Archive
Writing once featured on the original Gangrey blog.
Adam Bosch: Mary Taylor starts her Friday night routine by arriving at the bowling alley one hour early, dropping her bag near one of the lanes and heading outside for a smoke. She…
Anthony Shadid: THULUYAH, IRAQ — Recitation of the Koran, mournful but consoling, played from a scratchy cassette as the men gathered in the funeral tent for condolences. They sipp…
Have I missed anything? Cast your vote in the comments …
The Mike Levine Journalism Workshop is April 29 to May 2, in Livingston Manor, N.Y. The MLJW is a bit of a throwback, named after a dear friend, mentor, and one of the best story g…
Mark Bowden in Vanity Fair: Detective Michele Deery works in a cubicle in the basement of the Delaware County courthouse, in Media, Pennsylvania. The only window is high on the wal…
The relentless assault continues: MARIANNA — Boys are buried on the little hilltop. That much is certain.
Alex Zayas: TAMPA — For the first time in history, it allowed a human to tap a backspace key and make a mistake go away. Called "Selectric II," it was conceived when Richard Nixon…
Dan Barry: SACRAMENTO At 7:56:59 on a Sunday night in November, a citizen known only as Steve called 911 to report a fire in the Curtis Park neighborhood. Flames were rising from t…
Lane DeGregory: BUSHNELL — The two teenagers got to the cemetery first. He wore his dark green dress uniform from the National Guard. She wore a long black dress. They stood on the…
Doctors said Chase Kear's survival was impossible. After he hit his head on the ground in a pole vaulting accident last year, they sawed off a third of his skull to relieve the pre…
Todd Frankel: EAST ST. LOUIS — The shades were drawn against the morning sun, as though Rodney Dukes were trying to block out his doubt about the $1 million bill. The room was dark…
Ali fought 50 men. Only one disappeared. Wright Thompson: MIAMI — The old man opens the door and shuffles into a familiar room. The air smells of stale beer and discount brand ciga…
Janine Anderson: RACINE – Word was out: Something was up at the King Center. It was early afternoon on Monday, April 29, 1991. Young men in cocked baseball caps and women with scul…
Delivered in terrifying fashion by Michael Kruse: Before Abraham Shakespeare became the most famous missing man in Central Florida, before he won the lottery, before he went on a s…
… Hank on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson on Thursday, Dec. 17. And buy Tinsel.
Sean Daly: LAKE BUENA VISTA Walking with a practiced regal grace from Liberty Square to Frontierland, from the newly Obamafied Hall of Presidents to the riverboat home of Disney's…
Joanna Connors: "To Whom it May Concern: If this letter has been opened and is being read, it is because I have been seriously injured or killed by my son, Sky Walker." No one know…
Lane DeGregory: TAMPA The Moscow Mauler couldn't sleep Sunday. On the night before one of the biggest days of his life, the 37-year-old professional wrestler lay in bed in his Sout…
Giant thanks to Ramsey, who's typing up old Jimmy Breslin stuff so we all may share. He brings up a good suggestion, btw: "I'd like to see more people doing this. That is, finding…
Eric A. Stern (thanks, Todd): HELENA, Mont. — In Montana, a rabbi is an unusual sight. So when a Hasidic one walked into the State Capitol last December, with his long beard, black…
Peter Baker (thanks, Ramsey): WASHINGTON — On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminati…
If you haven't seen it yet, check out Maira Kalman's work for NYT.com. Cool stuff. Thanks Ted.
Kevin Robbins: COLLEGE STATION — Long tables draped with maroon linens held the portraits of the dead. Other photographs were displayed Tuesday at G. Rollie White Coliseum, includi…
Wes Ferguson: LINDEN — Whatever happened to Billy Ray Johnson? For years, the middle-aged, mentally challenged black man was a familiar face around town. But on a September night i…
Hey, Gangrey friends, The Wichita Eagle has an unusual story project set to launch Dec. 6. It will include an 8-part serial narrative and our first-ever hour-long narrative news do…
Paul Farhi: Bob Marbourg never wanted to spin records or read the news on the radio. One thing, and maybe only one thing, fascinated him: the mad struggle of a few million people t…
Dan Barry: COLUMBIA, S.C. In the down time before another head count, two prisoners play cards. One inmate shuffles and the other flicks his hand, a mystical cutting of the deck. T…
Tom Junod: On December 7, 2006, a new jail opened in Guantánamo. It was, and is, called Camp 6. Guantánamo is located at the arid eastern end of Cuba, plagued with ig…
It took a minute to recover, but heavens this was fun. Read all about The Auburn Chautauqua here: Atlanta Magazine reporter Thomas Lake recently hosted an unusual narrative confere…
Cormac McCarthy: I'm not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in…
The Washington Post February 17, 1997 Punches to Punch Lines; At 75, Former Middleweight Champ Jake LaMotta Still Knocks 'Em Dead Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer Jake La…
From September, Charlie LeDuff: DRIVING THROUGH JANESVILLE, WISCONSIN, IN A DOWNPOUR, looking past the wipers and through windows fogged up with cigarette smoke, Main Street appear…
John Kelly: A deer that jumped a wall at the National Zoo was fatally injured by two lions Sunday as dozens of startled spectators looked on. — The Washington Post, Nov. 9 — The W…
Dan Barry: FLINT, Mich. On one side of the fertile lot stands an abandoned house, stripped long ago for scrap. On the other side, another abandoned house, windows boarded, structur…
Justin Heckert: The ocean at night is a terrible dream. There is nothing beyond the water except the profound discouragement of the sky, every black wave another singular misfortun…
Tim Botos: JACKSON TWP. — Marjorie Petry's heart, faith and principles forever will lie on her mostly pristine homestead — located between the Timken Research Center and three rows…
Wow. I'm in. From Roy Wenzl: This is the trailer for the video for the serial narrative and hour-long documentary that Travis Heying and I have spent the last six months putting to…
Erin Sullivan: HUDSON — At 10 o'clock Tuesday night, Amy Reyburn-Phibbs drove down the dirt path beside her house that led into the woods where a man named Dave lived. Dave was in…
Kim Wilmath: TAMPA — Police reports are often rich with jargon — phrases like "victim succumbed to his injuries," or "victim advised that defendant did knowingly and willingly ente…
Wright Thompson: ANGOLA, La. –The prison dentist walks slowly down the gravel road past the warden's house. He is stooped, with a big belly, two white tufts of hair and a bald spot…
First in a continuing series of nuggets from Hank Stuever's book Tinsel, which you should get, if you know what's good for you. If there are typos, they're mine. Page 67: People so…
Andy Meacham: ST. PETE BEACH — Julius Stewart and Angie Lee Burnham were childhood friends who moved away and married other people. Both their spouses died young, and of unusual ca…
Joel Achenbach: Gary Smith writes very long stories for a living. They run 8,000 words. He crafts four of them a year for Sports Illustrated. He is a throwback, a spinner of yarns…
Paul Grondahl with Poppy's Story in seven chapters (thanks, Brendan). Here's the first: ALBANY — "I ain't nobody, boss. I ain't nobody." The man was wrapped in three layers of ther…
… over at Nieman Storyboard. Good stuff. Like this: Is there anything narrative journalism does that can't be done by some other type of print or online story? Narrative journalism…
Check out Wes Ferguson: There will be tears tonight. There will be voices in the cemetery — a child's laughter, a whispered threat. On a cool, damp night in Longview, paranormal in…
Wright Thompson: NEW YORK — I am a man of the people, which is why I generously tipped the guy who shined my shoes in a suite near the home plate of Yankee Stadium. Actually, that'…
Congrats to the folks at the York Daily Record, which posted the highest circulation gains this go-'round. I don't know much about the paper, but I know they have an intense focus…
Lane DeGregory: Tom Sawyer is in jail. Again. He's well known at the Hillsborough County lockup: trespassing, drinking in public, resisting arrest. Alkie crimes. It's petty stuff,…
Richard Perez-Pena: Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has witnesse…
Justin George: TAMPA — The chickens belong to Ybor City but Tommy Stephens has taken a few under his wing. The latest was Chicken Nugget, who lapped up Budweiser and napped on Step…
David Rhode: THE car's engine roared as the gunman punched the accelerator and we crossed into the open Afghan desert. I was seated in the back between two Afghan colleagues who we…
Alan Feuer: Here's an old story: A traveling barfly finds himself in a small town near the border and entertains the locals at the tavern one night with amazing tales of his advent…
Henry Allen: R. Crumb, the underground cartoonist, has illustrated Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It starts out with brass-band grandeur: the Creation. "When God began to cr…
Scott Waldman: ALBANY — William Williams does not want to stutter in front of 700 people. He inhales sharply so he has enough air and grabs the microphone. "Good morning. Today is…
Malcolm Gladwell: Only when you see football at close range is it possible to understand the dimensions of the brain-injury problem. The players were huge—much larger than you imag…
Colleen Jenkins: A sore back brought Michael Thornton to the jailhouse infirmary, but far worse problems plagued him. He was in trouble — again. Even more devastating, his youngest…
Tom Hallman's thoughts (thanks, Dan): Sam's story took two trips to Boston. Each day it ran on Page 1 and had two full pages in the A section, across four days. In addition to the…
Ylan Q. Mui: Ann Powers makes unemployment glamorous. She's sassy and sexy, the kind of woman who jaunts off on a weeklong sailing trip to Antigua because it calms her nerves and c…
Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore: MARIANNA -- The boys were watching. They had noticed the old men and the television trucks gathered at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys…
Michael Kruse: WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Rifqa Bary saw a girl. She kept seeing her. She saw her in the bathroom and the lunch room and the locker room. "And for some reason," Rifqa s…
... if I witnessed Dan Barry honor William Kennedy with the the Eugene O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award. It would be like that scene from Indiana Jones ... where is that? Oh,…
Mailbag: "I've been reading a lot of crime nonfiction lately for a story I just finished on church shootings. The problem I encountered was the whole idea that in most newspaper mu…
Iris Schneider: I have always wondered what it would be like to reenter society after years of wrongful incarceration. Is there anger, bitterness, joy, regret--or all of that? I de…
Dan Barry: BARABOO, Wis. In a modest hotel suite at the Ho-Chunk Casino, a few women from out of town gather for a reunion. Homemade brownies sit on the counter, along with a pe…
Sean Daly: LARGO — Jim Priebe will never forget how he found out: Nine years ago, he called home to check on his mother, a routine how-ya-doin' in the middle of the day. Margaret P…
Lane DeGregory and John Pendygraft: Much of the debate about health care reform has centered on the nation's 47 million uninsured. But those pushing the nearly $1 trillion plan are…
Gary Smith: She's the water boy on the football team. She's president of the National Honor Society, a year from graduating as valedictorian. She can bench-press 180. She hunts dee…
From Soul of Athens: For 63 years, Tom Rose and his wife, Mary, built a life together on his family farm on Canaanville Road. Then last year Mary passed away, leaving Rose to face…
Artist Tracey Falcon: "As the roots and the rings on teh trees offer information on the land over time, the pages of the newspaper are steeped in human history. Information, truth,…
Stephanie Hayes: ST. PETERSBURG — Alexandra Kensler had been working weird hours, not sleeping well. The imposing teen with the blond ponytail and iron grip was awake at 6 a.m., al…
Dan Barry: MONTGOMERY, Ala. The State of Alabama has just dedicated $6 million in federal stimulus money to combat a certain invasive weed, and the two men chosen to lead this grou…
P.J. Huffstutter: The latest edition of the Budget had just hit newsstands and Amish family mailboxes, and already fresh updates were pouring in. "Canning is coming to a close," on…
Ever watch football? Then read "Game Brain," from GQ, by Jeanne Marie Laskas. It's got me fired up to do better work. Here it is: On a foggy, steel gray Saturday in September 2002,…
So, there was this magazine story that the Washington Post killed, apparently because it was too depressing. (The author: Matt Mendelsohn. The subject: a woman with four amputation…
David Von Drehle: On Sept. 12, a large crowd gathered in Washington to protest … what? The goals of Congress and the Obama Administration, mainly — the cost, the scale, the perceiv…
Oliver Mackson: ONE OF THE WORST THINGS EVER to happen in the placid village that the locals call "Slow-Motion Goshen" occurred on a sunny afternoon on June 4, 1991. Two girls, bes…
Last night over at Ben's I told him that more and more I feel like I'm writing to a static box of text of arbitrary length and leaving worthwhile material in my notebooks. I find m…
Finkel's book is out. You can find it at the Shoppes at Gangrey if you scroll down.
Leonora LaPeter Anton: After she'd thrown out the microwave popcorn and the Fluff, after she'd gorged on McDonald's hamburgers, chicken nuggets and Reese's peanut butter cups, Stac…
David Carr: … "Look, I no longer have to collaborate with 15 people on a plan to go to the bathroom. PSEG is a very successful company. They know what they are doing. But big compa…
Congrats to Wright and T. Lake, both in Best American Sports Writing 2009. Buy it. Read it.
Eli Saslow: VINCENNES, Ind. The students filed into their social studies class just after lunch and slumped into desks where they had learned about the Civil War, Lewis and Clark,…
N.R. Kleinfield: The day dawned different and stayed that way. Traffic was thin and sidewalks quiet. The stock exchange didn't open, nor the airports, the schools, Broadway. People…
Did anyone read Tom Junod's story in the new Esquire about the wheeling and dealing that went on after Lehman Brothers collapsed? Check it out, if you haven't. It's unlike any p…
Todd Frankel: He lay on his back in the dirt of the Pittsburgh ballpark. His neck hurt. Striking his face on the crushed rock along the first-base side felt like breaking through g…
I wonder if there's any correlation between newspaper circulation and mass transit ridership? Alexis Mainland: THE middle-aged woman with the black cardigan around her shoulders…
Excellent series of stories from Konrad Marshall, who, unfortunately for us, is leaving American journalism to return to Australia. Read his stories, then send him some love at kon…
Dan Barry: NORTH EAST, Md. On a late summer morning so muggy that merely standing constitutes a workout, nine young adults in drenched T-shirts clear a trail in Elk Neck State P…
Hank Stuever: The General Motors truck assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, outside Dayton, closed a couple of days before Christmas last year, leaving 2,200 workers and 200 managers w…
ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU and JULIE JACOBSON (thanks, Nigel): DAHANEH, Afghanistan – The pomegranate grove looked ominous. The U.S. patrol had a tip that Taliban fighters were lying…
We have a contender for next year's National Magazine Awards. Read every word of this story by David Grann: The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structu…
This one's from a while back, but somehow I think I failed to post it. It's beautiful. Jeff Klinkenberg: This story is about what happened on one remarkable day in St. Petersburg —…
Check it: Spooky things began to happen this summer in the yachting mecca of Newport, R.I., shortly after the Newport Daily News hurled caution to the wind and began charging a $34…
Dan Barry: ... Cancer, as is often said, tends to focus the mind. But my diagnosis hovered in the theoretical until the moment I began the first of six rounds of chemotherapy, each…
William Wan: For the longest time, the question just sat there on his screen. Cursor blinking. Waiting quietly, like a patient priest in a confessor's box. Religious Views: _____.…
Michael Powell: The judge waves you into his chambers in the State Supreme Court building in Brooklyn, past the caveat taped to his wall — "Be sure brain in gear before engaging mo…
David Von Drehle: A story told around Arlington National Cemetery holds that John F. Kennedy paid a visit around Veteran's Day in 1963. As he stood near the mansion that once was h…
Kruse said the blog is looking a little outdated, a little behind the times. So I've tinkered with it a bit and I sort of like the changes. Take a look.
I'm awake. What the hell. 1. Today's Drink on the 1A rail. 2. Every non-major league local sports story must contain at least 30 names of athletes. 3. We bring back delivery boys…
My wife said the other day that she is cake's No. 1 fan. I am the No. 1 fan of front page editorials. I wish there were more of these.
Chris Erskine: Santa Monica Pier juts out into the Pacific like Jay Leno's jaw, a defiant, whimsical and improbable landing pad. Just 100 feet below, sharks are at play, scarfing t…
Sheri Fink: The smell of death was overpowering the moment a relief worker cracked open one of the hospital chapel's wooden doors. Inside, more than a dozen bodies lay motionless o…
I needed this. Hank Stuever: Wawa in the morning, Sheetz at night. Sheetz in the morning, Wawa at night. They're just convenience stores, you shouldn't think too hard about them. (…
Richard Lake: It's hard to pinpoint when the trouble began, but that doesn't matter now. On Monday, my hands were shaking, and they wouldn't stop. This made note-taking difficult.…
Josh Tyrangiel, managing editor of TIME.com, says that long form journalism is not working on the web. But NYT Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati, says "contrary to conventional wisd…
Andy Netzel: The lunchroom is half-full, but the din sounds like it's packed past capacity. Two Lincoln-West High School staffers hang at the edges to keep an eye on things, callin…
Karl Vick: FORT BRAGG, Calif. The steel-haired old hippies who grow the finest marijuana in the world began taking over Mendocino County four decades ago. "Going back to the '60s,…
Tim Botos: EAST CANTON — In the shadow of a sleek BellStores Marathon, a father and son cling to their livelihood in a simple block building. A customer stepped to the counter at B…
Raja Abdulrahim: Shahjehan Khan rounded a corner at the Grammy Museum in downtown L.A. and let out a laugh. Before him was a piece of memorabilia — a destroyed school bus stop sign…
Michael Kruse: Dade City judge and University of Florida grad Pat Siracusa is such a big Gators football fan that he sometimes wears a replica Tim Tebow jersey under his black robe…
First part of this engaging narrative here. And here's the second from Neil Swidey: Dave Riggs wanted to do the right thing. But can something be right if it's likely to leave you…
Lane DeGregory: The roar of rush hour wakes him: trucks, cars and buses thundering across the causeway above his tent. Behind the shack next to his, someone guns a generator. Spani…
Alex Zayas: The vampires wait outside the back door of the Ybor City nightclub. Newcomers stand on the fringes, alone. The regulars talk about school, about work, about the weather…
Tamara Jones, interviewed by John Temple: The Post newsroom has been decimated, and the people left behind keep being told to do more, more, more with less, less, less. They're exh…
Michael Kruse: BROOKSVILLE — From his small studio at the small radio station in this small town, chain-smoking, caffeine-swallowing longtime talk radio host Bob Haa uses his morni…
Hank Stuever: On the wavy matrix where popular culture and one's time in high school intersect, Gen Xers can often feel like they were born too late (post-Beatles) or too soon (pre…
Neil Swidey: The divers packed themselves into the basket and prepared to be lowered by a crane down the 400-foot shaft. But they couldn't move until DJ Gillis got into the basket…
Eli Saslow: NEW YORK -- The first phone call comes 30 seconds after Kim Hall arrives at her desk. She groans, chases two Tylenol with a gulp from her extra-large coffee and sweeps…
Peter St. Onge: By noon on Day 8, Nick Maimone's life already had changed. He was one of 27 poker players finding his seat at three tables in a Rio Las Vegas casino ballroom. He ha…
Check out these videos of a local politician hosting a debate on healthcare reform in Tampa. What's fascinating is that every fifth person is making a video of the fracas. We're…
Michael Kruse: NEW PORT RICHEY — The killing started just after 4 on a hot weekday afternoon at Friendly Kia. The white four-door Jeep Grand Cherokee La­redo sat in the eig…
Monica Hesse: The sordid secret is that everyone, even hipsters, has always shopped at Target. Here is how it used to happen: Once every four months, you rented a Zipcar with some…
Read this now. Paul Schwartzman: MIDDLEBURY, Ind. -- He sinks into the couch, foot jiggling, his gaze traveling from his wife to the television to the darkness outside, broken n…
Dan Stockman: Deanna Vasquez said she realized something was wrong when she found herself helping a dental assistant hold down her 4-year-old son's arms and legs as he writhed and…
Drew Harwell: A 19-year-old lay on a stretcher in the weeds of a shut-down gas station, his blood dotting the curb. His orange Isuzu Amigo, freshly crumpled on East Bay Drive,…
Kaustuv Basu: Zeeshan Usmani waited weeks to meet with the professor. Finally, face to face in a cramped office, the 31-year-old Pakistani grasped for words to explain the resea…
From the beginning of Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt: The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a F…
Dan Barry: PROVIDENCE, R.I. The chief emerges from his tent to face the leaden morning light. It had been a rare, rough night in his homeless Brigadoon: a boozy brawl, the wielding…
Giant thanks to Lena Price for taking notes at The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference last weekend, then structuring them in this nifty top ten tips list, just for you: 1. Get…
Jennifer Fermino (thanks, B): The latest candidate to throw his 10-gallon hat into the race for mayor is a Nietzsche-spouting semi-nudist who lives in New Jersey, twice posed for P…
David Barstow: WICHITA, Kan. — It did not take long for anti-abortion leaders to realize that George R. Tiller was more formidable than other doctors they had tried to shut down.
Vanity Fair gives the cold gov's resignation speech a hard read.
Great to see so many familiar faces on the list of AASFE winners. Congrats, one and all.
I loved this behind-the-curtain look at a robbery investigation from John Barry: TAMPA — In blurry videos of three convenience store robberies last week, one detail got everyone's…
So the over-65 crowd has long been the most dedicated newspaper readership demographic. It's high time we forgive them for calling to complain about the word "suck" appearing in pr…
Lane DeGregory: ST. PETERSBURG — Under the interstate, in a square of shade, a tired-looking woman with bloodshot eyes sat fanning herself with a cardboard sign. "Homeless with chi…
Tim Botos: JACKSON TWP. — On boxed trailers, flatbeds and mammoth refrigerators on wheels, America drives to, from and through Stark County. Before sunrise, under the midday sun an…
Need inspiration on describing one of your characters? Try this passage from Herzog, by Saul Bellow: In the brighter light of the seaward side of the house she looked extremely wel…
William Langewiesche: On the afternoon of last January 15, a flock of Canada geese flew about 3,000 feet above the Bronx in a loose echelon formation, tending to their own business…
C.J. Chivers (thanks, Nigel): NATALYA ESTEMIROVA is gone now. Her executioners forced her into a car in front of her home in Chechnya and sped away with her on Wednesday morning. S…
John Noble Wilford(thanks, Nigel): In memory, after all this time, Apollo resists relegation to the past tense. It is close to midnight, and the summer air is warm and still, no he…
Sorry for the light posting this week. I'm chasing a story in the panhandle. Back soon. Meanwhile, get a load of this!
You've got to read The Long Walk, a C.J. Chivers piece about soldiers in Afghanistan in the latest Esquire, and Build The Wall, an essay by David Simon in the latest Columbia Journ…
Dan Barry: EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. At the edge of the remote prairie town called Eagle Butte, just past a fireworks stand, there is construction. Where winter wheat once grew, workers…
Erin Sullivan: NEW PORT RICHEY — It was Sunday night and the ghost hunters stood on the steps of the West Pasco Historical Society, trying to talk with William Barber, a Union sold…
In Paris Review: INTERVIEWER: Your piece "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" is often singled out as the classic work of New Journalism. How did that assignment come about? TALESE: H…
I almost stopped reading this, and then I kept going, and by the end it had worked its way deep enough into my mind to keep me thinking about it for the rest of the night, until I…
Connie Schultz: ... A panel discussion about newspapers' future sparked David's idea on how to save them. "I heard [Plain Dealer Editor] Susan Goldberg talking about how revenu…
Dan Barry: Thirty years ago this month, the Sony Corporation made a huge contribution to human interaction by ensuring there was less of it. No longer would people who did not want…
Corey Kilgannon (thanks, Raja): Despite his nickname, Short Al stood tall in the pantheon of overnight callers to talk shows on the New York sports radio station WFAN-AM. Such c…
Michael Kruse: DUNNELLON A palm tree with butt rot fell over a few weeks back and crushed this community's historic three-hole outhouse. Stop laughing. This is serious.…
Sean Daly: Let's start with that name, a go-go-booted Space Age shout, a classic souvenir as fun to blurt as it is to make, fondle, sniff. Go on, say it with me: Mold-A-Ram…
Lane DeGregory: You have to go to work early. That's what they call it, going to work. Get there by 7 a.m. or some guy who says he's disabled, or some woman who claims she has…
Dan Barry: ... But a request to talk to people who had recently joined the cause was met with resistance by James Fitzgerald, the national director of field activities, who began t…
Steve Persall: She wanted to be a dancer or an actor and was lovely enough to be either. Instead, she became a newspaper reporter and a damn fine one. But she looked nothing like t…
Shari Roan (thanks, Raja): It's been a rough week. A few days ago, at UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 6-year-old Jani toppled a food cart and was confined to her room. Sh…
Eli Saslow (thanks, Mara): He heard the familiar whine of a Metro train approaching the platform, and Tom Baker decided to run for it. The next train was scheduled to arrive at Tak…
On his life and death: Geoff Boucher and Elaine Woo: Michael Jackson was fascinated by celebrity tragedy. He had a statue of Marilyn Monroe in his home and studied the sad Hollywoo…
William McKeen on the impact of information overload on a new generation: Novelist and social critic Tom Wolfe is among those who arch eyebrows over the time and labor-saving devic…
Ian Shapira: YaVonne and Erwin DuBose stepped outside the D.C. medical examiner's office yesterday to take in the fresh heat. They needed a reprieve. They had just seen a photograp…
Mike Anton: An hour before dawn in the camp of last resort. Dozens of men and a few women are asleep in the beds of pickup trucks, in the back seats of cars or on flattened cardboa…
Wow. Wow. Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin: Part ONE of THREE The leader of the Church of Scientology strode into the room with a boom box and an announcement: Time for a game of mus…
Lawrence Weschler: I want to get rid of the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. The class I teach at NYU is called "The Fiction of Nonfiction," and it is less a class about…
You can now preorder David Finkel's new one. It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the…
Wright Thompson: WASHINGTON — Baron Hill is in training, working on his jumper, pumping iron, doing rep after tedious rep on the weight machines to strengthen his bum knee. He swor…
Danielle Dreilinger: First, the ref disarmed wrestler "Psycho" of his hula hoop. The other Chaotic Wrestling fighters wore Lycra shorts and knee pads. Psycho, a reported 192 pounds…
Leonora LaPeter Anton: The boy changed the name of his essay three times. It started out as The Clown That Made Nobody Laugh. Then The Clown Man. Now, as Anthony Savage stood nervo…
Hank Stuever: Morris Lapidus — the late, great Googie master of South Beach-style architecture — was hired to design the Skyline Inn motor hotel in 1961, which is why it looks so s…
Kruse: The people in the trucks were mechanics, roofers, wrecker drivers, current and former military men. Inside, they parked RVs, pitched tents, hammered in horseshoe pits and pu…
As Roy Peter Clark says, most nonfiction writing falls into one of two categories: the story and the report. Many articles are hybrids. They use elements of both. They have narrati…
From the New Yorker's Book Bench: Yesterday, Ha'aretz — Israel's oldest newspaper — sent home all of its regular reporters and contributors, and replaced them with famous literary…
Misti Crane and Jeb Phillips: Almost three months after his right calf started hurting, after countless prayers, after nearly 20 surgeries and fear that he wouldn't make it, Blake…
Tom Lake: Ghosts came to work in the carpet mills. They tried to be silent and invisible. The government ignored them, as it had the ghosts who brought in the onion crop and built…
Dan Barry: HOUSTON, Pa. The Arnold Pontiac dealership is not one of those glass-encased bazaars winking from the main drag, with a showroom the size of a parking lot and a name…
Ben: It is a place where lessons are learned and rank is established, where armpit hair is more valuable than gold. There is urination and defecation and embarrassing nudity on thi…
Quick story: I'm holding the baby and watching the kids run around at the play place at Tampa's International Plaza when the guy sitting next to me asks: "Which ones are yours?" "…
Scott Gold: The boys had made no effort to hide the shotgun, so it was found, loaded, right where they'd left it, on the top bunk in their bedroom, next to a pile of clothes and tw…
Michael Kruse: DUETTE Out here toward the center of the state, in the far northeast corner of Manatee County, there sits a school. Duette Elementary is a small, white wood…
P.J. O'Rourke (thanks, Nigel): The phrase "bankrupt General Motors," which we expect to hear uttered on Monday, leaves Americans my age in economic shock. The words are as melodram…
Tim Botos: JACKSON TWP. — If Timothy Welland Hyde is good at one thing, it's selling. With slick, tightly cropped black hair and round dark eyes, a voice for radio and a warm smile…
Check out the Wall Street Journal's interactive graphic on how far newspapers have fallen. Is the St. Petersburg Times the only major paper that has managed to avoid layoffs and…
Here: Another endangered species in print journalism took a hit this week as Los Angeles magazine fired the writers Steve Oney, Jesse Katz and David Gardetta. Here's the job des…
Dugan Arnett: Nick Faunce's introduction to matters involving the walk-up song — that is, the song played throughout a stadium as a particular player walks to the plate — came four…
Michael Brick: SEADRIFT, Tex. — The rowboat was called the Delta Dawn. It measured 24 feet long by 28 inches wide by 11 ½ inches deep. The bow was sealed with sawdust and ep…
Lane DeGregory: NEW PORT RICHEY -- She painted her toenails black for the funeral. Her mom said she could wear make-up, just a little, so her big sister helped her line her blue ey…
You could see this coming: I write to tell you of the Nieman Foundation's decision to suspend the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism and the Nieman Seminar for Narrative Edi…
Sarah Kershaw: There is so much hugging at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale, N.J., that students have broken down the hugs by type: There is the basic friend hug, probably the…
Dan Le Batard (thanks, Nigel): The grass has browned around this haunted house in Davie. The lower half of the front door is covered in smudges that let you know the hands and feet…
Farhad Manjoo: When I signed up for Mine a couple of months ago, I was mainly looking for a laugh. The new magazine from Time Inc. seemed like a gimmicky, goofy effort to save a be…
Lee Hill Kavanaugh: Her phone rings at 10 p.m. The voice on the other end is quiet, uncertain. I just got picked up by the police. … Do you hate me? Donnette Siems takes a deep bre…
Denise Gamino: ABOARD A TROOP PLANE — Flight attendant John Bechtold keys the public address mike just moments after this wide-body jet swooshes into the humid Texas sky. His messa…
Bruce DeSilva: My father's ankle-length, black-and-white tweed Mayfield, the first fine piece of clothing he bought for himself when he returned from the war, hangs still in my cro…
Ron Matus: … One day, the band meekly begins what should be a raging funk jam, Jungle Boogie. Mr. T tells the baritone sax player, "You got to be angry." He scrunches his face in m…
Ashley Clark and Karla Ward: At 336 Hollyhill Drive, he was Leslie J. Burns Jr., the man who lived in a modest 1 1/2-story brick house before he died. At a dimly lit bar and restau…
We should have a conversation about beat sweeteners. I hear so many people ripping them and, frankly, this is one of the most interesting stories I've read out of the WH. Has anyon…
John Barry: TAMPA — The Chair is one of those ugly gray Office Depot things. It faces the long messy desk of Cantor Moshe Friedler at Rodeph Sholom. All the kids in religious schoo…
Chris Goffard: Before dawn that morning, they clambered onto an empty boxcar at the Union Pacific yard and rode it out of Bakersfield into the Tehachapi Mountains. There were six o…
Stephanie Hayes: ST. PETERSBURG — Ted Dahlem settled into bed every night. He talked to his wife. She died in 2005. He talked to his children. Three of his four died, one by one, i…
Cool idea from Paper Magazine. They invited a band of visual communicators to rebrand America. Take a look: Right now America is like a company teetering on bankruptcy — we have lo…
Hank Stuever: We live in the age of extreme niche fandom. Even more extreme is the quibbling. I was commanded by Paramount's publicists — the Legion of Women With Clipboards — to c…
From the newspaper hearings, David Simon: It requires daily, full-time commitment by trained men and women who return to the same beats day in and day out until the best of them kn…
P.J. Huffstutter: As the morning Wall Street crowd rushed past Minas Shoe Repair, a group of women in dark business suits stepped inside, sorry-looking pumps in hand. The shoe-shin…
Anna Quindlen: … But my second response to reading over the stories was delight. They were so thoroughly reported, so well written. Whether local, national or international news, t…
Guest blogging the next few days from the Mike Levine Journalism Workshop, in Livingston Manor, N.Y. More to come. UPDATE: Keep up with the goings on via Michael Kruse (and others?…
If you want to get better … George Getschow, writer in residence of the nationally renowned Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, is inviting journalists and other nonfiction wri…
David Gonzales (thanks, Raja): For the father, the choice was obvious: An engineer with several jobs yet little money, he saw no future for his daughter and son in their struggling…
Justin George: In his black SUV, he rolled through the darkness before dawn. He drove past shuttered buildings and fried fish shacks, toward the housing projects of West Tampa and…
Here: ALIABAD, Afghanistan — The two Army lieutenants crouched against boulders beside the Korangal River. Taliban gunfire poured down from villages and cliffs above, hitting tree…
Hank Stuever: WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — The country's best-selling cookbook right now is for people who don't really cook, written by a hyperkinetic 43-year-old former TV producer n…
Konrad Marshall: Brian Duff sat in the corner of the homeless shelter courtyard, scribbling in a spiral notebook. He drew faces in black pen but averted his eyes from those around…
Meghan Murphy: In the hallway of his apartment building, Solomon Davis is trying on postures like new clothes. He stares into the mirror. He squints through black-framed glasses. F…
Go, now, and find a copy of Atlanta Magazine for T. Lake's latest. Well worth the hunt, friends.
Breaking: St. Pete Times wins two Pulitzers. Lane DeGregory, and PoltiFact. More to come. … And John Barry, finalist, for Winter's Tale! Check it here.
Rosette Royale: Standing on the Aurora Bridge, a man. Behind him, along Aurora Ave., vehicles race north and south. Some 130 feet below him, on N. 34th St., the occasional car. It'…
John Barry: ST. PETERSBURG — Minutes before Guiding Light — Charlotte Weintraub's soap opera addiction for 57 years — she shows a photo of herself in a vegetable garden with two me…
Stephen Hunter: The three quick shots off the fantail of the USS Bainbridge that terminated the piracy incident in the Indian Ocean early Sunday night made a number of points for v…
Dan Barry: LEAVENWORTH, Wash. A candy maker and wizard of specialty foods — your mustards and fudges, your relishes and preserves — began another early day at his store, a local in…
Jack Schafer: Gravediggers earned overtime during the second decade of the last century as they shoveled earth over such expired newspapers as the Boston Journal, the Cleveland Lea…
Brady Dennis: Rebecca Chapman teaches a daily economics lesson to her fourth-graders at a public elementary school near Houston. She assigns them jobs — pencil guard, errand runner…
John Barry: They say the sole survivor of a boat capsizing must have hoarded the life jackets. They say a Mexican baby saved from a kidnapping should be deported, along with her pa…
David Barstow: FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Before his death in 1998, the English poet Ted Hughes published a searing volume about his life with Sylvia Plath called "Birthday Letters." The…
Sean Daly: Sometime soon, maybe next year, next month, next week in the starmaking offices of Sony Music, the little girl's story will tilt toward legend, her life turned into a sl…
Here's the SP Times' newest toy. Lots of chatter about it. Is it journalism? Is it not? Mainly I just wonder if the jailers ever stick the tiny people in a cell with the big peopl…
Erin Sullivan: HUDSON The man they call Barcode Jerry — as he has a bar code of his birthday tattooed on the middle of his forehead — brought out a tray of shish kebabs to the…
If you haven't read this yet, read it now: THERE IS NOTHING ON THIS EARTH SO TERRIBLE AS A TERRIBLE BOY. A terrible boy has learned the specifics of cruelty without learning the ge…
Thomas Curwen: The doctor wasted no time getting started. He took Ana's face in his hands and angled the left side up to the light. He squeezed and pushed the folds of skin on h…
Rex W. Huppke: Over the airwaves and in print, Americans are being told repeatedly that the stumbling economy has transformed the country into a simmering pot of "populist rage."…
Kurt Cobain joined the 27 club 15 years ago yesterday. Seems like that's worth noting. My girl, my girl, dont lie to me Tell me, where did you sleep last night? In the pines,…
Cadillac Man: FOR nearly 13 years between 1994 and 2007, I wandered the streets of New York, a nomad in the town where I was born in 1949. To say that I was homeless is true and ye…
New York Times Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati's keynote address at the 2009 CASE Editors' Forum: I watch what people read. Everywhere I go. Obsessively. Furtively. Seeing what th…
Andy Netzel: Donald Rosenberg never brings a reporter's notebook to Severance Hall. A classical music writer for more than a quarter-century, he jots notes on the night's progra…
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Leonora LaPeter Anton: ST. PETERSBURG — Walk into Starbucks. Look around. The coffee grinder is grinding, the milk is frothing, and the barista is announcing a pair of half-caf lat…
Dan Barry: COBURG, Ore. — The winding steps of granite lead to a dark hardwood floor as polished as the mirrored ceiling above. Together they reflect only luxury, from the dining a…
Lane DeGregory: JACKSONVILLE — On his way to the airport, pulling his suitcase across the dark parking lot, he gives himself the speech: Everything is fine. Nothing's going to happ…
I missed this earlier, but here's a memo: David Finkel, one of The Post's most creative writers and thinkers, is returning to the newsroom after a successful book leave to take on…
Buy this new compilation, reviewed by Jamie James (thanks, Bill): … Hearn had a rare gift for bringing a place to bustling, scented, gorgeously tinted life. Anyone who has spent ti…
Michael Wilson: Subway heroes, as they are inevitably tagged even before the grease from the tracks is rubbed off, come along every now and then — indeed, as the story of Chad Lind…
I'm sure this isn't new, but let me float something here: Why not add something like a tip jar to every story that runs on a newspaper website? Something like this (upper right). W…
Dan Barry: FERNDALE, Calif. — In the verdant Eel River Valley of Northern California, where everyone is tied by blood or business, a dairy farmer named John Vevoda does his part. T…
Big ups to Jones for finalisting at the NMAs. If you haven't read his story, do it.
Sorry about the blog, but it's back, so shut up and read this: HARRIMAN, Tenn. — After watching and reading about the legend of Ken Mink again and again, and after getting inside o…
John Barry: ST. PETERSBURG The container looks like a bacon-bits shaker. It contains Ray Fennessy's Magic Bullet formula. It's the stuff he says will keep him alive until he's 120.…
Clay Shirky: Print media does much of society's heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City…
Roy Wenzl: When I went to Valley Center High School on Friday to see how the math department organized games to teach Pi, I told the organizing teacher, Kristen Joyal, that in high…
Everybody I've talked to about this Weingarten piece has pretty much the same response: impressed, inspired — but also terrified, that I'll never do something that good. There are…
Tom Lake: THE CLOCK STARTS WHEN THE SHOOTER CATCHES the ball, on the left wing, 24 feet from the basket. Two seconds left. He has run off a screen from the baseline, so his momentu…
Stop, now, and read Gene Weingarten: The defendant was an immense man, well over 300 pounds, but in the gravity of his sorrow and shame he seemed larger still. He hunched forward i…
From the Tampa Bay FOX affiliate, circa 10:17ish tonight: "Plus, how an undercooked pork chop could land you in the hospital with a strange problem that looks a whole lot like a br…
RIP James Bellows: With Mr. Bellows's support, Mr. Felker, who died last year, embraced the use of novelistic techniques to give reporting new layers of emotional depth. New Journa…
There's a short scene near the end of Donnie Darko (2001) wherein the main character, a troubled teenager (Jake Gyllenhaal), is talking to his recently-fired English teacher (Drew…
Daniel Zalewski recently wrote a profile (not available online for non-subscribers) for The New Yorker about the great novelist Ian McEwan. I found some of the thoughts on writing…
Notebook; The Pleasant Pause of Expectation January 20, 1989 Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer It was George Bush. It was the weather, 58 degrees at 3 o'clock, that had yo…
Seriously. Wow. I don't know what to say about this.
Go, now, and read Wright Thompson: I came upon a box containing two small notebooks used by the soldier tasked with guarding James Meredith, the first African-American student at O…
Dugan Arnett (thanks, Nigel): Wichita — Not long ago, it came to light that Baby Mangino — the rotund infant who recently earned a great deal of national attention for his Hallowee…
Richard Lake: Several weeks ago, a story written by a free-lancer ran on page 11 of the main section in the New York Times. It was not groundbreaking, nor particularly revelatory.…
Stephanie Hayes: The week before I started the job, I sat at the kitchen table with my grandpa. I explained what I'd be doing, the best I could. Truthfully, I wasn't totally sure.…
Kruse: The "25 Random Things About Me" phenomenon on the social networking site Facebook.com seemed to come out of nowhere, peaked in late January and then began to fade away. Peop…
Hank Stuever: HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 22 — Jai ho, you Oscar slumdogs, which we think translates loosely as: Shout hallelujah, c'mon get happy! But how happy? After all, the movie that won…
This story limps a little coming out of the gate, but stick with it and you'll get a tremendous reward. It's packed with true, deep, surprising insight on a topic that tends to ins…
David Filkins and Paul Grondahl: BECKET, Mass. Bodies hurtled through the air as windows smashed. "Guys were flying around like ping-pong balls," Albany River Rats left wing Joe Je…
Tom Treweek is looking for feedback on a story he wrote about a town's volunteerism after a January ice story : The lunch line backed out far into the gym at the activities center.…
Monica Hesse: So, the Internet walks into a bar. The bar is in New York's Chinatown. It's a recent Saturday afternoon. It looks beer-stained and sweaty with the lights on, packed w…
From the book Art & Fear via Kevin Kelly: The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he…
Lon Wagner: The six men weren't going far. Just out between the islands of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where they'd caught three stripers the day before. They'd towed their b…
Rebecca Green: The woman at the heart of the recent incest case wants people to know what happened to her. And, more than anything else, the 30-year-old wants them to know she is a…
Hemingway, from Death in the Afternoon: I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing truly what you really felt, rather than what you were sup…
Konrad Marshall: ANDERSON, Ind. — Throughout her life, she has been Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Street and Mrs. Smith. She was also Mrs. Moyer, Mrs. Massie and Mrs. McMillan. But the former M…
There's a distinctive voice to this column. A deeply sympathetic voice–especially in the final line.
Jeff Wiehe: Rhonda Berger won't talk about the phone call, other than to say, "I was on the phone with her the whole time." The call came early Friday from her daughter, who was tr…
I enjoyed this little snippet from Wikipedia's entry on narrative journalism: Also, Narrative journalism has not yet found a definite home in the newsroom due to the nature of news…
Erik Wemple: Everyone knows big changes are afoot in Style and its thematic cousins at the Post. A new co-managing editor, Raju Narisetti, was recently hired to oversee these fiefd…
Lane DeGregory: INVERNESS He found it four years ago when he was cleaning out closets. His sheet music: Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, all buried inside a dusty box. He hadn't seen th…
Mailbag: I'm looking for great sports features/narratives/stories about a father and son or a coach and player in a similar relationship. Anyone know of any?
Anne Hull: BRINKLEY, Ark. — Wayne Loewer's truck reveals a lot about his life. A 12-gauge shotgun for duck hunting rests on the floorboard. A blue thermal lunch bag containing elk…
David Maraniss: In taking the oath of office as the first African American president in the nation's nearly 233 years, one man reached a singular achievement. But at four minutes a…
I love this kid: I don't know exactly what about Barack Obama interests me, but I cannot wait to find out what he will do. The newspaper will be the main way I find out about his p…
Thought this local coverage was nice. Stephanie Hayes: The Tampa Theatre goes quiet. The Coliseum goes quiet. The schools and retirement homes and houses go quiet. The new presiden…
Roy Wenzl: Wichita — Latina Alston is not yet 30. She has three children out of wedlock with three fathers, two of whom have not helped much with the kids. She raised the children…
Todd Frankel: "He was really well-known back in the day," his wife, Shirley Richardson, said. And when the time came several years ago for him to give it up, as age and dementia ca…
Richard Lake: Looking for Barack Obama keepsakes so you can celebrate today's (historic, we hear) inauguration as any good American will, with kitsch? Go get yourself an Obama Pedi…
Reid Forgrave: Ask Jan Bauer why she's driving 17-plus hours across the country and staying in a Washington, D.C., hotel room she booked a week before the November election, just t…
Gannett newspaper division chief Bob Dickey breaks some bad news, then hits the links.
Dan Barry: JUNCTION CITY, Kan. Shortly before lunchtime on Tuesday, a strange quiet settled over Junction City Middle School. Strange because quiet does not come naturally to a col…
Hank Stuever: Yea, though we walk through the 395 tunnel . . . in a suspended sense of municipal reality, on a freeway open only to people on foot, as if something terrible and apo…
Ben Montgomery: Come news cycles. Come book deals. Come movie pitches. Come … silence?