marc Parry: The day after federal agents arrested the imam of Masjid As-Salam, 20 men gathered on the green carpet in the mosque's back room. No one else had dared to come. It w…
Jeff Klinkenberg with a plane crash in the swamp. Jacob Fries follows a man released. Vanessa Gezari on a boy in a situation. Kruse sees what the paper delivery guy sees…
Dan Barry: The window blinds to the execution chamber are raised shortly after 1 in the morning, in accordance with the Procedures for Electrocution in the State of Tennessee. And…
There's something beautiful about this one. Colleen Jenkins: TAMPA - Tod Redman Stewart says he doesn't have a future or much of a life. He lost his freedom, too, Friday to protect…
Good stuff in here on the future of the biz, electronic media and this gem of a back and forth: GT: I remember reading the apologia from the management of the Times with regard…
Manny Fernandez: The gold hoop earrings were $250, more than a third of Michelle Maynard's rent. She bought them anyway, and treasured them, but wore them for only two months. O…
So I'm here in Louisville, Ky., for a few days at this thing called the Idea Festival and tonight I went to a screening of a documentary and a subsequent panel discussion on the li…
These clips are from Ernie Pyle's War, by James Tobin. They transcend time. Thanks, Sheeler. Written by Ernie as a memo to his reporters when he was an editor: "We have to MA…
Wow. The Times-Picayune photographers tell their stories. Thanks, Doyle.
So another goodbye, looks like, this one in Albuquerque: E.W. Scripps Company is seeking a buyer for The Albuquerque Tribune, and said it will close the city's afternoon newspap…
From Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac yesterday (thanks, Candace): On this day in 2001 terrorists flew two planes into Twin Towers in New York City, causing both towers to colla…
Tom Lake: This story is about rules, rebellion and a new kind of contraband: the iPod, in this case a small green one, a pocket-sized jukebox that plays songs by such artists as Ka…
Pete Dybdahl: Bluetooth cellphone headsets -- small devices perched on the ear -- may be convenient for the heavy mobile phone user, but they have created a modern conundrum.
Somehow this got deleted earlier. Here's Dan Barry: DARYL Holton shaved his head clean a couple of months ago. He thought he could retain some control in this small way. But he…
Check this out (thanks, Doug): On the day they posed for the team photo in their black and silver football uniforms, the boys were still champions. That autumn of 1992, the sout…
Remember this discussion about unicorns? Well Andy Netzel asked Matt Tullis to turn his comment into an essay for Cleveland Magazine. It's fun to read. Check it out: In 1985, I…
Andrea Ball (thanks, Richard): Adrienne Nash writhes on a gurney in a speeding ambulance, gasping her way through another contraction. Take deep breaths, the emergency medical tech…
Libby Copeland: STRATHAM, N.H. -- If New Hampshire can offer Fred Thompson some advice, it's that he'd better start spending some time with New Hampshire. New Hampshire has a lot o…
This looks great. (Thanks, Andy.) Rachel Dissel: Johanna Orozco's grandmother clasped a bath towel to the darkening pit where the 18-year-old's jaw was supposed to be. Blood se…
Lane DeGregory: Baby died Sunday, April 29, at home. She was 42. Purchased March 29, 1965, at Walker Ford on Treasure Island, the Mustang Fastback was well loved, but not well t…
Read this: The dead disappear into the muddled minds of old caretakers, in a graveyard where roses rust. The funeral flowers are made from tin so they can be used again and agai…
If you've never read Dirty Red, do it now: The neighborhood has low rent and no trees, a leaky bucket of a place where dreams seem to run right on through. Dirty Red's mother pries…
If you happen to be anywhere near Mobile, Alabama, on Thursday night, we're meeting for drinks and shop talk somewhere downtown. Interested? Call Ben for details: (813) 310-6066.
So maybe I'm a little late to this book, but I'm glad to be here nonetheless. Here's an excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I think it applies to us: The migrant…
Read Tommy Tomlinson (thanks, Ted): Look at this picture. What do you see? Maybe it depends on who you are. This picture was taken the morning of Sept. 4, 1957 -- almost e…
Check out Earl Swift's series on who shot the Norfolk mayor: IT CAME IN AS A 10-39. A body found. Sounded routine, so Ralph Mears rolled west on Little Creek at the speed limit…
I was reading an AP story this morning about President Bush's comments on the status of U.S. operations in Iraq, and the same piece contained the predictable counters and debate, a…
Check out this passage from John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, a book even nonfiction writers ought to read: Sanity in a writer is merely this: However stupid he may be in his p…
Doyle Murphy goes beyond a brief: Warwick — Maureen Segota, her husband and three children picked their way along the path toward the water. A group of teenagers already had a s…
Final from Celina Ottaway's series: LOVE, PRIDE AND SHAME FROM SHIRLEY TEMPLE TO AFROS AND CORNROWS -- A HISTORY TOLD BY HAIR May 9, 1999 Miss Madeline Seel stepped off th…
Happy Labor Day, everyone. The Front Porch Song (Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett) This old porch is a big ol' red and white Herford bull Standin' under a mesquite tree in…
I'll send an hour-long recording of Dan Barry addressing the Times Herald-Record last year to the first person who pulls off something like this (thanks, Craig): Scraps of news on…
Celina Ottaway's series, continued: MOTHERLAND TIME AND DISTANCE -- AND EVEN A WAR -- DON'T DIMINISH A PARENT'S LOVE Sunday, May 9, 1999 CELINA OTTAWAY Staff writer L…
Bill Reiter: WEIRTON, W.Va. -- The green sheet mill shadows the stadium like a big brother, rising above it, running from end zone to end zone, separated only by the road that once…
Demorris Lee: Matthew Reif and his girlfriend had plans for a really nice dinner. He didn't want to be late, so he dashed for the shower. When the phone rang, he was soaked. He gra…
Tom Lake: VERNON - Nothing binds a town together like a powerful story: the Giants win the pennant, for example, or a mother wolf rescues twin boys from the riverbank, or a silvers…
Remember the discussion of The Master Marrative a few weeks ago? Celina Ottaway mentioned a story she stumbled into while parked in a braid shop. Her editor encouraged her to pursu…
Wright Thompson: I love air conditioning, and I love cocktails in the gloaming on the City Grocery balcony, and I love a plate of shrimp and grits when the sun finally goes down. I…
Tom Lake: PORT RICHEY – First they stole his license plate. Then they burned his flag. Fred Slaven is convinced this makes him the victim of a hate crime. And after six years in F…
Read Kruse's story: PORT RICHEY – At 3:49, in the driver's seat, Laurene Warner opened her eyes and wiped her face. She yawned. She lit a cigarette. The glowing tip was a brief bit…
Read this. Seriously. Elizabeth Gilbert profiled Hank Williams III in GQ in 2000, and that was a special story, but Esquire, GQ, the NYT mag, one of her books, whatever — when her…
Seen this? UPDATE: Cartoon me, courtesy S.I. Rosenbaum.
Lon Wagner: In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. By 1905, the bulbs were being sold in stores, and a family in Norfolk bought one. What they did with it at first is not…
Matt Tullis: The words tumbled out of a speaker above Patty Keller: Georgia, Georgia The whole day through Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind. The voice was sweet — a…
Lane DeGregory: Ten boxes of stuff. That's all Brooklyn Carr figured she'd have room for in her dorm room. She bought the biggest plastic tubs she could find, deep rectangular bins…
Meg Laughlin and Don Morris: Seeds of doubt. Kurt Streeter: A girl, and injury, a will to recover. Dan Barry: Odd Fellows. Daniel F. Wakin: The heist, the getaway and the sawed off…
My friend Corey (he posts here sometimes) teaches high school journalism in Texas. He starts school Monday and wants to open the year with a story. One story, read aloud, that will…
T. Lake: MOON LAKE – Here are a few things you should not know about Joseph Coonradt, unless you knew them already. He was a strong boy, 16 years old, handy with mulching and pulli…
William Booth: A most unusual case, this Bob Saget. We were just reviewing the file, a very thick file. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it a…
Reid Forgrave: By 9:30 a.m., the streets and cul-de-sacs and perfectly manicured lawns in the Bartlett Farms subdivision were – finally, mercifully, eerily – quiet. American flags…
Don't miss Wil Haygood's beautiful story from last Sunday's Post Magazine on Ralph Ellison and the second novel he never completed. It's a fascinating story and Haygood tells it we…
This is Mitchell Gaff. Mitch lives in a special place. A facility the state of Washington created for sexual predators. Mitch's therapists think there's a chance that Mitch won't g…
From Bill Marvel: I'm about to teach feature writing at a local university. I wonder: Looking back at similar courses they took in college, what things did Gangreyers find most use…
Five short stories: The spotters were too late. … "Sir?" Etherton yelled. "Sir, are you okay?" … "Who knows how long people will want to look at me?" … The girl in the purple dress…
Rick Bragg: They say college football is religion in the Deep South, but it's not. Only religion is religion. Anyone who has seen an old man rise from his baptism, his soul all on…
Inara Verzemnieks: In 1905, on an isthmus along the Willamette River, an amusement park opened -- "a combination of reformed Coney Island and a Parisian cafe," the newspaper procla…
Tamara Jones: On the day that her life began again, Teressa Turner-Schaefer stood in a windowless Manassas courtroom and tried to remember the speech she had written in jail. "I'm…
Rebecca Catalanello watches the Ninth Ward come back with the mail man: Progress is written in black ink on 4- by 8-inch pages he keeps in a notebook inside his mail truck. 570…
Sara Corbett: He wasn't sure why they'd sent the muscle-building pudding. His old sponsors still sometimes mailed him stuff — maybe it was an act of hope. All he knew was that h…
Where I work now, Pasco County, Fla., is a global home to the nudist lifestyle. Every time I go behind the walls of the local nudist resorts I want more and more to get naked in th…
Ann Scott Tyson: They passed a burned-out car. A bigger spot of blood. Still no body. Then suddenly, white muzzle flashes and gunshots. The insurgents -- apparently wounded but lyi…
What a treat: "You've come a long way," he says. "What is it you want to know?" I want to know how to find someone to stop men from killing horses, to protect women, to throw a…
Have you read this story yet? The one in this month's Esquire? About how the good folks at Dateline, in their zeal to show you footage of themselves catching predators, manipulated…
Stephanie Hayes: She wanted her students to explore possibility. She'd give them a tea strainer. It could be a toy. It could sift sand and drip water. It could shovel. It cou…
I posted an invite the other day for folks looking for criticism, and the first brave soul has stepped up. Let's hear it for Joe Eaton at the City Paper in Washington. Here's J…
Our friend Lee is looking for some thoughts: In Kansas City next week, Hillary, Obama, McCain, Thompson and finally Bush is coming to speak at the VFW convention. I'm not a politic…
Ben this morning on 1A: Michael Allen Phillips lived in trouble. He strutted through the suburbs shirtless, a tattoo of a skull on his arm and a pistol on his belly. The man who…
From the post from Roy Peter Clark at the bottom of the frog and the cheese thread: "I'm wondering if there might be a test we could apply to these kinds of stories, a kind of 'mas…
C.J. Chivers in Finland: Jack Chivers spotted the lightning first. We stood on a pier on a bright summer Finnish night, looking down an archipelago extending into the Baltic Sea.
Quick note: If you'd like a communal Gangrey critique, shoot me an email suggesting as much and I'll try to get people to bite. Or post your link in the comments somewhere letting…
Check out Dirk Chatelain: HASTINGS, Neb. - They roll through puddles of mud and manure, breathing out clouds of black smoke that drift west through a soft breeze. Toward the are…
Laurie Abraham on what can be learned from observing a year of couples counselling: "You ask me for intimacy," Marie was telling her husband of 22 years, Clem — and, unavoidably, t…
Ben from Sunday: The sunflowers that strawberry farmer Eddie Jones spread on seven ordinary acres winked open a few days ago -- hundreds, then thousands, of them -- and began to pu…
Bill Reiter: This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Kelly Shotwell walked toward his orange 1987 Mustang at Kansas City International Raceway, his eyes hugging the scorching asp…
Eli Saslow with football as an escape: Ne'emia Vitale usually needs only a few minutes to walk home from football practice, following a one-lane street bordered by tin-roof huts an…
... maybe this would be it, from Ben Folds. (Don't know why I haven't heard this until now, especially since we've been rockin the suburbs for years.) Fred sits alone at his de…
From the Merc: Sure, we'll include marketing data and all the piles of quantitative information on our paper and our industry. But we all know that stats never tell the whole story…
Just learned our friend and occassional Gangrey poster Brendan Scott is stepping down from his job covering Albany at the Times Herald-Record for an investigative gig at the New Yo…
Alexandra Alter: On a scorching July afternoon, as the temperature creeps toward 118 degrees in a quiet suburb east of Phoenix, Ric Hoogestraat sits at his computer with the blinds…
Jodie Tillman: Eight years ago, on her 25th birthday, she was cutting a piece of cake when her boyfriend walked into the kitchen. He asked: Will you marry me? She dropped the knife…
Mark Mueller (thanks, Andy): Until she breathed, the woman on the fifth floor looked like a shrouded corpse. A sheet covered her body from head to toe. Uneaten dinner lay at th…
Manny Fernandez and Alison Leigh Cowan: Dr. William A. Petit Jr., his head bloodied and legs bound, stumbled out of a rear basement door of his two-story home here into a pouring r…
We talk a lot about what we should be giving people when they pick up the paper. What do they want? What do they need? How do we strike a balance between "news" and everything else…
Andy Newman with the folks preserving life post-Apocalypse. Dan Moldea, Mother of all Muckrakers. Tizon profiles the man behind the mines. Anybody who's paid $10.75 for a…
Wright Thompson: We leave the capital on Highway 108 early in the morning, ahead of the sludge of commuter traffic, which grows by a thousand new cars a day. The blacktop beneath t…
A few of us have been kicking around an idea born in an office somewhere in the Northwest. In the coming weeks, we're going to ask for your submissions for a new kind of writing…
This time it's allegations against Scott Thomas Beauchamp in the New Republic. The Weekly Standard has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott…
Sean Daly in Memphis: It's 3 a.m. in the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, and I'm walking out of a former brothel with two tipsy 21-year-old women. I just met them inside. Well, met th…
I don't pretend to know the best way to make a newspaper function, but I think it's a bright thing that the Chicago Tribune, what with all the financial stresses, has hired Louise…
Wright Thompson in Atlanta: An empty chair sits in a ranch-style home in a city long divided. It's a comfortable chair, positioned in front of a large high-def television, and it b…
Howard Kurtz reports that David Bradley had been trying to lure Jeffrey Goldberg to the Atlantic for more than two years and finally succeeded. The guy, evidently, is genius at spo…
Michael Wilson and Michael Brick: The 11-month-old girl stood in the tub, playing in shallow water with a 2-year-old girl, both looked after by a teenage mother home alone. The las…
Dan Barry. Michael Moore vs. Ken Burns. The Minnesota bridge narrative we were looking for, by Pam Louwagie: It was nearing 6 p.m. on Wednesday when Kristin West walked out t…
Jared Goyette has been reporting full-time since March, after some intern work at the Philly City Paper. He's in his first newspaper job at the bi-weekly Press and Standard in Walt…
Lane DeGregory: The old daredevil tips back in his recliner, nursing a blue lollipop. His small white dog, Rocket, slumbers in his lap. On the Food Network, a chef is shouting.…
Kruse did it. So did Meghan Murphy. And Doyle Murphy. Now comes Matt Tullis, with two more fairratives, here and here. Moratorium, anyone? Kidding. I'm still waiting for som…
Richard Lake points out he's having trouble finding newspaper narratives on the bridge collapse in Minnesota. I've been swamped today and haven't had a chance to do much reading. A…
Freaky. James Ridgeway in Mother Jones: Kenney Trentadue was driving a 1986 Chevy pickup when he was pulled over at the Mexican border on his way home to San Diego on June 10, 1995…
Frank Bruni (thanks, Leah): THE Bordeaux was flowing, the foie gras abundant and the well-heeled epicures at Daniel were having a refined old time when suddenly all eyes turned tow…
What happens when the guy who runs the kids camp for the city has a past? John Barry: ST. PETERSBURG - "Mr. Lynn" is a 5-foot-7, 215-pound square of muscle with a graying ponyt…
In 1993, The ProJo published a deep profile of convicted murder Freddie Bishop by Dan Barry and Tom Mooney: Inmates dressed in regulation drab shuffle through the prison compound.…
Andy Netzel: It's 5:58 a.m. I beat the alarm by two minutes. When my brain catches up with my eyes, I remember I'm in a stranger's basement. The bed is a mattress on the floor,…
Alexa James: The bride wore white, snow-white with embroidery the shade of Merlot and a glinting tiara in her long, dark hair. The groom wore a tuxedo, a black one sans sleeves.…
Michael Kruse: "I got my diamond the night of senior prom," Linda said. She and her husband lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina and then New Hampshire…
Another from Justin George's series, Deciding: RIVERVIEW – She came home from work and asked her husband about his day, holding back the question pressing on her mind. Nicki Bradle…
Manuel Roig-Franzia (thanks, Brady): SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCIA, Mexico — Tinny salsa downbeats jangled out of the flashing cellphone. Mario Salas pressed hard on the clutch, jammed th…
Bill Reiter: Eddie Johnson walked through the door of the Cadillac dealership in crisp white clothes and dark tinted sunglasses. A small fortune in diamonds hung from his wrists an…
S.L. Price (thanks, Tim): ONCE YOU DISCOVER THE SALVATION OF TRAVEL, the way it allows you to escape the old, escape yourself, it's a habit as tough to kick as any narcotic. But it…
Onion Radio News. (Thanks, Matt).
Stephen Farrell and Peter Gelling (thanks, Alex): The bare statistics will record that in the 71st minute of a soccer tournament 5,000 miles from Iraq, a Kurd from Mosul kicked a b…
John Doherty: This is what Newburgh is like without crack. Laressa Knight and her friend, Yahaira Fernandez, are walking down Lander Street on their way to the city pool, pushing a…
Miami Herald's David Ovalle with Who killed Joaquin March? (thanks, Nigel): On a dark May morning, Joaquin March threw on a red T-shirt backward, slipped out of his house and pedal…
Read Ben Montgomery on the fall of Lindsay Lohan: She looks up and smiles in the video clip taken after her accident, and we're all there, co-conspirators, watching through the gla…
Read Catherine Shoichet's story, then watch the sweet video: On the back of the shopping cart, a bright light flashes with each hip-hop beat. Nelson Sanchez glides past piles of pl…
Wow. David Finkel (thanks, Richard): An hour after a car bomb exploded in downtown Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 25 people, wounding at least 110 and destroying an apartmen…
You probably heard by now about the death-sensing "Kitty Kevorkian" at the Rhode Island nursing home, but it's worth taking a look at my buddy Mark Arsenault's original story. As u…
Steve Rubenstein gives us the story of one man and a dime worth $1.9-million. Perhaps, though, the dime is again fated to be locked away in a bank vault as a penalty for being ugly…
You gotta love the reporting on this story about the LA supervisor who gets busted by the Times. I wonder if you were writing this, what would you have done differently? Reporters…
Delphine Schrank: On a sloping patch of withered grass at his Clarke County, Va., farm one recent afternoon, William Cross did what any seasoned farmer touched with the gift will d…
Chalk off an hour, then watch this golden webcast of a conversation between John Prine and Ted Koosner on writing at the Library of Congress. Great, great stuff, whether you're a P…
Check out Cindy Wolff: It would be hard not to pick up a shovel and swing when you meet Fluffy. It would be your first instinct. That or to run. But not to fear. Fluffy may give…
Carolyn Marshall: When Todd Walker started coaching football 15 years ago, he focused on teaching city youth the game's fundamentals: how to pass, block and tackle. But after sever…
John Cotey: The fight game had chewed up Tyrone Booze, and what was left was fast asleep that summer night in 1992 when his phone rang at 3 a.m. He hadn't fought in over a year. Ri…
Paul Farhi: Lindsay Lohan, the actress, party girl and one-woman driving menace, continued to spiral downward yesterday, although it's not clear how much further she can fall. The…
I resisted the lure of Harry Potter for as long as I could, until late 2005, after the sixth book came out. Then my youngest brother, William, who was 15, persuaded me to crack ope…
From the Ocala Star-Banner comes Lashonda Stinson with a story about a father and son and one about tough love. And Matt Tullis from Columbus with the world's best horseshoe pi…
Josh Partlow: Pvt. Kodey Briggs slid out from behind the wheel of the Humvee. He looked at what was left of his driver's-side window -- the spider web of cracked armored glass, the…
Hank Stuever (thanks, Vanessa): To heaven, then, for true believer Tammy Faye (nee LaValley, then Bakker and Messner) -- the real heaven, the kind you learned about in those scratc…
William Lobdell: WHEN Times editors assigned me to the religion beat, I believed God had answered my prayers. As a serious Christian, I had cringed at some of the coverage in th…
Tom Bartlett in the Post mag: WE WERE RUNNING LATE. OF COURSE WE WERE. When you have a 5-month-old, it's difficult to be anywhere on time. Especially if you have to wrestle that 5-…
Dan Barry: Six somber members of the Hooksett Town Council, men with faces set as if in granite, trooped into the public library's basement the other night to convene what was adve…
Pat Walters: Silver Star No. 91 screamed as it hurtled the tracks from Jacksonville to Tampa one day last fall. One and a half thousand tons of smooth, silver metal moving at freew…
Jeff Klinkenberg: Despite rumors to the contrary, Willard Campbell, the Rose Man of Lake Placid, has been known to sleep. The other day he went to bed at midnight and slumbered fiv…
David Kelly: They met at a mall and Ryan Patricio sensed the chemistry immediately. He was drawn to it, called by it and he knew — perhaps they both did — that he would ultimately…
Edmund H. Mahony: Daniel Tedesco, a big-hearted bookie and the last stand-up guy in Hartford, died this week of old age and its myriad afflictions. He was 84. Tedesco was a big…
Raja Abdulrahim with a family's story: It has been a week since Noor Sabah had the final surgery on her jaw, and it is healing slowly. Slower yet to heal are the deep wounds of occ…
C.J. Chivers takes us inside totalitarianism's last hang-out: For all of their efforts at grandeur, the monuments are in their way a distraction. Much more interesting are the ways…
We're here at Tom French's seminar on doing narrative on deadline for some tips. Updates all hour! Tom's talking about scene construction: A few strategies: Zoom in. Take…
Katie Carrera (thanks, Leah): Before visitors walk into Stephen Murray's room at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center to see the injured bicycle motocross (BMX) rider, his family tries…
Tom Lake: Thomas Johns wobbled south through the dark on his Redline bicycle, just after midnight, smelling like rum. He got home and staggered inside, breathing hard. "I can…
You've got to have your feet on the ground to do stuff like this: To some of the people who say they saw Nathaniel Cobbs walking through the city's East End on July 8, he didn't se…
Lane DeGregory: Sundays are the hardest, Laura Houk says. That was always their day. "Family Day," her husband called it. They'd take the kids to church, then come home and he'…
Kevin Sullivan: Six miles from the nearest road, in the vast Siberian wilderness, a bearded man in flowing white linen robes sat at his kitchen table and talked about his crucifixi…
From the end of his 2002 story on the death of the cassette. Enjoy: A cassette tape lets you know when it's dying. It starts to give off the sound of music that would be played…
David Finkel: Everything in the Army is supposed to have a task and a purpose, and this simple mission was no different. The task was to get 27 soldiers from Point A to Point B, fr…
Got the following email from a friend, Amanda Palleschi. Perhaps it's worth a discussion: Shortly after you posted the Las Vegas Sun weather story, I, too, was assigned a weathe…
Lots of Friends Of Gangrey on this year's list of AASFE winners. Congrats, one and all.
It's not often I burden you fine folks with personal crap, but desperate measures are called for. My beloved Alma Mater, Arkansas Tech University, often referred to as the Harvard…
Nigel Duara on the water: Alan Corbin reaches into his bait bucket, grabs a wriggling sunfish, slices off the paper-thin tail and lets the blood run over his fingers. Somewhere…
The Times has changed how it does obits and created a new position for an obit writer. The stories started this week. Two fine offerings so far. Check out Andy Meacham on a guy…
From Chuck Salter, an unusually well-written business story about the animation studio Laika: Suggested by an employee, (the name) refers to the dog shot into space by the Sovi…
Dan Barry on the Little Pee Dee River: The boat moves through the murky river waters while swallow-tailed kites stir the evening sky and a little blue heron poses beside the cypres…
Brendan Buhler with a weather story (thanks, Richard): It's hot. Very hot, darn hot, eye-stinging hot. One hundred sixteen degrees hot. So hot sweat evaporates before it soaks thro…
A few days ago, Kruse and Sullivan and I were sitting around drinking Blue Moons and talking about the stories we'd written that readers loved the most. The conversation reminded m…
Libby Copeland with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The guru comes to Washington and sleeps on the floor, as is his wont. He tells a joke about the folly of material things and giggles an…
Continuing the list: Reid Forgrave in Des Moines, here, here, and here. Mike Mooney At the Dallas Morning News, here, here and here. Emily Richmond at the Las Vegas Sun, h…
Best wishes. Keep on rockin'. There's colors on the street Red, white and blue People shufflin' their feet People sleepin' in their shoes But there's a warnin' sign on the…
For all you Krakauer fans, here comes the movie version of his book Into the Wild. The book reconstructs -- and it's some crazy good reporting -- the last few years of drifter Chri…
Wow. Thanks. Thanks for the input. What a cool thing. A few folks I know on there, a few I've never heard of. I couldn't come by stuff for everyone, but it will be up soon. Here, t…
From Poynter's Al's Morning Meeting: He is convinced that any story of any length can include these essential storytelling elements. "Even a 15-second commercial includes all four…
Justin George: Every day, a white Grand Marquis with a black vinyl hardtop and 140,000 miles on the odometer pulls up to a triangle of empty city land below the highway. A man gets…
Tomas Alex Tizon (thanks, rlake): Clyde Friend's life changed the moment his bulldozer hit the first tree on a hot summer afternoon in 2002 as he leveled a hill behind his workshop…
Help Gangrey.com take the temperature of the future of newspaper journalism. Who is good out there? Is somebody unknown kicking ass at your paper? Does the rookie in the cubicle be…
Victoria Burnett: Ramón Sánchez is not a great believer in the powers of Cupid. But when Mr. Sánchez, a wiry 54-year-old bachelor, heard that dozens of women w…
Vincent M. Mallozzi: If seeing is believing, Michael Sayre will see today that he has no better friend than Aiden McGuire. Mr. Sayre, 25, and Mr. McGuire, 26, grew up in Syracuse a…
Monica Hesse: Think for a moment about your cellphone. How many phone numbers does it have? How many photos? If it were lost, how long would it take you to reconstruct your life? I…
Pete Hamill called into Fred Dicker's Albany-area radio talk show this morning to promote his new novel "North River." Thought all you Gangreeks out there might enjoy what two of t…
It's an ancient newspaper quagmire: An event comes to town once a year, and everyone expects the paper to cover it, but how do you give people something they'd want to read. Doyle…
A sentencing comes alive: The end brought no mercy for Paul Siminovsky. It came more than four years after he was arrested in cinematic fashion: pulled over in his car, driven to a…
Sometimes you just want to read about a dude gone nuts. Here's John Doherty: There are two parts of Eddie Houston's story police think they believe. Number one: Police think Housto…
Barton Gellman and Jo Becker: Shortly after the first accused terrorists reached the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002, a delegation from CIA headquarters…
Keith Goldberg: His father loved the fights. And sons have a way of sharing their fathers' love. Lou Savarese fell in love on trips to Madison Square Garden with Dad and uncle Lou…
Michael R. Gordon: The enemy was a phantom who never showed his face but transformed a neighborhood into a network of houses rigged to explode. And the soldiers from Comanche Compa…
Stephanie Hayes: Breasts. Boobs. Hooters. Half the population has a pair. In America, they're celebrated. Obsessed over. Regarded with a sexy sense of humor. But sometimes, breasts…
Three parts. Alan C. Miller and Myron Levin: MARISSA STERNBERG sits in her wheelchair, barely able to move or speak. Caregivers are always at her side. Progress is measured in tiny…
Dan Barry: It is morning in Greensburg, population uncertain. The sun rises from the flat-line horizon to cast light upon the tidy curbside piles of debris that had been homes, the…
Chris Goffard on the border (thanks, Saundra): HE senses them out there in the dark, making their moves, trying to outsmart him. He's planted on a hill in the cab of his mud-splatt…
Lane Degregory: He moved into the rented bungalow last fall. Put the birds' cages in the front window, just as his wife would have wanted. Charlie Bonn Kemp is 77. He'd never had t…
This, um, piece ran a while back, and shame on me for not posting it. Here's Emily Nipps with answers to some common questions about unicorns: Where do unicorns come from? The ori…
If you haven't seen it, Jon Marshall is doing a blog called News Gems: News Gems highlights the best in American journalism and is sponsored by the Society of Professional Journali…
Brantley Hargrove at the News-Record in Gillette, Wyoming, on a soldier's suicide (thanks, Paul): The events leading up to Josh Omvig's suicide were like a perfect storm — a conflu…
Colleen Kenney with a fighter. Jeb Phillips with kids taking an oath. Paul Brooks' package, Saving Private Ryan. Tizon with a couple living on the edge. As always, p…
Mike Levine always talked, cracker crumbs falling out of his mouth, about writing a tease like you'd find in the idex of ESPN The Magazine as a way to define your theme, the one me…
Dan Barry on Barry Bonds (free version): On this night, children lean over the dugout lip with baseballs and pens, and chirp like nestlings, "Barry, Barry," innocent of the knowled…
When lurkers come out, I'm pretty quick to Google. Check out Kristen Hare at the St. Joseph News-Press: No one uses the front door. At Patrick and Deann Farnan's home in Weston,…
Amy Jeter: SILVER AND GOLD stars sparkled from the walls of the Willard Model Elementary School gymtorium last Tuesday evening. Six pairs of Willard dancers climbed up the woode…
Thomas Lake: He crawled from the woods Sunday afternoon, wet and muddy, crazy with thirst, covered in scratches from shin to scalp. When he got to the hospital they mocked him,…
Justin George: It was 256 steps from the elevator to Room 212 at Tampa General Hospital. Each day, Janice Ryals held her husband's hand. It wasn't the hand left coarse by 30 years…
John Doherty: Leray Nelson sat in the front seat of a car in the Colonial Diner parking lot in Middletown. It was June 16 of last year and Nelson, whose arrest record includes char…
Doyle Murphy: A telephone pole lies across the water, connecting one bank to the other. On one side is the field where 7-year-old Sakai Daniels and Pastor Ed stand. On the other…
Manny Fernandez: Every night, before he shuts off the lights of his bodega in South Ozone Park, Queens, Reynaldo Rojas takes out some plastic bags and fills them with dozens of cig…
Dana Priest and Anne Hull: Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx, important people called him a war hero and promised to help him star…
Sean Daly: When you first meet Stacey, your dreams of the perfect Disney World vacation are still pure. No tears have been shed, no Goofy dolls lost, no deep family resentment seed…
This wasn't posted online, so here's the story in its entirety. Thanks to John for passing it along. By Marc Davis Virginian Pilot This is a significant detail. Almost every…
George Meyer (Thanks, Zack): I have been called a voluptuary, a sybarite, a hedonist, a creep. I am all of these things. I cannot live without pleasure. It is my oxygen—though I mu…
Jonathan Abel: It's slogging, anonymous work, but she does it well - which turned out to be bad news for the killer of Niccole Halpin.
Tamara Jones: Planned communities thrive on pleasant predictability, and over the course of nearly 50 years now, Reston has embodied this philosophy in discreet, neutral tones. By…
Wright Thompson: Most everything makes me think about my Daddy, and this morning, of all the stupid reasons to fight back tears in public, it's chipped beef on toast. I'm sitting a…
Check out this gem in Michael Brick's story on plea bargain: Carmine Carini had a decision to make. He was 47 years old. Nearly half that time he had spent in prison for the murder…
I found this story on the APSE web site. I'm not a Dolphin fan. I didn't think I had any interest in Jake Scott. But Sun Sentinel reporter Dave Hyde drew me into this story. Well w…
Lane Degregory with an investigation: At the end of the rodeo, Lee Greenwood's anthem blares through the speakers at Westgate River Ranch: "I'm proud to be an American ..." The…
I don't watch The Sopranos. I'm glad, too, because I hear the ending sucked. But I'll throw this out because we can't talk enough about endings. Let Lon Wagner get it going: I…
David Dunlap with a farewell: LISTEN. The sound is muffled by wall-to-wall carpet tiles and fabric-lined cubicles. But it's still there, embedded in the concrete and steel sinews o…
This is when video works. And don't miss Klinkenberg's story: On the way to playing tuba for an audience of alligators, William Mickelsen felt cocky enough to talk about his musica…
I don't know why I'm posting this, except that it feels so good to be loved. I mean, wow. I feel like writing the Albanians a letter. Where's my visa?
John Edward Ames goes on a rant, arguing: Accuracy, brevity, and clarity used to be the bywords of a newspaper reporter. Now it's suspense, setting, and back story. And late…
Ben in Brandon: Boyce Sweat's world is filled with car accidents and heart attacks and broken hips and lymphomas and tumors. But he's smiling on a Thursday morning as he walks…
William Booth tracks Paris: It is Day One of mansion confinement for Paris Hilton. Electronic monitoring system? Activated. Mrs. Beasley's Gourmet Cupcakes? Delivered. Her walled e…
Roy Peter Clark helps us understand why ancient story forms dominate pop culture: Years ago, I worked with a high school student who had written a story for the school paper about…
Colleen Jenkins with a must read: She made her entrance like always. Rosa Rio ascended from beneath the Tampa Theatre stage floor, her fingers coaxing Everything's Coming Up Ros…
Laura Blumenfeld in the Washington Post: In Iraq, when Tony Lagouranis interrogated suspects, fear was his friend, his weapon. He saw it seep, dark and shameful, through the cro…
While we struggle with the advent of the web, it may interest you to know that one newspaper in India is still being handwritten.
Paul Schwartzman: The limo is on the way and 80-year-old Burton Pugach is crawling on the living room floor, searching for his cellphone. "Burt! You have to dress! Now do it!" h…
Check out Eli Sanders (thanks, Hank): Chris Crocker will reveal just about anything, except where he lives. He has too many haters for that now. Instead, he tells his fans that he'…
Michael Rosenberg: After reading my last Break Room column, some people concluded that I think we should kill pilots who talk too much over the loudspeaker. I honestly don't know w…
David Ferrara (thanks, Andy): Christopher Ryan Gaines said he often wakes up in fits, screaming. Each minute of the 2004 murder has haunted him. He can't close his eyes, he sai…
Evelio Contreras: Leonardo's at the Department of Motor Vehicles. It's a Friday morning in mid-June. There aren't a lot of people. Maybe 30. But he's waiting. When will hi…
So I find myself in Roanoke, Va., a good bit these days, my much-needed monthly mountain retreat, and this means I find myself reading the Roanoke Times. The paper's got this cool…
Tom Lake: When it was over he stood in the laundromat, by the clothing revolving in fresh-scented soap, and he sighed as he thought of the dream that washed away. And the stain…
I'm here less than 10 hours and I'm already down $200. I'm a fool. Sorry for no new posts this weekend (save this one, course). Fend for yourselves.
Anyone read this back in December? Paul Meyer and Stella M. Chaves in seven parts (Thanks, CH): In rural Mexico , Yolanda Méndez Torres lived in a society where sexual violence aga…
Quick. Grab your copy of Bind, Torture, Kill; The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door, by Wenzl and the folks at the Wichita Eagle who covered this thing inside and out. (B…
Check it out: To accompany Mia Fineman's essay on Helvetica, the font that is now the subject of a documentary film and an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, Slate asked a number…
Jodi Kantor: If one were somehow to play a highlight reel of Mr. Obama's on-court exploits, it would start in Hawaii, with a pudgy junior high school student in short shorts and hi…
Amber Mobley on love bugs: They're the couple next door in desperate need of drapery, the eternal newlyweds, the definitive PDAers. Kind of sweet. Extremely gratuitous. Perpetually…
Check out this unusual narrative: One day a baby sparrow plummeted 25 feet from a nest tucked in the eaves of a Southeast Portland home and landed in a clump of dying irises.
Konrad Marshall, who sort of took my old job at The Florida Times-Union, comes out of nowhere with a beautiful, haunting character study disguised as a story about a man crapping i…
This is great, and I don't have all the details, so correct my mistakes somebody: An editor somewhere in the northern portion of TimesLand put some money down for a contest to spic…
Remember this two-parter from Thomas Curwen at the LA Times? He shares a bit about his experience and some of the feedback with Nell Lake: He wrote us that the online story package…
Cindy Lange-Kubick's mom was so not cool. Andy Newman takes us beneath the Cyclone. Lane Degregory with another Encounters. Stephanie Earls on The Force in Albany. Kruse and Erin S…
Real men sweat and wrestle: Arthur Breur pressed down on the other man's back, cradling him in his arms. "Wrestle!" the coach barked, and then Breur's only thought was domination,…
Another Encounters: Susan Zaffater has been to enough garage sales to know when something is junk. The trunk was special. She didn't even need to search inside it to know that. The…
No, these aren't newspaper stories. But I submit the following two passages as standards toward which to strive as we try to explain the world. They both appeared in The New Yorker…
If this lion was successful, would it have pooped pretty sentences? Peter Slevin: Long time gone. Dan Barry: A soldier goes down fighting. What are you reading?
John Romano: She makes her way down the aisle of a church, eyes locked on the crucifix hanging above. A woman walking through the final steps of a life, unaware that it no longer e…
Maybe this is why people aren't reading us. We dress like a bunch of dorks. Shirts and ties are the gear of yesteryear. William Booth with some fashion tips from Cannes: Some of th…
This is great. Libby Copeland, all smart and whatnot, hanging outside an "art show" with some questions: It's tough being dissidents seeking publicity. You despise The Man but you…
Fascinating stuff, including this golden nugget: "When we first started studying life stories, people thought it was just idle curiosity — stories, isn't that cool?" said Dan P. Mc…
Check out Stephanie Earls from Albany: He did it in Domestics. In front of Bernadine from Housewares and David from Men's Suits, but not Sandi from Candy who had the day off. He di…
Missed this one over the weekend. Here's Chris Goffard: There were 10 teenagers in the SUV that night, hurtling toward summer. Crammed elbow-to-elbow from the cab to the luggage pi…
Damien Cave: The ground exploded under an ashen sky at dawn. Dust, dirt, blood and military equipment filled the air, clearing after several seconds to reveal a frenzied scene of h…
I don't read SI much, but I found this by Gary Smith in The Best American Magazine Writing 2005 tonight. Um. Wow: Who knows why? In two weeks they'll light the world's largest wick…
Congrats to the folks who won and placed in the contest. Saw a few Gangreyers in there. Well done.
Here's Dan Barry from Sunday: Four city workers set out this morning to whack the weeds sprouting several inches high from the deserted downtown sidewalks. With machines whining, t…
Go, now, and reserve a copy of his coming book, Obit, due out June 1. Made me sob on the flight home last night. Here's one slice, for your inspiration: The advertisements shout wi…
I love this kid (Thanks, CH): Some things are almost impossible to comprehend, and this is one of them. Benjamin Zesch, 19, likes to pop up out of the water dressed in camoufla…
All- We're here at the writers workshop. In the mother of all upsets, this is actually incredibly helpful. Today, I've listened to Ben talk. And that, well, ... Since we'v…
John Barry: All the props for a good mystery are there: dank parking garage, bad lighting, moldy stairs from level to level, a scarcity of living human beings. The Buick Regal L…
And it's not good what happens: FOR three days in March I camped on a drifting slab of ice, 200 miles north of Alaska, as close as I'd ever get to the top of the world and to knowi…
Check out Meghan Murphy at the Greeley Tribune. The Good Word: From a distance, K.J. Tencza looks a little bit punk rock, a little bit hippie. He wears long khaki shorts, grungy…
Matt Tullis goes inside the mind of a Hula-Hooper. Damn fine dateline. Star Trib to reporters: To the 'burbs! The fastest man on no legs.
Ben Montgomery with the last thing you'd expect to see on the front page of a major metro daily: It's nearing 1 a.m. and you're waiting outside 7-Eleven on Davis Islands for someon…
Mike Wilson with Tarzan sleeps over: Gordon Scott, an actor who played Tarzan in the movies in the late '50s and early '60s, died on May 4 in Baltimore. He was 80. The Associated…
Tamara Jones: Matt Deighton grabs a broom and starts sweeping the living-room floor, a chore clearly more cathartic than practical in the ruins of his childhood home. The cozy litt…
Thomas Lake: Richard Scoggins was installing a red front door on his girlfriend's mobile home when her ex-boyfriend called with a perplexing offer. He wanted to come by and cook…
This is a joke, right? When is local journalism not really local? When it's about Pasadena and written by someone in India. James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the Pas…
Matt Sedensky and Kristen Gelineau (Thanks, Oliver): The workers stand near the 50-yard line in Lane Stadium, unfolding flimsy black chairs and setting each precisely in place, one…
In court: For nearly 15 years it has endured among the more bizarre mysteries in Mafia lore, a competitive field if ever there was one: When a young couple from Queens — armed with…
Richard Lake: Six hours and 40 minutes after they got the case, the jurors came back in. None talked. They sat down. Most looked straight ahead, at no one. One woman, juror N…
Here's to making political profiles readable. His story (Thanks, Raja): As he ambles through the early voting states, there is a decided "Why the heck not?" feel to Mr. Dodd's joyo…
Read his story: "The Price Is Right" without Bob Barker could mean something profound to a lard-butt nation. Either he gets a life or you do. Maybe both. Barker is 83 now. He's…
Stories like this, from the folks in Wichita, make me proud to be in newspapers (Thanks, Colleen): This sun-baked High Plains town no longer has a grade school, a high school, a Ci…
Read his story (Thanks, Justin): There's a new horse in Barbaro's stall. He arrived a day ago, and a plaid Baker blanket deflects the last jabs of winter. Spring is here, and in th…
Corey Kilgannon: Every Sunday morning in a second-floor apartment in Astoria, Queens, the Rev. Louis Braxton Jr. rouses a half-dozen sleeping bodies from bunk beds in two cramped r…
Kirk Johnson: Great spellers come in all types, from egotistical showoffs to loners who find sanctuary in the forest of words. Kunal Sah, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, is an angr…
Lane DeGregory: Darrell Blackwell pulled into Bolling Air Force Base and parked by an imposing gray building. He got out, clenching and unclenching his fists. "You've got to ke…
So I sat down in the airport with the Chicago Tribune, the real paper in my hands for something like the fifth time ever. Open it, and on the first inside page, page 3, where the n…
Alex Zayas: They spent that day at the mall. Samantha, 4, climbed plastic tortoises in the play area at International Plaza in Tampa. Her little brother had his picture taken fo…
From Bill Marvel: Several people who regularly post to Gangrey have attended the Mayborn Conference here in North Texas. It's aimed at exactly the kind of writing Gangrey promotes…
When pennies fail. Turf war stops at the ER. Sing Sing real estate service. New narratives from Nell Lake. Alt weekly awards.
Here's John Doherty: Jackie Burnett watched Omari Shakur from a block away. She watched him push a PA system into place and post the black, red and green Marcus Garvey Black Power…
Elizabeth Merrill (Thanks, Justin): The long way twists under steel bridges and grinding engines, with darkness and pokes of sunlight, water and the cluttered madness of downtown P…
Sebastian Junger near the end of the compelling and very readable A Death in Belmont: One of the conceits of my profession is that it can discover the truth; it can pry open the wo…
A few months ago, at a bar in St. Pete, Kruse got to talking about the upcoming Hernando County fair. He was interested in the idea that for a week and a half every year, a barren…
Congrats to a few Gangreyers on the list, including Vanessa Gezari and Bill Reiter.
Read this story by Andrew Meacham and S.I. Rosenbaum: You'll get no more surprise parties, John Smith wrote. No more Disney World trips. No more Daytona 500 tickets or televisio…
Here I am, officially my first day back in the Memphis cubicle, and the news comes through my email — Gangrey friend and contributor Colleen Kenney is among the 13 U.S. journalists…
Sometimes we see things that are hard to stand. And this story is hard to read. But Ben made something beautiful and powerful out of it. Angel T. Jimenez bought a length of nylon r…
Greg Bruno's report: On the evening of April 8, 2000, midway through her second semester at the U.S. Military Academy, Cadet Kristina Thompson passed out drunk in a Washington, D.C…
LAT's Thomas Curwen with part 1: JOHAN looked up. Jenna was running toward him. She had yelled something, he wasn't sure what. Then he saw it. The open mouth, the tongue, the teeth…
His magazine piece (thanks, Kevin): This story begins on an August afternoon in 2002 when the baby needed a nap. Or possibly in a different year with a different baby taking a diff…
Kruse with an Encounter: BROOKSVILLE – Dan Weaver was telling stories outside his food trailer called The Olde Smokehouse the other day at the Hernando County Fair. He's 55. Someti…
Google News failed me. My friend John-Henry Doucette has brought light and understanding to the Virginia Tech massacre in a spirit that would have made our mentor proud. Here he is…
Read Corey Kilgannon's story: There have been higher points in Rohan Davey's career — starring in big-time college bowl victories, dominating the N.F.L.'s European league and colle…
From Cory Golden, via email: If you were a feature writer assigned to this, and you had your choice what you went after, where would you be drawn? How would you make your story dif…
His story: They told the police that they thought it would be easy to rob the gay man. It was not easy. The gay man ran away when they punched him, they said on videotaped stateme…
Here: The soldiers called him Bob, and for the past several weeks, until Tuesday morning, he was the biggest obstacle to the success of an important mission in a small but crucial…
From my friend and occassional Gangrey poster Corey Hale, who teaches journalism in Texas: We loaded up again at the ILPC State Journalism Convention this past weekend with 19 indi…
He was prolific, and important, and damn, damn good. This is one of the best books I've ever read. Halberstam was killed yesterday in a wreck on his way to an interview.
I'm struggling. When Andrea Elliott's series, "An Imam in America" first ran in The New York Times, I started it, but for some reason did not finish it. So when it was awarded the…
Brendan says we should run more pictures. I agree. This comes from Wooster.
Richard Nixon's Long Journey Ends David Von Drehle (see post below), on deadline: When last the nation saw them all together, they were men of steel and bristling crew cuts, titans…
David von Drehle in an email to Roy Peter Clark before last week's Sports Journalism Summit: 1. Because the building blocks of narrative are the building blocks of sports: – Confl…
Shit. Read Dan Barry: Under a dreary sky the color of uncertainty, on a city block pocked by abandonment, a door opens and a girl of 15 steps out. With a black-and-blue book bag sl…
Read Alex Zayas' story: Susan has loved Jace Badia since first grade, long before she got pregnant with their daughter and married him, before an 8-year-old boy in Iraq detonated a…
My reading is limited on this massacre, but I thought these were worth noting: N.R. Kleinfield with a profile (read this account; and, by the way, Kleinfield profiled another ki…
Eric Konigsberg's story: The city Health Department has closed 297 restaurants since the week ending Feb. 24. That was when a scene of rats teeming around a Taco Bell/KFC in Greenw…
I was trying to finish the editing on a long story the other day when I got to thinking about metaphors and similes. They are easy to do wrong, as I've learned from experience, mos…
From Oliver Mackson: She worked in St. Pete about 10 years ago, and she worked here (the Times Herald-Record) from 1992-94. She was a good friend back then, although I haven't spok…
David Maraniss reconstructs: The roommates crossed paths near the bathroom door at 5 in the morning. In the Monday darkness, another school week at Virginia Tech was about to begin…
A few that jumped out: Marc Santora and Manny Fernandez on the loner: In Room 2121, Mr. Cho went to bed early for college standards, at about 9 p.m. He often rose early, but in…
Finkel from Iraq: By now the soldiers know the ceremony by heart, but Monday afternoon, on day 62 of the Iraq war's escalation strategy, they rehearsed it yet again, starting with…
Carlo Rotella on Shannon Briggs: The eclipse of the American heavyweight echoes the recent string of American failures in international basketball and baseball competitions and the…
If you didn't look before, swing by Pat Walters' blog citing 48 tips from the Harford National Writers Workshop. Lots of useful stuff (you can nearly feel Pat sweating), including…
Thomas Lake and Molly Moorhead with A chase, an outcry, then shots in the dark. Michael Kruse with The boys from Coots cabin. NOTE: I was deeply impressed by Edmund Fountain'…
Andrew Wolfe of the Nashua Telegraph goes wild on a car crash (thanks, Matt): Dude, you are SO grounded! Taking your mom's '95 Maxima after she went to bed, that was brazen.…
He's got a running list of tips from the folks speaking there. Keep up with it here.
The Post's Sudarsan Raghavan was there (thanks, Tim): The bomber blew himself up no more than a few yards away. First, a brilliant flash of orange light like a starburst, then a gi…
A friend is seeking advice: I've been reporting a story for three months about a woman with MS who is trying to get off her ventilator and breathe on her own. She hasn't made much…
From the LA Times ("There was never a kinder and, at the same time, wittier writer to be with personally," author Tom Wolfe, a friend and admirer of Vonnegut's, told The Times. "He…
Read her story: Blinded and disabled on the 54th day of the war in Iraq, Sam Ross returned home to a rousing parade that outdid anything this small, depressed Appalachian town had…
Read his account: Capt. Abdul Rakhman peered over a chest-high mud wall as gunfire and shouts rose. Beside him were two Afghan Army soldiers and a Dutch marine. A few yards away an…
Deborah Howell writes: Complaints on anecdotal leads have been steady; they spiked when I asked readers in my March 11 column for their opinions on story length. While many readers…
Lane DeGregory with another Encounter. Roy Wenzl charts a connection. Corey Kilgannon on hip-hop at a school for the deaf. And the sports editor at the Times Herald-Record…
Every once in a while I read a story that makes me go GODDAMN I WISH I'D WRITTEN THAT. This is one of them.
Read his story: The two blue books are each 3 inches thick. The first chapter in one is titled: "The Day I Killed My Best Friend." Each one rests on a courtroom table with a family…
Ramsey Al-Rikabi in this morning's THR: Go ahead, open the sunroof, let the air in.
Read John M. Glionna's story (thanks, Cory): One night, as the buoy bells clanged and the foghorn moaned, he swore he heard clinking glasses, as if a toast were being made. He hear…
It's been fun to watch from a distance the development of the multi-media efforts over at Recordonline.com, the site for the Times Herald-Record. It's a resource-strapped newsroom…
Read Saundra Amrhein's story: She and the European man talked that first night. "Cafe con leche," she remembered him saying, rubbing her arm, a shade of ice tea, and his, chalk…
Paul Vitello's story (thanks, Raja): The substitute teacher in Room 216 was pacing, searching for the right touchstone to help an eighth-grade social studies class in this mostly w…
Jon Carroll takes on The New Republic's expose on David Sedaris: I am just amazed that anyone thought David Sedaris' stories were literally true. I am even more amazed that the New…
Listen the opening of For Better or for Worse, circa 1995, from Finkel in the WP magazine: Everyone has had something to say. Her mother said: Get your hair cut. It'll make you…
The saga continues: In his day, Detective Fred the Cat was lionized from Grand Rapids, Mich., to Japan. There was a law enforcement award; there was an appearance on Broadway. The…
New York Times Metro Editor Joe Sexton dropped in a Q&A yesterday that Jim Dwyer will take over Dan Barry's old About New York gig. Gangreyers might remember this little Dwyer d…
Check out this Q and A (via Poynter) with Lane DeGregory.
Tizon with a soldier's family. Lon Wagner at a smoker zoo. Doyle Murphy with a quickie on streetfight. Roy Wenzl on an ex-slacker. Jeb Phillips with the oldest vet.
Nuggets on the Walter Reed investigative work from Anne Hull and Dana Priest in this E&P story, and a deeper Q and A from AJR: Q: I've heard people in grocery stores and my loca…
Richard Oppel Jr.'s story: In the last moments of his life, Sgt. First Class Benjamin L. Sebban saw the flatbed truck speed into the concertina wire guarding his small Army patrol…
Remember the racket a few weeks ago about the old man who died in his house and was found 13 months later, still in front of the turned-on TV? LAT's Erika Hayasaki brings us the ba…
Our friend (and Gangreyer) brings us this story (via, Nieman Narrative Digest): Just before suppertime on Feb. 7, 2006, a little boy named Zach Kroeker, who lived on a farm in Jeff…
Jack Shafer on the embellishment trap (thanks, Cory): If you've never embellished an anecdote to get a bigger laugh from your drinking companions, please stand up. If you've never…
If you've ever covered something spontaneous near deadline, you know it's easy to ditch style and story for the sake of getting all the stardard information in short order. That's…
Libby Copeland in the sunshine: The sand is white, the water is blue-green, and the nation's college students are celebrating the proud rites of spring as they always have, with Ke…
Kruse with a study of sweet tea geography trends: McDonald's has been selling its so-labeled and specifically pitched product called Mickey D's Sweet Tea for a while now in select…
Here at Gangrey we generally focus on craft, but this one wins on content. The narrative is a litle convoluted and hard to follow. But it may be the best news story of the year. To…
Sorry for the few posts last week. I took a vacation with my family. Back, now, and ready to roll. Robert D. McFadden on the rampage a few weeks ago in Greenwich Village. Brick fro…
I seem to recall a conversation late one night not all that long ago in a so-so hotel room just off an I-4 exit ramp in Orlando in which Ben asked that someone please write … THIS.
A smidge of Hank Stuever on a Sunday morning: As the details of Anna Nicole Smith's death (you may have heard about it already) were being orgiastically reported in print and on TV…
Sara Rosenbaum: It was like any other Saturday. People were probably cutting their lawns, the mowers purring away into the heavy spring air. David Cruz doesn't know. He spent the d…
Here's his story: The two robbers walked into Pop's Paradise minutes before closing late Tuesday night. They stepped into the backroom, where a handful of people drank and talked.…
Here's Kruse in a parking lot on a Saturday morning: Eight-year-old Skylar Brijbag looked both ways and pushed her Disney Princess bike across the street. She lifted the front whee…
Ben at a bar: Let us raise a glass to the Eleven Mile Tavern, days away from destruction, the latest sacrifice to cars and asphalt in this ever-expanding area. Here's to 1885, the…
What's it like in this DNA age to be told you have a lethal gene? The Women's War. 'Only God can change me' Behind the story of a deadly journey. U-turn on H Street Division in a G…
Or maybe it does. Check out the Little People Street Art (via Wooster Collective).
Doing some photo hunting for a colleague and I landed on this killer piece from Michael Sokolove in the New York Times Magazine a few years back. What a great piece of work on olym…
Dave Sheinin's story: The Devil and the Son of God are waging war from opposite corners of Josh Hamilton's body. As he guides his Chevy Tahoe out of the driveway of his rental…
Erin Sullivan: They saved a seat for him at lunch Thursday, and when they went outside, they could swear they saw a cloud that looked just like his face. The children all looked up…
Read his story: The desert-yellow walls of the old City Hall rise rippled and pockmarked to pink domes and narrow minarets. Decorative peaks like tiny staircases top the barrier wa…
Better late than never: Red carpet on Oscar night: We could use this right about now, as an antidote to all that In-N-Out-drive-thru-style rehab, all that unseemly live video feed…
Bruce Wallace in the LAT: It sure looks real enough, all those vicious slaps to the face and head-smacking collisions and men of generous poundage being hurled into the dirt. Bu…
Read his story: Rob Spicker is out there in the cold and dark at 4 a.m. with the usual problem. He has a name and a blurry snippet of video. The name is for a guy shot the night be…
Check out this piece by Cory Golden at the Davis Enterprise. Unlike God, Janie Howard didn't give instructions in cubits. She handed Mark McCarthy a toy ark that opened like…
From the washingtonpost.com, onBeing is a "project based on the simple notion that we should get to know one another a little better." Like a virtual Einstein's or something. The v…
Roy Peter Clark is pumping out tips over at Poynter on how to do serial narratives and Chapter Five mentions one of the best breaking serial narrative efforts I've seen, from Sue C…
Read Jamal Thalji's story: After they rescued her baby, the mother dolphin traded one kind of blue for another. She rocketed toward the sky, all eyes watching. The dolphin hung…
From Wichita (thanks, Roy): It was no surprise to anybody on my street that Amanda Orloske sank eight three-point shots and scored 28 points for Heights' basketball team in the Cla…
(Thanks, Ollie) PETE DEXTER blew into town from Florida some 30 years ago with a cowboy limp and a car that smelled like wet dog. His hips were messed up from an old football injur…
The egg comes first: Let us now praise an unsung hero of tourist season: the short-order cook slinging hash, right this minute, in the crowded kitchen at Skyway Jack's Restaurant.…
ASNE was kind enough to give him the award. Read it again. —— By C.J. Chivers New York Times KARMA, Iraq, Oct. 30 — Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby clutched the injured…
Even before I knew her, Lane Degregory was my hero. So I think it's pretty cool that she is the winner of this year's Ernie Pyle memorial award for human interest writing. Here's w…
From the AP's Kristen Gelineau (Thanks, Andy): "You got a letter," Mike Seccuro said, tossing an envelope onto his wife Liz's lap as he climbed behind the wheel of their minivan. W…
C.J. Chivers on what happens after the war. And, my friends, David Finkel with the guys who are going: Their camouflage on, their wives carrying infants, their older children carry…
On the heels of some great discussion about what's right and wrong in narrative today, consider this story about the Largo, Fla. city manager who is undergoing a sex change: As the…
It all happens here: "Florida is a dream state," Mormino says. "And the dream comes in many versions. You can reinvent yourself here. You could be bankrupted twice in Illinois and…
Read Michael's story: The big chair is still gone. The giant-sized deck chair was 11 feet tall, 6 feet wide and weighed 400 pounds, and it sat in front of the Bare-Lee Used Furnitu…
I just love it when something like this shows up in my morning paper.
Halberstam had it: "(Sport) is a great window on society." Two pieces for your consideration (and then a question). Both stories are about sports teams, in a way, but more importan…
Marc Santora on rape in Iraq. Corey Kilgannon's Son of Sam Slept Here. Oliver Mackson on a conviction. Jonathan Abel with a woman who misses her cat. And Dave Tarrant watches the c…
If you haven't kept up with their series on Walter Reed and the results of their investigation, here's your chance, along with a transcript from their online chat today.
Check out Gangrey-lurker Jennifer P. Brown's feature column, Street Stories, from the Kentucky New Era. She's catching all sorts of quiet stories, like a prayer meeting in a rough…
And that makes a fun read. Here's Colleen Kenney's story: "Say I'm at a bar with friends," Mike Terpstra says. "If I go, 'I'll get that round!' my friends just look at me. ''Think…
Read her story: "They seem to think I'm some evil, horrible soldier down here trying to sacrifice our kids to Iraq," Harrington said in describing the increasing tensions on the Ea…
Ray Rivera's story: Balding, with just a fringe of unwieldy gray hair, Mr. Melnitzky was once a recognized art expert. He was the principal art conservator at Sotheby's for nearly…
* Justin George catches up to an old story. * Dan Barry's This Land. * John Barry's A rose from Holly. * And don't miss Dana Priest and Anne Hull on what it's like at Walter Reed:…
Nora Ephron in Telling True Stories: I have also learned things through screenwriting that would have been good to know when I worked as a journalist. As a young journalist I thoug…
He's in New Orleans with Saints fans, in Irvine, Calif., with Mark McGuire, and at the Lorraine Motel with some Trail Blazers.
I got a new computer a few months back, after my old laptop finally expired, and then I spent many hours ripping all my CDs to the hard drive. It was a real pain, but now I can bur…
Read Kruse's story: The lights were off, the music was stopped, the doors were locked. There was a U-Haul truck backed up to the side of the main building at the Rogers' Christmas…
Read Marc Kaufman's story: As Neil Armstrong prepared to take his "one small step" onto the moon in July 1969, a specially hardened video camera tucked into the lander's door click…
Michael Brick on mercy or death, Dan Barry from Sunday, and some daily inspiration from Hank Stuever back in February of 2003: A good five inches of snow falls, and the cubicle lan…
David Simon, former Baltimore Sun cops reporter and force behind the brilliant television shows Homicide and The Wire, visited the St. Petersburg Times on Friday to talk about the…
Damien Cave in Baghdad: Staff Sgt. Hector Leija scanned the kitchen, searching for illegal weapons. One wall away, in an apartment next door, a scared Shiite family huddled around…
Read Tom Lake's story: In the end they identified just one tooth. It belonged to the old woman's son. Now she sits on a brown wraparound couch in her living room, telling stories t…
Justin George on Gene's: Someone sneaks out the side door, and a breeze blows in. The DJ interjects with another message: "Shut the door, baby." It's an order meant to keep the pou…
New York Herald Tribune. November 1963. Washington – Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment…
Damien Cave and James Glanz on Haifa Street: In the battle for Baghdad, Haifa Street has changed hands so often that it has taken on the feel of a no man's land, the deadly space b…
Mark Fisher writes: "Virginia state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican from Fairfax County, is one of the press corps' favorite lawmakers in Richmond. He's no great statesman, but h…
Brick: The killer apologizes P.J. Huffstutter: The Tightwad bank is closing Erin Sullivan: 'Bring me back three ripe, organic, unblemished bananas'
Sedaris in this week's New Yorker: The latest Kate Bush CD includes a song called "Aerial," and one spring afternoon Hugh sat down to listen to it. In the city, I'm forever nagging…
At 7:59 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1961, a passenger train smashed into a school bus in the farm country of Weld County, instantly killing 20 children. It was the deadliest traffic accident…
Read Brick's story: Now comes the hard part: What kind of a person would do such a thing? The question is not clear, not precise, not even based in discernible fact. It is existent…
Read Michael Wilson's story: Three crumpled dollars and two quarters, tugged from the pocket of a puffy coat on a cold night, brings four hot chicken wings with French fries or fri…
Put it on your schedule. January 26. Friday. 2 p.m. David Simon, former police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, author of Homicide, and Emmy award-winning creator of HBO's "The Wire…
Read his story: Early last summer the mayor of this small town east of Atlanta issued a decree: no more soccer in the town park. "There will be nothing but baseball and football do…