Archive
Writing once featured on the original Gangrey blog.
Looks like Inara Verzemnieks cracked the Atlantic: Time was running out for Fizzle the rooster. Four weeks ago, he had announced his sex to the world, or at least to his Portland,…
This story, by David Samuels, really picks up speed as it goes: With two minutes left in his workout, Rampage mounts a final assault on the heavy bag. An invisible string seems to…
Washington Post photographer Andrea Bruce (thanks, Ramsey). This is beautiful.
Tom Chiarella (thanks, Casey): The sink is full of tongues. Beef tongues, each as big as a man's shoe, frozen into one icy clump the size of a propane canister, defrosting for an a…
David A. Fahrenthold (thanks, Kevin): The Chesapeake Bay is not tar-black and dead. It is not bright-green and toxic. It looks just as beautiful as ever, come a sunrise in Annapoli…
Almost missed this: Finally, I thought, a story about a print organization that has found a way to tame the Web and come up with a digital business approach that could serve as a m…
Michael Kruse: We've never been more safe. We've never been more afraid. That's the paradox we're left with now that police have finally named a killer in the murder of Adam Walsh.…
Lee Hancock, part one of five: Min Patel huddled in a fourth-floor hallway with Dr. Edward Taylor near an intensive care unit, where the trauma surgeon's patient lay tethered to a…
Dan Barry: EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. They came for the gravely ill racketeer last month, appearing at his North Providence home around dawn. His time was near, but not as near as the p…
Hank Stuever: Deep Throat's death comes as no shock to the nursing-home atmosphere that sometimes looms over American newspapering these days, where we tend to log on each morning…
Snow fell in Vegas. And it's almost Christmas. Poetry time! See what you think: 'Twas the week before Christmas, when all up the Strip Not a sunbeam was shining, not even a bit. Th…
William Langewiesche: What were the odds? There were so many chances for the accident not to occur—so many ways to break the chain that led to it—that a crash investigator later to…
Ben Montgomery wonders why so many stories he reads use a common newspaper cliche to suggest plurality. He's not alone. A Gangrey request: Let's (… is not alone) all (… is not alon…
Monica Hesse on the stuff at the curb and Adam Walsh: … Adam Walsh was the reason why, when we played on the front lawn, we couldn't go past the irises. Why we 1980s children could…
Tom Hallman Jr.: For years, Heather Brown, 28, thought she had come to terms with the death of her father. She was just 7 when Portland police Officer Tadd Kruger gunned down the m…
About eight years ago or so, the Washington Post ran a brilliant feature about a popular party clown in the D.C. area who, it turned out, had a gambling addiction. The story was mu…
Dan Barry: BRISTOL, Conn. In an office so quiet as to be disruptive, a man sits amid the detritus of his chosen career. The collected reports of the Connecticut Freedom of Informat…
This broadside was fired seven years ago, by B.R. Myers in the Atlantic, but I just discovered it. Check it out: Everything written in self-conscious, writerly prose, on the other…
Benjamin Young Montgomery, named after his great great great great grandpa, who shed blood in the Civil War and met his end in 1934, at the age of 89, in a motor car on the outskir…
GQ's Sean Flynn has a gripping narrative on the Alaska Ranger sinking on Easter Sunday. This is a long story, but beautifully told. The detail is cinematic. Flynn makes readers fee…
Rick Reilly (tx, Justin): With apologies to Harper's Index … Amount jailed star quarterback Michael Vick spent from July '06 to July '08, according to recent bankruptcy papers: $17…
Top 10 Thanksgiving Stories? I'll start. Dan Barry: THEY deserved New York. Those who have willingly donned the maroon-and-gold uniforms of the Pinson Valley High School marching b…
One of our friends is meeting today to talk about launching a crime blog at his paper. He's looking for some good ones out there and any advice on making it successful. Seems like…
Paul Salopek (tx, Nigel): IN THE AFAR TRIANGLE, Djibouti – The desert is a war. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Cynthia Ramirez roared through it in an unmarked Land Cruiser, projecting the a…
It's uncanny the number of things Hanna-Barbera Production's The Jetsons correctly predicted. Flying cars. Carwash-like showers. That a black man would be elected president of the…
When I was a boy, I used pull the covers over my head and read the sex scenes in my granny's romance novels. I just typed granny and sex in the same sentence. I did it again. Anywa…
Emily Nipps: When the Tampa Police Department needs a touch of compassion, someone who can roll into any situation and defuse it with a calm, tolerant demeanor, they know just the…
Tonight I read a story that reminded me why, despite all its surplus commas, The New Yorker is still indispensable: Elephants, like many of us, enjoy a good malted beverage when th…
Susan Dominus: Everyone's a critic, and apparently it's never too soon to start. That's why David Fishman, an Upper West Sider who turned 12 last month, decided to take himself out…
Claire Hoffman: The thirty-thousand-square-foot Italianate villa, built this century by Vanna White's ex-husband, looks like many of the other houses in Beverly Park, a gated commu…
Michael Kruse: Nov. 4, 2008, was historic. Newspapers called it "a new era" and "a new dawn" and even "a national catharsis." It was hailed as a racially and politically transforma…
Steve Lopez: It's 90 degrees in November, the full glory and perennial curse of Southern California on fierce display. Devil winds, hill-hopping infernos, smoked mansions, torched…
Wright Thompson: AMALE, Ghana — On the most important day of his life, Shadrak Kwabena wakes up hungry. He is 9 years old, his pencil legs covered in knee-high, hand-me-down yellow…
November 11, 1992, Wednesday, Final Edition Vietnam: Hazy Images And Searing Memories; The Drama of The Absolutely Ordinary Soldier BYLINE: Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writ…
Ron Rosenbaum on Jeff Jarvis: I used to like Jeff Jarvis: I've never met him, but I felt I knew him from his blog, which I've read fairly regularly since he began blogging eloquent…
Neely Tucker: It was a short ceremony, and not that many people came. Maybe 25, and one small white dog. People gathered around the grave. There was the American flag and the rainb…
From the Washington Post: Hundreds of uninsured and underinsured Americans flock to Wise County, Va., every year to seek treatment at a makeshift field hospital operated by the Rem…
Jodie Tillman: PORT RICHEY — Not quite 8 years old, Alex Gualemi has saddled up a horse, ridden a motorcycle and flown in a single-engine plane. But he yearned, too, for a more sim…
Wil Haygood: TEIGEN, Mont. Cattle ranchers in the high plains of central Montana sometimes come across square rock formations just beneath the ground's surface. They have no doubt…
If there's any question about why things are what they are, and why that's scary, read this: The difference between print dollars and digital dimes — or sometimes pennies — is bein…
I used to think boring your audience was the greatest sin a storyteller could commit. Maybe I still do. But here's another one that may be just as bad: confusing your audience. Loo…
Bill Reiter: CHARLOTTE, N.C. | Before hitting the links, Marty Schottenheimer offers a warning. "The coach in me always comes out," he says, his big blue-grey eyes bearing down wit…
Some stories cry out for narrative. Others don't. Like this story from Doyle Murphy about … ah … read it your damn self: A Newburgh firefighter became an ad hoc surgeon Friday, cal…
Check out Scott Anderson's series on first-time voters. From Part I: It was September 1975, and Luis Granados entered the United States under a cover of darkness. He was 26 years o…
Sean Daly: On a Party Block, a neighbor is always outside, drink in hand. On a Party Block, this neighbor might be you. But more than likely it's Chuck, a great guy — two tween kid…
Blaine Harden: TOKYO, Oct. 24 — Due to a shrinking population and an expanding Internet, the decline and fall of newspapers in Japan is all but guaranteed. "I am in a dying industr…
Leonora LaPeter Anton: She's walking up the sun-streaked sidewalk in front of her doctor's office, trying to be positive. I have a baby inside me, Carolyn Zinn tells herself. Ten d…
Libby Copeland: Jill Biden still teaches Monday through Thursday back in Delaware in the frantic last days of the presidential campaign. Her students may know who she is, or they m…
Rick Reilly: I have the absolute worst fantasy league football partner. Just try to get the guy to return a call. Or a text. You need a damn court order. He's Barack Obama. And, ye…
Konrad Marshall: The weathered man stares through the screen door from his third-floor concrete block apartment, out onto the old industrial core of Jacksonville. But his eyes are…
Tom Lake: TAMPA — Michael Rodeman, a growing boy who has not eaten breakfast, would very much like to harvest the wind. He might build a water-powered car, if he knew anything abou…
David Filkins: Mike and Lindy Slingerland made their way around the dark barroom, shaking hands, embracing old friends, holding it together when they could and breaking down when t…
Claire Hoffman: It's close to midnight, and Dov Charney, the 39-year-old founder of American Apparel, lies in his bed staring at a massive flat-screen TV. A pair of boat shoes and…
Anne Hull: SUN CITY CENTER, Fla. — The sign over the woodworking shop says "Sawdust Engineers," and there was a time when the men now bent over the tools used to put on ties or mak…
Fascinating take here, from the Times-Picayune's Chris Rose: (I wonder, should we all follow?) Q and A: … SD: Did the voice of other reporters at the paper change as well? CR: The…
Alex Zayas: TAMPA — In the dark of night, the masked man soars across the Howard Frankland Bridge, his cape streaming behind his Batcycle. "Batman!" people yell when he enters the…
Michael Kruse: BOSTON Max Dougherty, an otherwise sane 28-year-old American male, has a tattoo of the Red Sox logo on his left chest and two cats named after members of the Red…
Erin Sullivan: BAYONET POINT — Andy Law was eating breakfast with his girlfriend, Mary Dinan, at their Hudson home Saturday morning when she pushed the newspaper at him. "Read…
Dan Barry: SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. — In another charming suburban house, with another old Subaru Outback in the driveway and another pair of squirrel-nibbled pumpkins on the steps, anot…
Anne Hull at Colby College: Eudora Welty, who is the great Southern short story writer, was asked once to describe the sensibilities behind her stories. And while she's not a journ…
Keith B. Richburg: REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Oct. 9 -- The bad news just keeps coming for Icelanders, who in the last week have seen the international financial empire that they built on…
Wright Thompson: I'm not sure if this is a comedy or a tragedy, but it's 4:30 a.m., and I am in a dark Tampa hotel room, choking down cupcakes. Normally, I love cupcakes. Who doesn…
Looks like St. Pete Times and LA Times are big winners at the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors 19th Annual Excellence-in-Feature-Writing Contest. (Gangrey, in…
Check out this soldier's blog (thanks, Sheeler): ... Jesse was always asking me when I was going to get a girlfriend. On the day I was going on leave, Josh told him I had a girl wr…
David Filkins: ALBANY — Against the back wall of the Price Chopper on Madison Avenue, under a sign that says ''WE KNOW MEAT,'' hundreds of pounds of chicken, pork and beef are wrap…
Dan Barry: AKIACHAK, Alaska The bush plane glides over the tundra in autumn, descending slowly into the green and orange with avian grace. Soon its wheels kiss a spit of an airs…
Anne Hull: FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. -- Pam Fleck has just finished vacuuming and scrubbing her mobile home into potpourri perfection when her phone rings and it's her sister, Sherry…
Yesterday I was having lunch with a colleague and she asked me what it takes to do well in this business. I thought about it for a while, sort of making it up as I went along, and…
Libby Copeland: The heart of Sarah Palin's appeal is -- Wait, did you see that? There! She did it again: wrinkled up her nose in a way that either looks like a sneer or is ador…
Hank Stuever: It's gold parties now, here in the de-gilded age. The women who used to invite all their girlfriends over to their fantastic homes for good wine and catered nosh on t…
At Salon: You're pretty accomplished as a long-form magazine writer. You're kind of "the guy." Do you ever think, "Maybe I'm complacent here. Maybe I should be writing books or mov…
Michael Brick: SACRAMENTO — He was known as the king of the Yosemite lifers, that proud band of rock climbers, tightrope walkers and seekers who made camp on the margins of the law…
Check out his commencement address in 2005 at Kenyon College: There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods a…
I made it back to Tampa last night. When I rented the Chevy Aveo, it had 193 miles on the odometer. I turned it in with 4,412. It's a big country. Some good stuff for your Thursday…
From The Forever War: The green hoods appeared busy, and one of them stood up. He held the man's severed right hand in the air, displaying it for the crowd. He was holding it up by…
The first time I went to work at Yankee Stadium, not the first time I went to Yankee Stadium, but the first time I went to work there, with a pen and a pad and a press pass, was Op…
Heckert, for Esquire: Steak when you were four years old, cut up into strips on a paper plate in the kitchen of your parents' first house, steak bound by tribunals of carrots and p…
I'm told the guy was a great American novelist, although I admit I've yet to read Infinite Jest. He was also a world-class reporter. This is one of my favorite Wallace stories: Mr.…
He's been on the road, working on this seven-part series. Two down, five to go. Come back safe, buddy.
Sorry for the slow posts the past few days. I'm out of pocket. So please post on here some of the good stuff you've seen out there.
Dong-Phuong Nguyen and Tom French: Inside the hushed and darkened room, the girl is awake. She does not remember what happened that night outside the library. But she understands t…
Robert J. Lopez, Garrett Therolf and Scott Gold: There was spaghetti on the stove at Fire Station 96 when the loudspeaker crackled. Right before dinner. Typical. "Possible physical…
Ivan Solotaroff: "Terrelle Pryor," the Jeannette High School public-address system crackles, issuing the sentence every teenager dreads, "report to the main office immediately."
Joel Achenbach: Everyone was here: The storm chasers from England, the society lady with the Schitzu, the mom pulling two kids on leashes, the cops, the firefighters, the mayor, ho…
John Keilman: The swimming pool was 3 feet deep, its surface lacquer smooth. But Taylor Bell, her eyes frozen behind her goggles, clung to the edge like a terrified starfish. "If I…
Bill Reiter: RIVER FALLS, Wis. | Standing in the heat, his eyes hidden behind thick, dark sunglasses, one of the most embattled men in the Chiefs organization suddenly changed the…
Read this. Thanks Richard. Theresa Brown: At my job, people die. That's hardly our intention, but they die nonetheless. Usually it's at the end of a long struggle — we have done ev…
The Fort Wayne paper is running a fictional murder mystery, in 16 parts, by feature writer Emma Downs. Check it out.
When I lived in South Georgia at the start of this decade, I used to read the Savannah Morning News almost every day. I noticed a strange pattern in the writing. Almost every front…
Great post on the obituary writer's forum of more than a hundred obit cliches. Whenever someone tells me that the deceased would have "given the shirt off his back to help someone"…
Reid Forgrave: Parkersburg, Ia. — The big linebacker sat quietly, his iPod blaring heavy metal, hands clasped, head down. He glared at the concrete floor. Jordan Simon knew toni…
The NYT is guiding a discussion about the Bissinger book here with a series of essays on the book's 20th. Pretty cool idea. Check out Dan Barry: Could the Odessa, Tex., of 1988 be…
Hank Stuever: In a world of people who all coyly say "In a world . . ." and everyone gets the joke . . . In a world where the trailers are almost always better than the movies…
Libby Copeland: John McCain is a man with many friends, and many more on the way. "My friends," he says frequently in public appearances, to emphasize a point or buy time or fo…
I love it when I have a passing thought, then wake up in the morning and read about it. Eli Saslow and Robert Barnes: ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 3 -- Organizers conceived of this conve…
Never read an ending like this one before. Not sure I could have written it, myself. Pow.
I'll read anything Michael Lewis writes: NEW ORLEANS — When the storm finally passes and the wind ceases to blow, the only evidence of property damage for many blocks around us is…
Jeremy Hsu: When Brad Pitt tells Eric Bana in the 2004 film Troy that "there are no pacts between lions and men," he is not reciting a clever line from the pen of a Hollywood scree…
I actually caught myself smacking my fist into my palm while reading this story: BARTOW — In the dead of night six years ago, a Volkswagen Passat ran off a dark country road, hit a…
Here's Justin Heckert: 7:25 a.m. He takes the long way to work. Straight down Peachtree Street, into the heart of the city where he was born. It's the first morning of July, and fr…
Anybody see any stellar DNC coverage in the papers? Stuff you wouldn't expect? Stuff like this?
Political narrative series by Roger Simon: … The campaign would improve as time went by, becoming more coherent, better planned and much less arrogant. But by the time it improved,…
Dan Barry: PHILADELPHIA Her guests began arriving around 8:30 Thursday night, in anticipation of the moment. They told the doorman they were here to visit Doris Smith in 21-Q, and…
Meghan Murphy: MONTGOMERY ­— There was a strange quiet in Clinton Street Cafe Wednesday. At the Walden Bank. And Eddie's Deli. Richie Reynolds wasn't there. For decades, the ma…
Series from Shauna Stephenson: It was 1988, a year seared into the memories of many: the smoke, the roar of the fire, airplanes buzzing like gnats around mushroom-shaped clouds of…
Libby Copeland: WILMINGTON, Del., Aug. 26 — The strangest thing happened Monday morning at the train station here. "Joe came in here with a motorcade," says Daniel Thorpe, 44, a ca…
Hank Stuever: The end of the world is here: Lizardbreath has married Blandthony. Grandpa Jim is on his deathbed, with pitiable second wife Iris at his side. Our protagonist, Elly P…
Michael Brick: Her tennis dress was red and her shoes were red and the space in between was all bulging muscle. Li Na used it to power serves conjured solely from forward motion. H…
Help us cobble together the best songs about/referring to newspapers. Here's a start. The Band, When I Paint My Masterpiece Tracy Chapman, Across the Lines Beatles, A Day In The…
Dan Barry from New Orleans: On the seventh-floor parking garage of a Holiday Inn that calls itself the "jazziest hotel in New Orleans," soldiers dressed for combat wait for the eve…
Dan Southerland: In July last year, a butterfly landed on my shoulder while I was taking a break from my office for a few minutes one afternoon to talk business with a colleague. I…
Don't wait until Sunday: And so with the fighting over, it seemed as if finding that body was the thing to do. I was a reporter, and I needed a corpse for the newspaper. Ashley ask…
Leah Friedman: David Hayes has been fishing since he could walk, and his weapon of choice is an open-face spinning reel with a 6-foot rod. But Hayes, 56, is a doting grandfather. A…
Andy Newman: At the end of the line, the subway creaks to a stop a few yards short of the yellow crash bumper. A few stragglers, or a lurch of homebound commuters, head for the str…
Our friend Kevin Pang eats some penis with Bill Plaschke. Seriously. In the name of journalism. Watch this now.
Tom Lake, Elizabeth Dyer, Saundra Amrhein: Three men went on a rampage. It involved guns, money and sexual violence. It lasted at least seven weeks, stretching from downtown St. Pe…
This checks out. The obit for Dolores Aguilar: ... Delores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society, and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the m…
Again, Erin Sullivan: DADE CITY — Around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Lena Calton looked out her front window and saw something strange sitting on a fence post. "What is that?" she asked her…
Erin Sullivan: SPRING HILL — "I'm from Lincoln, Rhode Island," she says, sliding over one seat closer. "I've been here since November 2005." She's just finished her turn playing te…
Elizabeth Merrill: WILSON, N.Y. -- Night creeps in and they run, cleats on concrete, mop-top hair flowing through black ball caps. They're nervous. They're 14 years old. The hipper…
Hank Stuever: America's seeing monsters again, so Mommy needs to open the door a crack and leave the hallway light on: 1. Some sheriff's deputies in Cuero, Tex., released foota…
Matt Soergel: For Julianna Dickey, the cruelest cut at Wednesday's American Idol auditions came when they snipped her paper wristband in half. That was it - her 30 seconds in front…
Lane DeGregory: TAMPA — She took her baby to Target that morning. He was happy and alert, wide-eyed as she pushed him through the food aisles. Graham was 3 months old, just startin…
Libby Copeland: A few soap stars were in town from New York over the weekend for a magazine photo shoot. They were dressed up to look like presidential couples -- or what president…
Leonora LaPeter Anton: ST. PETERSBURG — Walt Schum was fishing for bass in Crescent Lake one day last year when he saw a white Ford 150 pickup pulling up to the curb. A young man d…
Tom Lake: This thing hinges on faith, and cash, and the goodness of Greg Neal's word. If it all comes together, Tampa will have what may be the nation's grandest community college.…
Check out the tone of this one. Paul Duggan (thanks, R Lake): A few hours after the gunshots yesterday, one of the victims lay on the ground where he died, in the littered courtyar…
Check out the Lakeland Ledger's Shoshana Walter(thanks, Barbara): LAKELAND -- The knife went in easy, deeper than Tarrod Russell expected. He pulled it out and ran. Threw the kn…
Wow: PORTLAND, Maine - Every day for the last 20 years, shortly after 5 a.m., Mayor Ed Suslovic has stepped through his front door in an undershirt and boxers to begin a ritual tha…
Helen Ubinas has returned to the Hartford Courant after a fellowship. This is her first column back (thanks, Vanessa): He just fell. And at first, the people standing around the li…
Ben Montgomery: TAMPA — Stanley Mayausky steps to the counter at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The man behind the desk recognizes his face. "Good luck today, sir," he says.…
Angela Mapes Turner: On some days, Jessica Krouse feels the eyes of the world on her, the way they were during her proverbial 15 minutes of fame a year earlier. They're in the o…
David Ferrara: Fresh-squeezed capitalism echoed through the downtown air as the thermometer crept toward 90 on Saturday. The oldest of the entrepreneurs were barely teenagers.…
Hank Stuever: Madonna, OMG, you are 50. You have said again and again that you never read newspapers or magazines, even though you are always in newspapers and magazines, so th…
Dan Barry: SANDS TOWNSHIP, Mich. The pies wait. So do the cookies and cupcakes, the doughnuts and the sweet rolls, the yeast breads and quick breads and breads made with fruit.…
Check out Anne Hull in the New Yorker. No links. Go pick it up.
Mattathias Schwartz (thanks, Andy): One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took…
So a man in Racine is wanted by the cops for allegedly trying to kill his ex with an empty gun, among other crimes. The guy goes on the run and police release a description and mug…
Thomas Boswell (thanks, Reid): BEIJING For seven years, China has dreamed of orchestrating every detail, athletic and political, of its glorious Opening Ceremonies to the Olymp…
Inside the borrowing investigation into the Montgomery County Bulletin.
Good stuff from Joel Garreau from the past few weeks, here, here and here. And here, on riding lawnmowers: The riding lawn mower has long been a barometer of the American dream,…
Okay, so it's online only. But there's some great stuff on this new page from the Times over the years, and a current list of Encounters, including this beautiful one from Alex Zay…
"My editor freed me up for a little over a week." It can be done. Thanks to Angie for passing on this interview with Brendan McCarthy, who did Homicide 37: Talk about your r…
Henry Allen: All lives feel like they're lived in exile from something, because they are. That's the way it is, boys and girls. So, 60 years after I appeared on the "Howdy…
Dan Barry: AINSWORTH, Neb. Driving south out of the agricultural town of Ainsworth, you can't miss its newest crop: wind turbines, three dozen of them, with steel stalks 230 fee…
Read this. Lane DeGregory: PLANT CITY — The family had lived in the rundown rental house for almost three years when someone first saw a child's face in the window. A little gi…
Brendan McCarthy: "We need to chat with the people inside that house," he tells Wischan. As Pardo approaches, a young woman in the door's threshold curses him. "Fat bitch," she cal…
I'm late on this, but say a prayer if you're inclined for our friend Tommy Tomlinson, who is recovering from a surgery to remove a tumor from his heart. He writes: You're not going…
We talk a lot on here about good writers, but we've spent not a lot of time talking about good editors. I found myself the other day trying to list the best editors I've had, and I…
Hank Stuever: Symbolic to our era like a sledgehammer to drywall, the biggest house that ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" ever made over — a sprawling, four-bedroom starter c…
Charlie LeDuff looks like he's having fun. Check out these Detroit News videos. Part I and Part II. I love his expression when the camera first flashes to him in Part II. And this…
Jeff Klinkenberg: Tad Staples savors summer, especially afternoons when the cumulus clouds pile up like dumplings before turning gray and ugly. He likes when the atmosphere above F…
Somebody buy the government a beer. Those guys work their asses off, toiling for years to get us important information: If anyone is still wondering about the safety of a circus th…
Andrew Adam Newman (Anybody know if this Andrew Adam Newman is really Andy Newman?): There was a funeral the other day in the Midtown offices of Hachette, the book publisher, to mo…
Nigel Duara: Ten weeks after the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, this is the new Postville: Drunken brawls. A food pantry that is almost bare. Women afraid to w…
Candice Millard last weekend at The Mayborn narrative nonfiction writers conference in Texas: You want your characters to be so good that readers miss them when the story is over.
Stuever: In an ever-narrowing nostalgia gap, where old television shows no longer have to wait a generation for hipper minds and fresh actors to come along and revivify them, David…
Can you folks make a few suggestions? This comes from a Gangrey reader: I teach high school English to juniors in Chicago. Last year, I discovered that my students absolutely love…
NPR tracked down the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind: Imagine if millions of people had seen you naked before you were old enough to say "embarrassing." That's the s…
Check out David Filkins: NEW SCOTLAND — Akiho Miyashiro and his wife, Fumiko, pulled into the Glen Doone Overlook picnic area Tuesday a few hours before dark. Rain was drizzling as…
This has nothing to do with writing (well, maybe). A guy in New York buys vending machines off the Web, fills the capsules with ideas and plants them around the city. Fifty cents b…
Libby Copeland: Cindy McCain might yearn to be invisible sometimes, or at the very least, not surrounded by the Secret Service and photographers and gawking people. The scrutiny se…
It would look like this: Twelve hours ago: Called wife on way home. Wondered if I should pick something up for dinner. Eleven hours, 59 and a half minutes ago: Listened to wife's c…
James Meadow in Part I: She is half-naked and friendly. Probably clean, too, since she is merrily soaking in the Seal Pond – where, by the way, there are no real seals. Just two st…
Paul Kix (thanks, Dan): This is the machine. It is a gray square of hard plastic, looks like a garage door opener but is perhaps double the size of one. Inside this square is th…
Irene Jay Liu: Joseph L. Bruno had wandered off again. Walking through the Albany International Airport, with a crush of staffers, media and well-wishers in tow, Bruno was supposed…
John Barry: GULFPORT — She looks young and petite, waiflike in T-shirt and shorts. The only clue to who she really is, or was, is a slight toughness in her voice, a commanding dire…
AP: The many and deepening cuts at newspapers across the country are starting to take a toll on their content, according to a study being released Monday. The challenge newspape…
From Roy Peter Clark: Chip Scanlan and I have been asked to do a third edition of the Bedford book: "America's Best Newspaper Writing." The first edition was a historical anthology…
Lane DeGregory: LITHIA She slept late last Sunday. After her daughter and grandbaby had moved back to town, after her sister had flown in — surprise! — from Italy, her husband figu…
So look at this. Derek Zumsteg, who writes for a baseball site called Ussmariner.com, recently became the first blogger to have his work included the annual Best American Sportswri…
Wright Thompson: ELDORET, Kenya -- He slips into the backseat of a parked taxi and hides behind its darkly tinted windows. What he is about to say could get him killed. Two of L…
DeNeen Brown (thanks, Richard): A woman sits alone on a gray chair in a psychiatric ward in a Brooklyn hospital. When we first see her, we do not know how long she has been sitting…
Our friend Tim Logan is all over the In-Bev takeover. Here, here, here and here.
Colleen Jenkins and Tom French: TAMPA — In front of the jury, the case played like a cross between Peyton Place and Bleak House. There were whispers of extramarital affairs, accusa…
Richard Lake: Live Action Sex! Delivered Right to You! Available Any Time! At the Library! Huh? Turns out, anyone with a library card, a shuddering lack of shame and…
The Washington Post's Sylvia Moreno, Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham: It was above 80 degrees, the start of another steamy summer day in Washington. At 8:58 on the morning of July 25…
Dan Barry: Lately, in the maintenance garage at the Danbury rest stop just off Interstate 84, the topic of conversation can shift suddenly from grass-cutting and litter pickup to d…
Leonora LaPeter Anton: It's fight night at the A La Carte Event Pavilion and Jenna Shiver is pulling a satin skirt on over her shorts. On the other side of the dressing room curtai…
Leah Friedman: RALEIGH - A News & Observer subscriber is suing the newspaper for cutting staff and the size of the paper. Keith Hempstead, a Durham lawyer, filed the suit last mon…
Dan Barry: SAG HARBOR, N.Y. SOMEONE must sing a proper song of farewell for Shea Stadium, the nice try of a coliseum in Queens, as its dismantling draws near and a new ballpark…
Sometimes, trend pieces only need one person (thanks, Jamal): Permanent waves, the curly, chemically created hairstyle, haven't been popular since the 80s, but wandering past a sal…
Sometimes the Metro section at the St. Pete Times is the jewel of the paper. I spent a long time with it this morning, reading bits of stories about desperados and lunatics outloud…
Konrad Marshall: TWELVE MILE, Ind. — When the Troyer boys get to talking about racing lawn mowers — and they talk about racing lawn mowers a lot — they talk about riding down the b…
Congratulations to our friend (and 2007 Goat award winner) Cindy Lange-Kubick for her recent recognition. From the Lincoln Journal Star: Cindy Lange-Kubick, a columnist and rep…
Wil Haygood (thanks, Leah): BRUSHY MOUNTAIN, Giles County, Va. High on the mountain, the sun has to fight its way down through the thick forest. The light takes on a spectral el…
Tom French: My mission seemed straightforward: Identify the handful of Democrats — eight of them, at last count — allegedly living among the beachfront castles of this extra tiny,…
Monica Davey: GERALD, Mo. — Like so many rural communities in the country's middle, this small town had wrestled for years with the woes of methamphetamine. Then, several months ag…
Hank Stuever: According to everyone, Clay Felker's New York magazine was the best. "Clay Felker's New York" is a phrase that refers to a man who died yesterday (at age 82, at his h…
Timothy Egan: On the lobby wall of the newspaper where I got my first reporting job are the Thomas Jefferson words that journalists like to trot out as Independence Day nears: "…
John Torres: Since I started covering the Junny Rios-Martinez story a few years ago, I knew the day would come when I would watch his killer die. Mark Dean Schwab's name had lon…
Tonight at the game after the home team won in the ninth on a wild throw to first and the floodlights shut off and the fireworks started, vertical comets, purple skyflowers blossom…
Check this out, guys. Michael LaForgia at the Palm Beach Post is having some fun -- and working hard, apparently -- with his new crime blog. This story never appeared in print:…
I'm putting together a short talk about endings. Found some good ones so far. What's your favorite?
Reid Forgrave: Cedar Rapids, Ia. — "Oh my God!" Lisa Kuzela yells. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" The 45-year-old woman kicks the door to her home office. The door doesn't budge. She k…
Oliver Mackson: GOSHEN — Mabel Waingrow outlived her husband, her only son, all five of her brothers and her sister. She closed up her coffee shop out on Route 94 in Blooming Grove…
T Lake: On the 84th night of the revival, the air was charged with collective energy and the floor shook from pounding feet. A spine-tingling roar rose from the crowd. They were ca…
Hank Stuever: TEMPLE, Pa. The only satisfying thing left to do on television is clean up people's houses. In a half-baked, slovenly era of sub-accomplishment, organizing closets ca…
Lon Wagner: Man, Greg Sipe can't just start off with his best guitar story. Stories are like rock songs, man, every layer's important. You need the drums and bass to push that baby…
Ben Montgomery: Melissa Parrot drains her Coors Light, slips out of her T-shirt and hops off the tailgate of her Texas Edition Ford F-150. The pickup gets 20 miles per gallon of ga…
Tom Lake: LUTZ — In the church on the stage by a tall white cross stood a man with a red guitar. He flexed his facial muscles as he played, the way guitarists do when they reach a…
Someone asked a while back about new looks at the lame gas prices story. Here's Tom Hallman (thanks, Audrie): From his perch behind the gas station's cramped counter, Austin Egland…
Konrad Marshall of the Indy Star recently scored a pretty cool Q&A with Tom Chiarella of Esquire.
Michael Weinreb (thanks, Nigel): It's true, what she says about the graves. I went to see them not long after I heard Lonise Bias tell an incredible story to a group of South Carol…
Claire Hoffman: It's dawn on a hot sunday morning in June, and Amy Winehouse is inside her North London home, staring at her reflection in a dark tinted mirror, looking the tiny li…
Jeff Klinkenberg: CLEWISTON — Anita Griffin is proud of her chicken, moist on the inside, crisp on the outside and never greasy. Griffin — everyone calls her Miss Anita — is a clas…
This exchange comes from The Paris Review, spring 1958: George Plimpton: Would you suggest newspaper work for the young writer? How helpful was the training you had with the Kansas…
Michael Brick: AUSTIN, Tex. — Looking back on the whole marvelous caper, the high point was not so much the playoff runs or the bewildered crowds or even all those underdressed Tex…
On a recent afternoon… (And any number of its derivatives.) Any other nominations for retirement?
Bill Reiter: PARKERSBURG, Iowa — The weather turned on Parkersburg first. It was May 25, and from the north you could see a long trail of darkness cut you off from whatever was to…
John Barry: Bob and Marlene got married on a borrowed boat called Paradise Found on a hazy April day in 1984. She wore white. He wore peach. They exchanged traditional vows. But th…
Mike Wise: HUNTSVILLE, Tex. — Gilreatha Stoltzfus fussed with the bandanna in her hair while she zigzagged across a patch of dried grass. Fidgety, annoyed, towing her cluttered pur…
Let's talk to Diana Middleton about this story: Patrick Lyons' fingers tingled when he opened the business-size envelope that had arrived at his home in May. Inside was another env…
Read Roy Wenzl's story, then watch him interview some cats.
Keith Goldberg: WASHINGTONVILLE — Evelyn Decker's family buried her in Washingtonville Cemetery last weekend, where her grandfather dug graves over a century ago and where her fami…
Whether or not he gets the job, I'd give my firstborn for a look at his memo.
Dan Barry: CANTON, Mo. They sandbag by moonlight. The school superintendent and the judge, the police sergeant and the mechanic, the Amish man in a straw hat and the young man i…
David Segal: There are men who take off their shirts wherever possible, and there are men who prefer to keep their shirts on, even at the beach. Each group finds the other faintly…
Ken Fuson (thanks to newsgems): Cedar Falls, Ia. - It was the raging river vs. a sea of volunteers. Winner take all. The frantic battle to save this city's downtown began ear…
I pulled out a copy of the Jan. 15, 2007 Times Herald-Record the other day. I do this from time to time. The Record is a tab up in New York, and it used to be run by a fine man nam…
Check out the Washington Post's three-part series on the housing crisis: The black-tie party at Washington's swank Mayflower Hotel seemed a fitting celebration of the biggest Ameri…
Justin George: TAMPA — For men coming out of jail, the Carpenters' Workbench Training Program offered a new start. Everyone participating would get two weeks of classroom train…
John Barry: The doctor asks the nun to begin her centering prayer. It's a Catholic method of prayer, goes back to the 14th century, a form of deep meditation. The nun sits straight…
Hank Stuever: Having thoroughly plumbed the joys and pains of the suburban Jewish coming-of-age scene of the 1970s and '80s ("Bar Mitzvah Disco"), the people at the so-called Acade…
Reid Forgrave (via Chi Trib): GRINNELL, Iowa - Drive up the gravel road to Chris Gaunt's farmstead and you'll be met with the sights and sounds of a typical Iowa hog farm. You'…
Dan Barry: WELLSBURG, W.Va. On the first and third Monday of every month — except in summer months when only one Monday will do — in an old building on a downtown street wanting…
Lane DeGregory: GULFPORT — On the day he got the phone call, Michael Turbe went to work early. He locked the room he shares with his parrot and his pit bull and plodded down th…
Tim Botos: JACKSON TWP. Back elbow cocked high, as his father had reminded him, Mario Passerini swung the aluminum bat at the incoming pitch. With an echoing "ping" sound, the 7-ye…
Check out Brendan Buhler: The house at 7927 W. Constantinople Ave. may be a foreclosure but it is not empty, because of all the trash, and it is not uninhabited, because of the sme…
Claire Hoffman: It's a sunny afternoon in downtown Palo Alto, California, and inside the graffiti-covered walls of the Facebook headquarters, workmen are hanging lights and arrangi…
Todd Cooper and Matthew Hansen LITTLE SIOUX, Iowa — Boy Scout Ethan Hession wasn't scared until the windows shattered. Sirens had blared. Lights in the cabin had blinked out.…
From Part I of a series, by Macarena Hernandez and Gary Jacobsen (thanks, CH): Juan says he isn't nervous, but his yawns give him away. He yawns a lot. A sure sign of stress. "…
Thanks to Jeb for passing along this Atlantic piece by Guy Billout about how 10 years of websurfing has changed the way we read and think. For more than a decade now, I've been…
Chris Goffard: In this neighborhood, nobody knows your name. There you are in the photograph above, crawling anonymously along a cheerless stretch of real estate known as the 11…
Monica Hesse: "Relax, everyone," says the man in sunglasses to his giggling fans, stethoscope slung about neck. "The doctor is in the house." Technically, the doctor is in the…
David Montgomery: His name is lost to history, not that history was paying attention. Who cared about a bean farmer, let's say, from a remote corner of Guatemala? You can pictu…
Check out Ben Montgomery's piece about Paul Little, who was tried last week in Tampa federal court on obscenity charges.
Michael Brick: The horse had appeared as some rippling bolt of destiny, his very name conjured from myth: Big Brown, as timeless and plain as Shane or Paul Bunyan. As his ill-fa…
Dan Barry: CRANDON, Wis. The house on North Hazeldell Avenue has to go. Its two stories, its white vinyl siding, its front porch, its back porch, its windows and doors, ceilings…
Here's one from Michael Graff (thanks, Laura): He wouldn't run. All those thoughts racing through his mind, and never once did he consider running. Lew McDonald stood in the…
Paige Williams, deputy editor of Atlanta magazine, recently beat finalists from GQ, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker to win the 2008 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.…
Tom French: TAMPA — Inside the slightly dusty Mazda 626, carpooling it across Tampa Bay, the conversation kept turning to Hillary's motives and Hillary's flaws and the eclipse of t…
Let's say you're starting a new magazine. You've got unlimited money and the power to choose any five writers in the world. I was thinking about this today, and this is the team I…
Ben Montgomery: On March 13, a few minutes after 9 p.m., inmate No. 08016457 walked toward a bright corner of the booking room at Orient Road Jail and stepped onto a pair of blue f…
This is so good I have to type it myself. Forgive the mistakes. Bragg's new one, start of chaper two: I was still a little boy when I saw that first sacrifice, that first empty…
Nate Miller and Donovan Henderson: The outside world doesn't exist in this place. It's crumpled, scrapped and torn. It's still. Quiet reaches out from each vacant house, the onl…
Lon Wagner: The 3-year-old girl mentioned in the yellowed news stories sits on her couch. It's been 39 years. She was so young then, but she remembers a few things about –…
Andy Netzel: From atop his perch on a rail car, Don Whipkey gives an overflowing heap of scrap metal a glance. Behind him is a mountain of junk. Old car doors. Appliances. Piping.…
And with a middle initial. Vanessa M. Gezari: ON HIS 18TH DAY OF FREEDOM, Michael Short awakened before dawn. In prison, corrections officers had paced the halls at night, jingling…
Roy Wenzl: This story would sound nuts except that it's happening, in real time, in a car mechanic's garage, on East Douglas, this past week and for the foreseeable future. Neil…
Stephanie Hayes: Every day in America, folks buy the farm. Some cash in their chips, kick the bucket, croak, bite the dust. Others enter into eternal life, make their transit…
Hank Stuever: The single set of footprints in the sand — as millions of inspired souls now know — was that time when the Lord picked you up and carried you. It's a metaphor, people…
How it all came to pass: On September 10, 1993, a major motion Picture—penned by future hotshot Quentin Tarantino, directed by action pro Tony Scott, and starring Christian Slater…
Dan Barry: HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. Down halls where cigarette smoke perfumes the air and shuffling slippers give the floors an extra buff, there resounds an intercom announcement: Head…
This is so ridiculous, yet so watchable. ESPN.com (thanks, Justin): Could an NFL kick returner score a touchdown against a bear?
T.M. Shine: The exodus began with the word "Bob." "Bob, can I see you for a minute?" the boss had asked. Within minutes, Bob was exiting the office with a wave and a "Nice working…
Stuever: It's never too soon to regret the summer we didn't have. Those pangs start now, on Memorial Day, as summer already slips away, like losing your favorite sunglasses again,…
Adam Bosch and Alexa James: Brandy Williams knew that one day, "Daddy's in heaven" wouldn't be enough. They were sitting in the grocery store parking lot when she heard the questio…
John Barry: The little girl who walked through fire wants to show her pictures. She opens a binder with her stiff, taped hands. One photo shows her posing in her cheerleader unifor…
Dugan Arnett: PORT CHARLOTTE — At any given moment, the dugout of the Murdock Little League Yankees smells like a mixture of sweat, bubble gum and farts. It is a cramped space — yo…
Lena Price: When I was in first grade, my artistic abilities were envied by my peers. Young, promising students would risk getting out of their seats during crafting time to consul…
This comes from Varma, a freelancer for The Hindu, Metro Plus, Vijayawada, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India: Every scar tells a story. Sitting across the polished coffee table…
Not trying to stir any jealousy here, but we've got a brownbag at noon wherein Anne Hull will grill David Maraniss about how he does what he does. Maraniss, if you don't know, and…
We have a few shirts left. Get 'em before the cops do. Fifteen of the best dollars you'll spend. The shirt gets you free admission into any and all future Gangrey events, state fai…
Come hang with me, T. Lake and Wright in Grapevine, Tejas, this summer. If that doesn't do it for you, here's a pitch from George Getschow (seriously, though, holler if you're goin…
Read this. Edward Wong: SHIFANG, China — At the moment of greatest despair, Wang Zhijun tried to kill himself by twisting his neck against the debris. Breathing had become harder a…
This is rad. Jeff Solochek: LAND O'LAKES — Marge Whaley has been called her share of names during her 16 years on the Pasco County School Board. But nothing compares to the vitriol…
From Dan Stockman: You think the folks on Gangrey could offer a critique? I faced a lot of challenges – the story was six years old, parts of it had been previously reported elsewh…
Pete Iorizzo: Austin, Texas — Hours before he broke the four-minute mile, Darren Brown thumbed through a novel, keeping his bookmark, a worn color photograph of his father, visible…
Published on: Wednesday, 4/21/1982, Style section, edition, zone, B07 The 'Chariots' Are Driving Me Crazy! By Henry Allen Da deedle-ee dum dum. It's the song of the year, the ant…
Andy Meacham: TAMPA — Robert Patrick, who collected roadkill with priestly benevolence, died on Friday of pancreatic cancer. He was 38. People who Mr. Patrick and his wife met s…
So there's a post on Creative Loafing about the newspapers on Tampa Bay, how the Times and Trib are making cuts to continue to breathe in a two-paper market. And most of the discus…
Gas is over $4 in some places which means editors are trolling newsrooms looking for reporters to send out on a gas story we've all written dozens of times. Here's a clip from…
Congratulations to Raja Abdulrahim, a fine reporter at the Times Herald-Record and a consistent Gangrey voice, for earning a gig at the LA Times. She says she's headed to a newsroo…
Check out Inara Verzemnieks: Perhaps the clearest view of who we are as a people can be found through the double doors of a warehouse at the edge of North Interstate Avenue. Inside…
Tom Treweek: BENTONVILLE - The flag changed direction. One moment, it was waving toward the south, southeast, maybe east. Then, it snapped the other direction. That was Cha…
Kevin Cullen (Thanks, Tim): When I was a cub reporter at the late and much-lamented Transcript-Telegram, I got sent to cover a homicide in one of the less salubrious sections of Ho…
Joseph Lelyveld: "How do we know exactly what the reader wants? I think you should give the reader a fresh and original paper that's very well-written and covers all sorts of thing…
Remember this? Here's the rest of the story: ST. PETERSBURG — Under the harsh hospital lights in Room No. 9, a make-up artist wearing a paper mask brushed mascara onto Stacey Karav…
Craig Kapitan's incredible series on a sniper with PTSD: In this case, the suspect was a teenager - 14, 15, 16 ... who knows - who had ridden his motorcycle day after day down a ro…
Read this. Charles P. Pierce on Barack Obama: The cynic knows he'll never make Oshkosh. He took the wrong exit and went too far north, and now he has to double back. He gives up, f…
Stephanie Hayes: LARGO — He couldn't drive a block without gawks. He couldn't walk five steps without posing for a photo. He couldn't eat lunch in peace. Then again, neith…
December 27, 1994 Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer This, say the pundits, is the Year of the White Male. We just had the Year of the Woman, but apparently it didn't t…
Doyle Murphy: CITY OF NEWBURGH — A tall, slim 15-year-old died with a bullet in his body late Tuesday night, three years after the same thing happened to his brother. Jeffrey Za…
Lane DeGregory: The dress should be long, to the floor. All the girls at Tarpon Springs High are getting long dresses this year, Stacey Karavokiros told the designer. It should hav…
Stephen Deere and Doug Moore: Kirkwood — In his hands were a bank ledger, an envelope of money and a photo album. He knocked on the door of Chuck Runnels' home and flashed that…
Richard Lake: HOUSTON — Tuesday evening, it is warm. The old man mows the lawn in the twilight. Darkness has not yet arrived, but it is coming. The old man is out of gas now, al…
Libby Copeland: MUNCIE, Ind. In the 1920s, two amateur sociologists went searching for a city that was singularly unexceptional. They wound up here. They made a study of Mu…
Joanna Connors: On Oct. 27, 1984, a headline on Page 14A in The Plain Dealer read: "Disgusted judge gives repeat offender 30 years for rape." The story followed standard newspa…
We've added a new feature here at Gangrey: The Shoppes At Gangrey, via Amazon. We'll add all the books we're reading and talking about to the list. Check it often. Support your fri…
Dan Barry: Another special request came in the other day to the old brick factory on Gallagher Avenue, where pride — if not much profit — is taken in being the country's last maker…
David Ferrara: FAIRHOPE They were here for the film festival. Everyone knows someone who saw them. The story goes like this: Brad worked with an actor who lives in Fairhope…
Lon Wagner: Ruth Silberholz pointed at the can of Diet 7UP on her kitchen counter Friday morning, and the one detail she hadn't noticed until then. "It seems like every time I c…
I'm sure you've read this by now. I just got caught up. Thoughts on this? David Simon: ... At the very edge of being rendered irrelevant by the arrival of the Internet -- at the pr…
Congrats to the finalists for the Livingston Awards. Some gangreyers on here. Reid. Konrad. Wright. Peter. (Am I missing anybody?) Well done, folks. Here's to $10,000.
DEATH of the SALESMAN; We're Not Talking Loaded With Options Here. We're Talking Bottom Line on Wheeler-Dealers. Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer Everybody hates car sale…
A tornado hit Virginia, if you didn't hear. Check out some good stuff from the Pilot. Kristin Davis: SUFFOLK Jennifer Schmack is wearing her only pair of shoes. They are brow…
Go, now, and check out our friend Jim Sheeler getting grilled by Terry Gross. And buy his book, which went on sale today.
William Glaberson:GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — The first indication that the afternoon's hearing in the case of Salim Hamdan was going to be different came when he showed up in war crime…
Obit: Charles Hillinger, the Los Angeles Times' retired roving feature writer and columnist who traversed the highways and byways of California, America and beyond in pursuit of co…
Michael Brick: NEW ORLEANS — At 26, Danny Wimprine lives with his parents, not far from his old high school, in a room full of timeworn football posters and state championship ring…
That narrative songlist we collected back in the day is evergreen. At least a few people a day land on Gangrey via a "narrative songs" search on Google. So, here's the list, thanks…
If you can write, you can write. Bruce Springsteen on Danny Federici: Let me start with the stories. Back in the days of miracles, the frontier days when "Mad Dog" Lopez and his te…
Tim Botos: In death, Agnes "Aggie" Meyer got the last word. She had plenty to show for her 85 years on this earth, most of it enjoyed before she entered Manor Care nursing home. An…
We owe a great deal of thanks to the authors and illustrators of children's books for trying desperately to reinforce the notion that the newspaper is a source of enjoyment and int…
Ben Montgomery: Johnny Foens paid $548,200 to get into heaven. He rode an elevator into the sky, unlocked a door and stepped onto the balcony of his new three-bedroom, three-bathro…
Tom French: ST. PETERSBURG— The temple of forgotten songs — secret mecca of joy and mystery and Elvis 45s — waits at the end of the earth, which happens to be just a few blocks nor…
That's right. Every Friday (if I remember, and you bet I will). Right here on Gangrey. All ages. No cover. Retro Henry Allen. April 14, 1995 Nobody understands the white shoe thing…
Jon Friedman on Gary Smith: Smith, who joined SI in 1982, treats everyone he writes about with dignity, and unlike so many writers who happily settle for easy, sensational hooks, h…
Michael Kruse: "I don't know if I've confronted that issue," he said. "I mean, I know it's there. "It's coming, okay?" This was Brian Moore on the lanai behind his home. Moore is t…
Tom Lake having an unacceptable amount of fun in the daily paper.
I'm entertaining a few questions from some of our colleagues in Germany for a cool j-outfit called ReporterForum. Rather than answer these myself, I'd love to open them up to every…
The Des Moines Register tried something different. They sent six reporters, two photographers and two videographers to follow two proms on one April night. One prom was in a rural…
Michelle Hiskey: The signs of Rob and Karen Byers' marriage have been bleak the past three months. He's been living apart from her and their 1-year-old son. "I made a big mistake,"…
Ladies and gentlemen, Hank Stuever: Today isn't Earth Day anymore. Haven't you heard? Earth Day is dead. It collapsed yesterday after one of its many news conferences and was rushe…
Tom Hallman: It's just a dress. Only a few yards of limp fabric on a hanger. Take the finest, most expensive silk ever spun and there's still no life. And certainly no magic. What…
I watched the movie There Will Be Blood for the first time last night, and it made me think hard about storytelling. I had recently seen No Country For Old Men as well. These films…
Jeb Phillips: The wounded soldiers arrived during the relay race yesterday morning. Three of them rolled on wheelchairs. The fourth walked with a cane and wore shorts, his prosthet…
John Barry: Some of Steven Gey's students have asked his permission to pray for him, to beg God to spare him, to pray for the only thing that may save him — an Old Testament, open-…
Libby Copeland: It's a tiny thing, but you notice it anyway, walking around the city. On a brisk, sunny day in Georgetown, there it is again: a coat bearing a worn, wrinkled Obama…
David Barstow: In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded "the gulag…
Stuever: Catholics don't argue about abortion or the death penalty nearly as much as they argue about what music is sung (or not sung, or used to be sung) at their local Sunday Mas…
From Celina Ottaway: We are having a discussion here (Albany T-U)about using dialogue in narrative reconstructions. Would love to hear thoughts on standards, use, etc... For e…
In 1988, Tom French broke new ground with a 10-part serial narrative he later turned into a book. The serial is finally online thanks to a recent update in the case. Take a look.
Check out the Roanoke Times work on the VT shootings, one year later. And take a peek at this smart Facebook page.
A new voice on here. Check him out. Jared Strong: Robert Knuth knelt in the soggy red earth and thrust his hands into the ground. There, on a bluff that overlooks Bear Creek in…
He's back. Go pre-order your copy. Due out next month.
I hate to start the week like this, but, whatever. Grab a hanky. Click play. Keep reading. (If you're in the newsroom, it might be cool to unplug your headphones and let everybody…
Michael Kruse (in the Houston Chronicle of all places): LAGRANGE, Ga.— Michael Bishop, whose son was a German instructor at Virginia Tech, sat one morning last month in a classroom…
Two recent releases I want to highlight. Fantastic reading. Pick them up. Now. Martha Sherrill, formerly of the Washington Post's Style section, with Dog Man. And Jeff Kli…
Ben Montgomery: TAMPA — Scott Lambert built his bar with nails and sweat and his wife's blessing. He painted the walls hell-fire red and the bar top midnight black and he lined the…
This story ran before I got to the Times, but I looked it up the other day. Glad I did. Give it a read. Wes Allison: Janet Rivera is a youthful grandmother who peppers her speech w…
Frank Ahrens: After our big Pulitzer win on Monday, there was some melancholy around the newsroom along the lines of, "Oh, this will be the last year this kind of thing will happen…
Mark Leibovich (thanks, Raja): Whenever Chris Matthews says something he likes, which happens a lot, he repeats it often and at volumes suggesting a speaker who feels insufficientl…
John Barry: The mistress of this trailer home is music. The blue and white trailer has no living room or dining room, really. It has music studios. Shelves of music scores and fram…
This is cool (Thanks, Sean): People have long wondered what goes on in Bob Dylan's mind. But if you pay attention to what the recent Pulitzer Prize-winner says and plays on his XM…
Brilliant structure on a story that most of us think we've seen before, and several of us have written, but not like this. Chris Jones: Don Collins stood in the sun and mapped o…
I'm so glad Charlie LeDuff is back (thanks, Russell): DETROIT -- Blowing through the grand foyer of the decrepit Michigan Central Depot was a memento from a grander time. It wa…
Get it all here. Links to winning stories here. 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners in journalism and the arts JOURNALISM: Public Service: The Washington Post Breaking News Re…
Dan Barry: BROWNSVILLE, Tex. At the very bottom of this country, where the Rio Grande loops up and down as if determined to thwart territorial imperatives, there sits a natural…
Roy Wenzl: SAN ANTONIO - Ill will toward Roy Williams isn't universal In a better world, Jayhawk fans would feel sweeter. Oh, they feel sweet already. But it's sweet with sour.…
Michael Kruse: Lauren Ortiz died alone on a concrete porch behind the home of a man she barely knew. Last Sept. 1, on a dark street sometime between 10 and 10:30 p.m., Ortiz, 24…
Raja Abdulrahim: Almost 30 years ago, Donna Ponessa rode My Fair Lady. Till this day, she lies in bed dreaming about it. She loosens the reins of the thoroughbred and they gallop a…
Gary Smith is one of our heroes. This story about him is almost five years old, but it's still good reading: Last month, Gary Smith received the National Magazine Award for his…
Last night I was reading The Plague, a novel published in 1947 by the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, when I came across a passage that had a strange resonance: To some, th…
Mark Davis: This is how it should be, when warriors come home. They should see 40 American flags, fluttering in the breeze. They should hear the cheers of hundreds of moms and d…
Came across this today and couldn't stop reading. The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon) February 5, 2007 Monday Sunrise Edition A small Idaho town mourns the loss of a big-h…
Pulitzer-prize winning author and Gangrey contributor Jim Sheeler gets some props from Publishers Weekly (scroll down 3/4) for his new book, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Liv…
Inara Verzemnieks: There's no way to get scientific about it, to quantify the minutes of lost sleep, the number of Buffalo wings gobbled during an all-you-can eat bracket-party fre…
Tomas Alex Tizon: Harrington, Wash. "That door," he says with dramatic pause. "That door weighs 4,000 pounds. It's been reinforced to withstand a nuclear blast." Peter Daven…
Dan Barry: CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. The members of the 2:20 tour follow their guide up the front steps of Monticello, past those iconic white pillars and into the domed building's a…
Here's Russell Nichols, a freelance writer and poet who used to pound a city beat at the Boston Globe: with a kiss, i interviewed your soul your smile was an inverted pyramid tel…
Kevin Cullen: BURLINGTON – They were brothers, and they grew up in a small, white house, on a small side street, in a section of town the locals call The Flats. more stories like t…
WSJ Review: A Reporter at the Ramparts By PAUL E. STEIGER March 28, 2008; Page W5 Taking on the Trust By Steve Weinberg (Norton, 304 pages, $29.95) In 1901, John D. Rockefeller…
Ben Montgomery: If the old man is to be believed, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise, then when Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese bullet on the Pacific island of Ie Shima…
Our apologies, and congratulations, to Konrad Marshall, whose stories, In Full View and Looking Back, should also have been mentioned as finalists in the Long category of the 2008…
Tom Lake: TAMPA — They arrested Audie Grogg one night in January, for no good reason, and one bad thing led to another. Jail is expensive. He was in his motor home, out of gas by t…
Hank Stuever: Half the history of Converse is about basketball, and the rest is about something far more complicated, about the ways a plain sneaker is consistently adored by antic…
S.I. Rosenbaum: You're living in the Vermont woods in a four-story dome you built yourself. Well, the third floor is really a trampoline. You're not sure if that counts as a floor.…
If we could clone this youngster like 14 million times, we could all sleep easier. Johnny … Son — can I call you son? — please let your light shine.
Wowzers. Memo to the Mercury News: That means we need to provide a wide assortment, in terms of subject matter, tone, emotional appeal, length and appearance. Yes, it means we will…
Lane DeGregory: ST. PETERSBURG — The first thing he saw was the flaw: a slender white swirl threading through the clear facets. "Almost every stone has one," explained the sales as…
Matt Soergel: Byron Fuller dreamed of the houses he would build, counted the number of 2-by-4s he would need, counted each and every nail he would use. Dick Stratton repeated the n…
Eric Alterman: The American newspaper has been around for approximately three hundred years. Benjamin Harris's spirited Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick managed jus…
If you'd like to order a T shirt, holler at me at bamontgomery@hotmail.com. Give me a size, mailing address and, um, blood pact that you'll pay up.
SHORT Caryn Bush Baird, Here's 8 Years of Change. Caryn Bush Baird Other finalists in this category were Brazen Meets Kind in a Courtroom, by Colleen Jenkins; and Scharf's Last Act…
Dan Barry: FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is…
Brady McCollough, who turns this story in a day. Shawn Windsor, who gets unheard of access and shows us an inside look at the life of a college basketball coach. And Dirk Chatelain…
Tom Lake: TAMPA — Today the doormen at the Hyatt Regency will wear Clemson orange. The waitresses at Hooters in Channelside will pour rivers of cold domestic beer. And early this e…
Brian wrote this in about four hours. It crackles with the kind of detail that puts a reader there, in the heads of the nervous soldiers heading into the unknown.
So Malcolm Gladwell goes to The Moth in New York and smears it on thick. It runs on This American Life with something of a tall-tale disclaimer. Then Jack Schafer picks his story a…
Libby Copeland: So this is what life inside the bubble looks like, in tedious, mind-numbing detail. In the 11,046 pages of Hillary Clinton's White House schedules released yeste…
Matt Lait (thanks, Pia): APACHE JUNCTION, ARIZ. -- The raffle was over, the drinks were flowing and the gray-haired crowd at VFW Post 9399 was in a mood to party when David Serby a…
Tim Logan: Bob Phillips is a salesman. He has been one for 27 years. And one morning each week, he sits down at his desk in his home office in Ballwin and makes dozens of pho…
Wright Thompson: GREENHILL, Ala. -- Every night, Nicole Conley tells her daughter a bedtime story about Matthew. Catherine's 2 years old now, and she gets scared before she goes to…
Dan Stockman: They say everyone is a little bit Irish on St. Patrick's Day. Then there's Caoimhe McNeil, who started the Irish Immersion Festival in Fort Wayne, now in its secon…
Richard Russo in Sunday's Washington Post: There's also a story in which Eliot isn't even the main character. Because how believable is it, really, that they came across him by cha…
We've talked a lot about narrative songs. There's finally an easy way to collect them on a blog (thanks, Sean). I wanted to play with this program, so I used Tom Lake's playlist. H…
Today is the anniversary of the death of Rocky Mountain News columnist Greg Lopez, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver on March 17, 1996, at the age of 35. I never met him – onl…
Ken Fuson: Tipton, Ia. -- The United States is at war, and Kenny Jedlicka has a job to do. He dresses in his dark blue color guard uniform. He wears his American Legion cap; he'…
When Roy Peter Clark named Anne Hull one of the Wonders of the Journalism World, this, in a comment on the Poynter Web site, is how she responded: NO! Let me be the first to…
If you've never read this opening to John Irving's collection, do it now: This is a memoir, but please understand that (to any writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false…
Sound off on Roy Clark's Wonders of the Journalism World. To whet your appetite, here are our top choices in each category: Story forms and shapes: The Inverted Pyramid Inst…
Check out Rebecca S. Green (thanks, Dan): How does one put a value on what Dale Skaggs lost in the early-morning hours of July 21? How much is his safety worth? The state of…
John Pendygraft won a National Headliner Award for Special or Feature Column on One Subject for a series called Paycheck to Paycheck. What's interesting is that John is a photojour…
One of the funnest features going in Floridian is Sean Daly's Playlist: In the end, it was the crack of a bone, not the crack of a bat, that changed misfortune to fortune for the w…
Ben : Here stands another wife in the white lights, stoic, silent, so close to her sullied husband the fabric on her jacket rubs against his suit coat.
Here's Matt Soergel in the Florida Times-Union (thanks, John T.): Girls cheered when James Hendrick returned to lacrosse practice at Fletcher High School this week, wearing his usu…
Michael Kruse: The most important witness in Mark Lunsford's pending wrongful death lawsuit against the Citrus County Sheriff's Office is the man who killed his daughter. Lunsf…
Hank Stuever: A man on a business trip checks into a hotel by himself and picks up the television remote and clicks ON even as the handle of his rolly suitcase is still gripped by…
Michael M. Phillips: ORGUN-E, Afghanistan -- "How do you start a letter like this? How do you end it?" On a raw November morning here, along the wild frontier bordering Pakistan…
Scott Waldman: ALBANY -- A little more of Wafa Khalil's hair is on the pillow every morning. She can't sleep through the night. She's rarely hungry. She covers her heart to show…
Sad (thanks, Doyle): The City Council, already miffed by a series of earlier reductions in news staff and space, decided to discuss the option of pulling city advertising in protes…
Lynn Zinser: "How come when we're kids we want to be astronauts and firefighters and Indian chiefs, and then when we turn 20 years old we give up on our dreams?" Young said. "Dalla…
If this article is to be believed, and it was a finalist in the public interest category at the 2007 National Magazine Awards, we're in some serious trouble: Moore soon learned…
Tomas Alex Tizon: CORDOVA, ALASKA — By way of telling his story, and the story of this fishing village, Mike Maxwell — born, raised and hoping to die here — wants to talk about wha…
Professor Sheeler. I'd take his class. Congrats, Jim. Too bad for newspapers. At the same time, Sheeler believes that the art of storytelling will be as important tomorrow as it is…
BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — W.C. "Bill" Heinz, a sportswriter and author who witnessed the Normandy invasion on D-Day, covered some of the greatest sports events of the 1940s and helped…
Just wanted to let everyone know: Bill Reiter of the KC Star has four top tens in the APSE contest currently being judged in Florida, which is a truly astounding number of awards,…
David Segal (thanks, Raja): NEW YORK — Nobody had seen one in decades. Then, five years ago, they started showing up in homes and hotels across the country, prompting a flood of ca…
Here: If nature abhors a vacuum (not that anyone in this town knows what a vacuum is), does Hollywood abhor the absence of a Vanity Fair Oscars party? Oh, stop the whining. So what…
Elizabeth Rubin: WE TUMBLED OUT of two Black Hawks onto a shrub-dusted mountainside. It was a windy, cold October evening. A half-moon illuminated the tall pines and peaks. Through…
Hank in Hollywood: Wouldn't it be great if they just walked in, blew right past everyone, like they were late for something, and nobody cared? If they did not stop to talk about th…
This almost made me cry. If somebody saves this paper, please let me on board.
They just posted details for this year's Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference in Grapevine, Texas. Looks like a good group. Sign up early. And let me know if you're going…
Tom Junod (thanks, Wright): It was funny. What Arnold said at the meeting of the advocates — it was funny. He didn't laugh; he hardly ever does when he says something funny. He onl…
Sam Roberts (thanks, Kelley): It was nearly hidden on a New York City Transit public service placard exhorting subway riders not to leave their newspaper behind when they get off t…
What a lede. Scratch that. What a story. John Sullivan and Paul Brooks: West Hurley — In the end, the racist who hated blacks, immigrants and Jews died with a broken heart. State p…
Peter Carlson (thanks, Raja): Guy gets pulled over by a cop. He steps out of his car. He's wearing a white T-shirt, bluejeans, a baseball cap and a goofy grin. The cop asks if he's…
Karyn Spencer has been working on a set of investigative stories out of Nebraska for a good while. The first part ran Sunday: CHADRON, Neb. – Tara Russell's body left few clues beh…
Check this out now. On Wednesday, baseball great Roger Clemens stood before the U.S. Congress, seeking to defend his honor and his soul. History will decide whether Clemens told th…
A day after publication, this delicious scoop is still #1 most e-mailed on Tampabay.com: Celebrity chef Robert Irvine blew into town two years ago with the panache of royalty, the…
As if you didn't have enough reason already to submit your stories to The Goats, here are some of the people who have agreed to help judge the contest. Christopher Goffard, Pulitze…
Henry Allen: There's something about the word "disembowel." Or "depravity," or "disfigurement" — about so many words that begin with the letter "d." Divorce, destitution, doubt, dr…
Jake Adam York: Until I had moved to New York, the phrase "good barbecue" meant nothing to me. In Alabama, there was only barbecue — and a food either was or was not barbecue. Barb…
Andy Meacham: The first time the manager of Clock Family Restaurant in Zephyrhills offered Wilfred "Spook" Wyman a refill on his coffee, he was soundly rejected. "He said, 'G– d— i…
Chris Goffard: Like the other old men at this Costa Mesa boatyard, where the hulls of peeling sloops and half-made cutters rot on their wooden posts, Karl Markvart can't be certain…
Hank Stuever: Two of Washington's airports — Dulles and Reagan National — will soon be part of the federal government's Registered Traveler program, which offers passengers the hap…
This story is very, very long. I suggest you print out and read it before bed. Satisfaction is guaranteed. But it seems somehow paltry and wrong to call what happened at Midway a "…
Libby Copeland with the snow birds: BOCA RATON, Fla. — The best place to meet the Floridians who could save Rudy Giuliani's hide is here at the Flakowitz Bagel Inn, where just abou…
I missed this from Sunday. Dan Barry: The man emerged from the night's anonymity to sit at the counter, across from the stainless steel grill and the stacks of white plates. He wor…
Jeff Klinkenberg wrote a story about the Flip-Flop Man in October. Read it. Then watch this killer video. I think that this video, which wasn't produced by the SP Times, is how we…
I was looking for some inspiration today, and came across an old story by a guy I worked with in Providence, one of the best narrative writers I've seen. Here it is.
Michael Brick on the Giants: Word had it the Giants were coming to the party. The promoter said to set your watch by it. The assistant promoter promised to make introductions. And…
Hank Stuever on Heath Ledger: A young movie star dies and the mind automatically cues up the clip reel and FFs through the footage, even before it occurs to you to simply turn on t…
From SpicyBiscotti: Inspired by some experimenting with lasers and glow paint this summer, invisible narrative is a response to a world increasingly filled with nonplaces — places…
Stephen Nohlgren: It lacks the carnal drama of a python-alligator showdown in the Everglades, or the body-slamming potential of a leaping Suwannee sturgeon. But given its staid urb…
The OC Register is doing away with its business section at the end of January, the largest paper to do so to date. Other papers will follow suit. There are lots of meetings in lots…
Alan Feuer: JIMMY BRESLIN, in his bare feet and a bricklayers' union sweatshirt, sat at home some months ago glumly taking phone calls on the death of Norman Mailer. There were a l…
David Simon: I mean, I understand the economic pressures on newspapers. At this point, along with the rest of the wood-pulp Luddites, I've grasped that what was on the Internet was…