Archive
Writing once featured on the original Gangrey blog.
In which he says: I'm sheltered a little at the Times from the woes of the industry, but it's rare that I'm impressed by out of town newspapers, and I buy them — all of them — ever…
Mooney: Before I met Robert Jeffress, I wanted to hate him. Jeffress is the conservative preacher who made national headlines in October, when he called Mormonism a cult. He's the…
Amy Harmon: GREENFIELD, Mass. — The first night they slept entwined on his futon, Jack Robison, 19, who had since childhood thought of himself as "not like the other humans," regar…
Peter Hessler (thanks, Charles B.): In the southwestern corner of Colorado, where the Uncompahgre Plateau descends through spruce forest and scrubland toward the Utah border, there…
Paul Schwartzman: In 1988, a fifth-grade class at Seat Pleasant Elementary received an extraordinary gift: the offer of a college education paid for by two wealthy businessmen. Cou…
Did anyone out there in Gangrey Nation go to Syracuse journalism school? Tell us why it's Number One. (Saslow, I'm looking in your direction. Your career got off to an awfully fast…
Ed Komenda: His wife standing next to him, Clyde Cressler kissed another woman on the dance floor. Her name was Elaine Seckar, his ballroom dancing instructor at Arthur Murray Danc…
Every day, seven Floridians die of a prescription drug overdose. This is the story of Stacy Nicholson and her struggle to recover from her addiction to oxycodone. Stacy received tr…
Thanks to Raja for pointing out this Foreign Policy piece that tries to identify the stories that "told the story of the Iraq War." They're all, of course, amazing stories, written…
A year of reporting from Lane DeGregory and John Pendygraft coming Sunday in print, Friday online. Here's the trailer:
T. Edward Nickens: Walter DeSales Witt was in a good place: with his back against a hemlock, green boughs dropped with snow all around, like a half-opened umbrella. He'd wormed his…
Stuever: It's no surprise whatsoever that Chelsea Clinton didn't electrify broadcast journalism with her debut Monday night on NBC's "Rock Center With Brian Williams," because she…
From The Paris Review: In 1963, a sixteen-year-old San Diego high school student named Bruce McAllister sent a four-question mimeographed survey to 150 well-known authors of litera…
Kevin Sieff: FARMVILLE, Va. — Nearly 50 years after it opened as a sanctuary for white students in a county that resisted school desegregation to the very end, the Fuqua School wan…
Cary Aspinwall and Ziva Branstetter: EUCHA – This was the plan: Greg Williams would drive to Delaware County, call Edwina King and then she would call him back on a pay phone, so t…
Justin Heckert: "Nature never did betray the heart that loved her." — William Wordsworth Not long after he saw his brothers drown, Andrew Smith fell in love. Her name was Ruthie Gr…
Meg Kissinger: Martha Wilson trudged up the hill, sick with worry, arms pumping, head down, too distracted to notice the brilliant April sun rising over Lake Michigan. It was Richa…
Adam Bosch: WEST POINT — The leaders of this rock-bound military academy are always changing. Commandants come and go every few years. Old West Point superintendents retire, and ne…
Stephanie Hayes: Tony Little sits in the green room, focusing on his face in the mirror. He will have one hour on HSN, the Home Shopping Network, to sell hundreds of units of bison…
Michael Kruse: He wheeled out of his room early Friday, down a wooden ramp and through the garage to the driveway and onto a mechanical lift attached to the family's van. He sat in…
Six parts from the Arizona Republic. John Faherty: In the predawn darkness, Gerson Gonzalez wakes without an alarm. He always wakes this way. He lies silently in bed for a moment u…
Tom Bartlett: The son asks the father why he's not wearing a seat belt. The father says it's because long ago the father's sister drowned. She backed her car into a swimming pool a…
First of three parts. Thanks, Mark. John Branch: DEREK BOOGAARD was scared. He did not know whom he would fight, just that he must. Opportunity and obligation had collided, the way…
The NBA lockout wasn't exactly a diamond mine of writing opportunities. Nevertheless, Brian Phillips found a riveting way to put it all in context: In the past 15 years or so, the…
Speaking of, here's the amazing Washington Post Style section from Sept. 13, 2001. Go ahead and check out the bylines. (thanks, Dan) (pdfs) 09-13-01-front 09-13-01-p2 09-13-01-p…
The latest "Why's This So Good?" from Nieman Storyboard, wherein Kruse breaks down Stuever's 9-ish essay.
He was walking east. She was walking west. The ribbon of sidewalk was only so wide. They'd seen each other a few times before, at the cafe where she worked, the new place downtown…
Wright Thompson: STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A light glowed in the long front window of the last house on the left. It cast a soft yellow halo on the drapes. The mood on this chilly Sunda…
Kim Severson (thanks, WWT): OZARK, Ark. — Brenda Farmer and Willie Blanscet have sat across from each other on the Butterball bagging line for 17 years, 102 cold, raw turkeys slidi…
Dan Zak: BAGHDAD — On a bright October day in this city's Tahrir Square, Muhammed Asaad tried to make some noise. He announced his cellphone number to a group of 50 protesters at t…
Jonathan Franzen: A COUPLE of weeks ago, I replaced my three-year-old BlackBerry Pearl with a much more powerful BlackBerry Bold. Needless to say, I was impressed with how far the…
I love Hank: The point of living in (or through) a renaissance is to leave behind some really lovely frescoes. Paint your brains out and disregard the cultural upheaval around you.…
Matt Baker: The Hambrick family tree casts a dark and sprawling shadow across the dirt parks and grass fields of the North Suncoast. Pasco County's only high school football state…
Rebecca Skloot: "I honestly think that structure is one of the most important tools in writing, yet it's not something that people often pick apart and really get obsessed with."
Justin George: TAMPA One night this past spring, Kim Bailey was making ice cream in the kitchen of his restaurant when a phone call forced him to put down his tasting spoon. A tele…
Robert Samuels: The proclamation was in the mayor's hands. The marching band, all warmed up. The firetruck and police cars stood on call. And Pinky and Pepe Rodgers were in their b…
(1 of 2) Kurt Streeter: The two men walked slowly through the steel-framed door, the older one leading the younger. The door slammed shut behind them. "Don't worry," said the older…
Again, Adam Wisneski, at the Tulsa World: Jaron Holliday's last letter from Adam Wisneski on Vimeo.
From Dan Barry. (Is anybody as consistently readable?) The Boy Who Became Judy Garland DOWN some dark stairs, past cases of empty beer bottles, in the brick warren beneath the Off…
Dugan Arnett: In an ordinary town, in a quiet neighborhood, in a beige two-story house, a girl named Megan lives with her parents and eight siblings. She is 25, with a cheeky smile…
"Beside this tiny stream, wherever enough earth collected for root-hold, colonies of plants grew, wild grape and little palms, maidenhair fern, hibiscus, and tall pampas grass with…
Thanks to Kovac for digging this one up. Francis X. Clines: As he lies healing in a hospital bed, Louis McLendon is a wonder of ballistics: He has nine bulletholes in him from six…
Mark Johnson breaks down Meyer Berger's 1949 story of a mass shooting. Read it.
Is narrative hardwired in all of us? Is it only a matter of tapping into our innate creativity? Dan Kois: … Barry isn't particularly interested in the writer's craft. She's more in…
Dan Barry in Terre Haute: Her Cadillac glides slowly through the rain-glossed streets of this traumatized city, her gat within reach. The ominous evening sky has yet to turn black,…
Michael Paterniti (thanks, Varma): Later, lost far at sea, when you're trying to forget all you've left behind, the memory will bubble up unbidden: a village that once lay by the o…
Joshua Wolfson: She visits him there, beside a lilac bush, framed by Casper Mountain and the city where he died. A pair of vases bookends the headstone they will someday share. She…
Ben: Allie Mae Neal pushed through the screen door and found a shady spot on her porch where the summer sun didn't bite. Kittens purred at her feet and wasps flitted in and out of…
Brendan McCarthy: Early in Paul Gailiunas' film, "The Florestine Collection," there's a song that plays as a love letter of sorts to New Orleans. It's an upbeat, joyous ditty on th…
From Bill Marvel: Maybe I missed something, but I'm puzzled by the absence on Gangrey of pieces on the OWS protests. I started my reporting career in 1961, and the growing anti-war…
S.I. Rosenbaum: HOLYOKE — She can hear a baby crying. She searches the house, each cluttered room, the closets, under the bed. She checks the cupboards. She checks behind the showe…
Rick Bragg: Can you remember the happiest you've ever been? I am not talking about the birth of a child, or finding religion, or anything to do with a lottery ticket or go-go boots…
By David Finkel St. Petersburg Times Jan. 24, 1989 Every police officer who ever came in contact with Ted Bundy seems to have bitter memories that never quite go away. Norman Cha…
T.G.I.H.A.F.! Slither, Shimmy and Twitch to The Freak By Henry Allen The Washington Post, Style October 10, 1978 It is almost . . . repulsive – or, say, beautiful. Under the blas…
Wright: Before a man with one leg got women to take their shirts off while he poured liquor into their mouths via an ice luge; before the wild-eyed guy who provides the pigs to the…
Dan Barry: On the Bowery, on the second floor of an ancient flophouse, nine men pay less than $10 a night to sleep in cramped cubicles topped with chicken wire. Half the stalls in…
From the Great Shit You Probably Haven't Read files (h/t Weingarten), here's … Michael Browning: Prisoner 97961 got a hernia a few weeks ago. He had to go to the hospital. The jail…
Not sure how I missed this, but damn. Stephanie Hayes: TAMPA — Eden Banks woke up to a dark, silent hospital room. She rolled over, grabbed her brown wig from the table and pulled…
Andy Meacham: ST. PETERSBURG — On their way to Tropicana Field, thousands of Tampa Bay Rays fans have walked past a gaunt man with a graying ponytail playing a violin. His music —…
Dan Zak: AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq — The dust storm swallowed the horizon and then the soldiers, who leaned into the windy blur to load rucksacks onto vehicles pointed homeward. At 3:…
We totally missed National Poetry Day yesterday. Make up for it by checking out the 10 Poems Everyone Needs to Read from Flavorwire. (h/t @craigtimes) I'll add one, which I stumble…
The Town Style Forgot It's our very own Washington, where women wear "neutral" and men dress like Secret Service agents. By Henry Allen September 14, 1986 The Washington Post Th…
Hank Stuever: Remember a few years ago, when your Apple store on any given Saturday afternoon ceased being the clean, technological zendo you once admired — the place you bought yo…
Hemingway once said that Ivan Turgenev's "The Rattling Of Wheels" was the best short story of all time. I recently read it, and it reached a fine climax despite a slow start, but t…
James Rainey: Want to get under a newspaper person's skin? Tell them you don't need their work because you get most of your news from the Internet. Inky survivors can't stand to he…
Bill Stevens: HOLIDAY — Steve Wrubel fixed a light breakfast Tuesday morning and sat down at the dining room table to pay some bills. He blinked hard to make his eyes water. "I saw…
David Granger's note in this month's Esquire welcomes Charlie Pierce back to the magazine and drops this interesting nugget: "In a memo to me a few months ago, Charlie exhorted me…
From our dear friend Janine Anderson: I had no idea this story existed until the 2009 Mike Levine Workshop, when Ben and a few others from the Times Herald-Record brought it up aft…
Patrick Radden Keefe: One morning earlier this month, just before sunrise, a silent convoy of SUVs streamed into the tiny, troubled city of Newburgh, New York. Over 200 law-enforce…
Dan Barry: SPRINGFIELD, Mass. In the hours after the 2008 election of the country's first African-American president, three white men crept up to a predominantly African-American c…
Dan Zak: FORWARD OPERATING BASE PROSPERITY, Iraq — "It's 81 degrees in beautiful downtown Baghdad. Six oh five on your clock on Fun Fact Friday. I'm Prickel." "And I'm Townsend. Th…
Anne Hull, circa 1999: In the early 1960s, Walter Elias Disney took a plane ride over Florida. When he passed the vast area of scrub land south of Orlando, he pointed and said, "Th…
Michael Mooney: Rais Bhuiyan is blind in one eye. His left eye is strong, intense, with perfect vision. It will follow you through a conversation, registering even a subtle change…
Check this special project from the Casper Star Tribune. Here's a sample from Joshua Wolfson: His brother would find him in dreams. The door would open and he'd be standing there.…
Kruse: He woke up on Labor Day in Room 228 of a thin-carpet Comfort Inn in Rhode Island. The hot water didn't work. He went out to the parking lot and got on a white bus that took…
Thoughts on this? Ben, This may be more of a question for someone at Poynter or, say, a Gangrey discussion if worthy, but I'm curious about the extra time – unpaid in many respects…
(Thanks, Mark.) Amy Harmon: MONTCLAIR, N.J. — For weeks, Justin Canha, a high school student with autism, a love of cartoons and a gift for drawing, had rehearsed for the job inter…
Drew Harwell: CLEARWATER — Winter the dolphin glided slowly through the water, staring at the woman easing down into the pool. It was Sunday morning, just after sunrise. The Clearw…
Ben Montgomery: The impostor pulled the million-dollar tour bus into USA International Speedway at dusk. He wore a NASCAR hat and new white sneakers. He was calm and collected when…
William Browning: Early Thursday morning, a man threw a toilet tank lid out of a Casper hotel's window. Then a bedspread. Police arrived. He wouldn't let them in. Through a locked…
Richard Lake: It is a loss that cannot be measured, the closing of a bookstore. Where will serendipity happen? What author will not be discovered? Which child will opt for a video…
Taylor Branch: "I'm not hiding," Sonny Vaccaro told a closed hearing at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 2001. "We want to put our materials on the bodies of your athletes…
Kruse, from Grantland: There is next to no reason the University of Oregon should have a good football team. Eugene is a small city and is not near a major media market, there's ve…
Andrew Corsello: My wife is radiant. It comes naturally to her. Yes, she's very beautiful, and that beauty is the first thing people notice and discuss about her. But hers isn't th…
Tim Loh: BRIDGEPORT — Slumped on a cot at Bassick High School Sunday evening, Maurice Ballestas offered living proof that emergency shelters have open-door policies. His round-trip…
Eli Saslow (thanks, Mark): German Morales dressed for work in tattered painter's jeans and a stained white T-shirt, even though he didn't know when or whether he would paint again.…
I'm a little late on this, but here's a compilation of Tom Huang's tweets from Jack Hart's session at the Society for Features Journalism conference in Tucson last week. Good stuff…
William Yardley (thanks, Nigel): SEATTLE — The sun is not yet up but the baristas are, a blur of busy hands wiping down counters and smoothing black aprons. Chipper and precise, th…
Tony Rehagen: Five miles east of Monument Circle, on the far edge of Irvington, the railroad runs past factories and warehouses and a tiny asphalt racetrack. There is no infield, j…
Seth Wickersham: JANUARY 2008, 17 MONTHS TO GO. Michael Vick arrives at Leavenworth in time for lunch. He's led by guards to a small cafeteria and left alone, inmate No. 33765-183.…
Don't miss this episode from Radiolab. Pat gives TLake's 2 on 5 story the special treatment (about 57 minutes in).
Tim Botos: JACKSON TWP. — A dripping-wet fist-bump from Frank Gunsett to all you hackers, duffers, shankers and slicers. It's because of you that he and his wife hatched a 15-year…
Remember the discussion about Eli Sanders' powerful story, The Bravest Woman In Seattle? In an essay, the woman addresses some of the questions we had. (Thanks, Ted.) Here's a clip…
Paige dives into Tom Junod's classic story, The Falling Man: Overall, the descriptions suggest that you studied this photo almost obsessively. (I know I did; I think we all did.) H…
Dan Barry: KENHORST, Pa. This American summer, the heat is the least of it. A pummeled economy. A credit-rating embarrassment. More tarmac ceremonies for dead war heroes. Tornadoes…
On Paige Williams's nifty new blog, she exchanges notes with Kruse on his missing-woman story: "……dying to know what that receipt was for—lumber? paint? Did you choose to omit that…
Gary Smith: INCOMING CALL FROM…. The robot paused, as if it were considering the multitudes who might be dialing in to incarnate it. Lyndon, it finally declared. A small camera fli…
Check out John-Henry Doucette's Q and A with Connie Sage, who has written a biography of Frank Batten, publisher of The Virginian-Pilot, chairman of Landmark Communications and fou…
Thanks, Mark. Meg Kissinger: I knew that Jim Hankin was dead before the medical examiner came out of the house to ask me to identify the body. Jim hadn't answered his phone for a w…
Stuever unearths the above ground pool from way back. So good.
Dan Barry: BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Down Clown Alley, in the backstage tent for Circus Smirkus, a slight boy of 14 studies his clown self in a jagged piece of mirror. This is Sam Ferlo,…
Great news for Joan Garrett and Roy Wenzl, dear Friends of Gangrey. Here's to amazing work by good people.
Two for you from the Twittertron: A series by Rich Radford: Two dozen sailors and a handful of officers have come to McClure Field on a Tuesday to play softball. Some have their sh…
Lane: ST. PETERSBURG Rose Woodworth stood in the center of a weedy parking lot off Fifth Street, surveying what was left of her life: A wooden coffee table. A plastic dish drainer.…
In the event your boss tells you to keep it short because nobody reads long stuff online, refer him to this: One last note before the tale of the tape: These monthly memos quite fr…
Big thanks to Tommy for passing along this interview with Mary Bishop, who won a Pulitzer with a Philadelphia Inquirer team for stories about Three Mile Island. Reading this feels…
This strikes me as a good example of how to use records to tell a story. John Barry and Alexandra Zayas: TAMPA — The Schenecker home in Tampa Palms North appeared, in ways, a portr…
Richard Lake: Behold the carcass, once proud. Borders, the national bookstore chain founded in 1971 by two brothers in Ann Arbor, Mich., died a horrible death the other day. It die…
Jason Fagone: Jason Rohrer is known as much for his eccentric lifestyle as for the brilliant, unusual games he designs. He lives mostly off the grid in the desert town of Las Cruce…
Charles P. Pierce: In 2009, in the city of Spokane, Washington, the Public Facilities District bought a bench. It was metal. It was aluminum, its powder coat a bronze that ran towa…
Remember when Kruse was on here talking about his upcoming story on the reclusive woman in Cape Canaveral? Well, it's out. And it may be the best he's ever done.
We're trying something here as an exercise in reporting and writing. Last night, eight reporters and a photographer, each assigned to a particular inning of the Rays v. Yankees bas…
Over on storyboard, Jones has an essay on why W.C. Heinz's Death of a Racehorse is so good. I got to thinking about why I like that story. I think it's his strange and inconsistent…
Alexandra Zayas: A bright orange thumbnail appears over Zephyrhills, sailing toward Earth, until it takes the shape of a parachute. From the sky, Randy Swallows sees the world as s…
Tim Botos: Red hair dangling below the edges of his ball cap, Coen Wilson's 10-year-old legs chugged deep into center field. His eyes fixed on a baseball that seemed to carry forev…
Connie Schultz (thanks, Mark): Every once in a while, 86-year-old Sue Williams looks in the mirror and is startled by the stranger staring back at her. "Who is that?" she'll ask. C…
I love this column by Wright Thompson: You never know where you're gonna find the greatest bourbon on the planet. Like last month, I was on a cooking team at a barbecue contest, an…
Dan Barry: BOSTON — Heads turned as the lanky man made his way to the courtroom pews reserved for those who suffer because of the criminal Whitey Bulger. The face of an altar boy m…
Your TGIHAF selection. At 83, the Grand Guru of Conservative Economics Bites Off All He Can Chew By Henry Allen Washington Post By Henry Allen Washington Post "Snuff," says Fried…
I saw this mentioned in an interview I was reading. Here's your Friday time capsule. Enjoy. By Harry Crews Playboy April 1, 1984 IN 1958, I was on the Going to the Sun highway in…
There are quite a few Friends of Gangrey heading to the Mayborn conference in a few weeks. I'm sorry I'll be missing out. It's a great list of speakers and George Getschow puts on…
Pat Fenton: Their beat was up in the bars of Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx, it was Beach 116th Street in Rockaway, and places like 9th Avenue down in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, th…
Read it: He said he didn't really know what day he was born. His parents were both dead before he turned 5, he said, and he'd never celebrated a birthday in his life. But Jerry Jos…
Guess who's coming to take our jobs. These guys. Special congratulations to Friend of Gangrey Caitlin Johnston. P.S. Two of the three winners are Hoosiers. P.P.S. Tom French is hol…
According to Chris Jones, Chris Jones has never read a story by Gary Smith. He doesn't want to be influenced by an unattainable standard. Also, in the comments section at the end,…
If you've been around the past few years, you've probably been witness to plenty of talk about the Editor Wall (see this and this) and how to best deal obstinate bosses or newsroom…
From our friend Dave: Narrative journalism is essentially rejected at my paper. This has not always been the case, but lately no matter how often I try, all my narrative stories a…
Please allow me to introduce you to the work of William Browning, from the Mississippi Delta, covering cops in Casper, Wyoming. Three stories. Lonely Road: It was midday on a bleak…
William Browning: LONETREE — In open country, a humble home sits with a couple of trucks and a car parked in the dirt driveway. The local phone book says he lives here. Home, a po…
You've got to read Christopher Goffard: He kept thinking that there had been a mistake, that he'd be out in no time. That the system, set into motion by some misunderstanding or ac…
Steve Hendrix (h/t Dan): David Sharpe finally hit bottom on the bedroom floor of his apartment in Yorktown, Va. That's where he sat, legs folded, ready to finish the fight with the…
Michael Brick: NEW ORLEANS — The season is lost. The numbers don't lie: Defeats to teams from Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, Arizona, two places in Pennsylvania and three in Florida,…
Warning: This is disturbing. Sickening even. But let's talk about this. What do you think of it? Is it too much? How would you have written this story? Eli Sanders: The prosecutor…
Read Lee Hancock: I felt jittery and ridiculous lifting my hands toward the hulking silhouette. I told myself to squeeze. I stared at the paper target 20 feet away. I jerked my ind…
Tim Botos: Kasey (Barton) Proehl has matured from a giggly little girl into a 24-year-old woman. A statuesque 6 feet tall, with gray-blue eyes like her dad's, she holds a master's…
Hank Stuever: Olbermann. You might have missed him, but rest assured, nobody missed him on television as much as he missed himself being on television. The steely stare, the Franke…
Joe Kovac: Before the tics spurred him to gnaw holes in his polo shirts, and long before the spasms conspired to make his fingers jab his eye sockets until they bruised black, and…
Charlie Pierce: Early on a Friday evening, on the verge of a summer late to arrive, night falls in long shadows on the Leather District and a stream of people. The human tide from…
Michael Kruse: Early on the morning of Oct. 2, 1957, an Army propeller plane took off from Governor's Island in New York City, headed to Burlington, Vt. On board were three officer…
The Harley-Burly; Opening a Charity Run at the Lincoln Memorial By Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer June 15, 1988 STYLE Down by the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, along wit…
These should be paired. This Year's Valentine, by Philip Appleman: They could pump frenzy into air ducts and rage into reservoirs, dynamite dams and drown the cities, cry fire…
Tommy Tomlinson: Six months ago today, Kristopher Watkins proposed to Nina Leavitt at the Charlotte airport. He had come home on leave from his Army unit in Italy. Their families k…
Winston Groom: On August 25, 1927, pilot Paul Redfern took off in a single-engine monoplane from Sea Island, Georgia, bound for Rio de Janeiro, hoping to capitalize on Charles Lind…
A respectable chunk of The Guardian's list of 100 greatest nonfiction books can be bought at the Shoppes at Gangrey. All proceeds go to the Mike Levine Workshop.
Kim Janssen: I knew the gun couldn't be real because the shooting always happens before I get there. Even when the crazed teenager standing five yards from me on the corner fired t…
Lane: They woke to the sun streaming through the bus windows. He glanced out the glass and grinned. She buried her face in his sweatshirt. "Too bright." He remembers every detail.…
David Von Drehle: Warm air rises. The earth is an elegant machine, and this is one of its simple and tireless engines, recycling the oceans into life-giving rains, wafting rainbow-…
Frankel: JOPLIN, MO. — They had to find Skyular. They wanted the baby boy home. The 16-month-old disappeared from his mother's arms and into the massive tornado that two days earli…
Toilets, Plumbed Henry Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer April 08, 1996 STYLE Toilets will never be great art, not even the expensive ones that look like art moderne telephones…
Michael Overall: JOPLIN, Mo. – A front-loader goes down the street first, pushing aside tree trunks and rooftops and overturned cars, clearing a path for the firetruck. "Over there…
Kruse: WESLEY CHAPEL — All around the world, all day on Saturday, people mocked perplexed believers who watched and waited for the end that never came. There were supposed to be ro…
Sean Daly: SARASOTA It's hard to be funny when you look like you're drowning. Tim Hedley knows this cruel rule of comedy well. Standing under bright stage lights, Tim grasps note c…
Tony Rehagen: THE GEAR IS GATHERED ON THE LANAI—A HALF-DOZEN 7-foot spinning rods, lined and hooked, along with a pair of dusty tackle boxes stocked with lures and weights. Down at…
Alexandra Zayas, Philip Morgan and Justin George: TAMPA Walter "J.J." Revear walked out of the Hillsborough County jail that day into hugs from relatives and questions from reporte…
Kruse: SARASOTA — Last spring a respected detective for this city's police department went to the local courthouse and did something stupid. At the time, Tom Laughlin, a twice-marr…
Tim Loh: Steering down Stillman Street on a late Friday evening, Ihsley Paixao recalls the time he got jumped on the job.
Wright Thompson: RIO DE JANEIRO — A white cross rising above the Macacos slum marks the spot where people are burned alive. A starving horse, his ribs poking out, is hitched close…
Joe Posnanski: The first day I ever spent in Kansas City was the day I interviewed for the job as sports columnist at The Kansas City Star. The paper's sports editor at the time, a…
There are a few things I love this week. The Lightning-Bruins matchup. The zucchini bread I made last night. And Chris Goffard's new website, with a collection of stuff from his St…
Eli Saslow: He turns on the TV for news about Osama bin Laden at 7 a.m. and keeps it playing until long after midnight, because this is a relationship that has always bordered on o…
Stephanie McCrummen (thanks, Mark): RAINSVILLE, Ala. — On the first day, just moments after the tornado roared through here, Corey Plunkett and his wife looked out across the green…
You won't want to miss this interview with John McPhee. Thanks, Craig.
Alex Zayas: TAMPA You're a kid. You want to sleep at a friend's house, but first his parents have to get checked out by the state. You play football at the YMCA, and they want to t…
Winged Victory!; Of Friers and Fliers; The Epic Passions at the Chicken-Flying Championship By Henry Allen May 20, 1981, Wednesday Style; B1 Way, way off across the valley, acro…
So many questions about this. 1.) It's wrong to drive a city bus while reading the newspaper? 2.) What paper was the bus driver reading? Because it should totally be used in the p…
Brian Mockenhaupt: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan— By 7 a.m., the first patients of the day were slid off the medevac helicopters and wheeled into the trauma bay at the Kandahar Airfield ho…
Todd Frankel: LAWRENCE, Kan. — The wind whistled innocently through the opening in the sliding glass door. Rushing in from a buttermilk sky, it gave no hint of radioactive traces f…
On William Harrington (thanks, Hank, for the link): I've been thinking lately about a writer I can pretty much guarantee none of you have ever heard of — William Harrington. He wro…
Saslow from Sunday: ELKHORN, WIS. — The event had been advertised as a listening session about the federal budget, but nobody could hear much of anything now. Some people booed, ot…
Zadie Smith's ten rules for writers include the following: 6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won't make your writing any better than it is. Smith is a noveli…
This personal essay from Eric Puchner might make you cry: My father, who risked all our do re mi in pursuit of his own California dream, is a case in point. He'd been doing very we…
This is the best thing you'll read this week. By Henry Allen April 17, 1979 Style, Washington Post ADAMS, Ind. One sullen afternoon in April, a plump little girl walking a dog sp…
Brick: AUSTIN, Texas — Football paid for this house. It is a fine house, nothing ostentatious, set back from the highway in the suburbs northeast of Austin. The front door opens on…
Charlie Pierce, again: The afternoon is fading, and he is standing in the lobby of a salesman's hotel in Cleveland Circle in Brookline. He looks like any other kid in a gray sweat…
Okay, contest. Who can make a better blog header than the one at the top of the page? Needs to be 940 x 198 pixels. Needs to incorporate all the things I feel about this blog. Winn…
Eli Saslow: PULASKI, Va. — The destitute people who line up outside her office are asking for more help than ever. The organization where she works has less than ever to give. It f…
Charlie Pierce spoke at the memorial serive for Clif Garboden, his friend and editor from Charlie's alt press days who died last winter. He was nice enough to share with us what he…
Charlie Pierce: All the way to every horizon, the whole day shines. The sand of the distant beach and the foam of the waves breaking on it. The white birds circling above, and, lik…
At last. A pitcher from Alabama you've probably never heard of, his blue cap struggling to contain his curly brown hair, his five long years in the minors leading him to this throw…
Big round of applause, everybody, for our friend Mark Johnson, who claimed a Pulitzer today.
Gary Smith: For the 1,036th time, the 70-year-old man and his spastic quadriplegic son await the starting gun's crack. It's a Good Life! say the big letters on the two larger wheel…
Welcome to the redesigned Gangrey. This should add a bit of stability. It's unfinished; so if you have thoughts, please speak now.
Read Ben now: PONCE DE LEON — As the sky went black, Ben McDaniel walked down a narrow dock and slipped into the clear water of Vortex Spring. It was hot on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 201…
Incredible get in what I'm sure is a crazy, competitive environment. Doyle Murphy: CITY OF NEWBURGH — In the dark of Tuesday evening, 10-year-old La'Shaun Armstrong waved his hands…
Because maybe there's somebody out there who hasn't read it. Michael Paterniti: It was summer; it was winter. The village disappeared behind skeins of fog. Fishermen came and we…
Dan Barry: To reach a lost American place, here just a moment ago, follow a thin country road as it unspools across an Appalachian valley's grimy floor, past a coal operation or tw…
Klink: ASTOR Welcome to Blue Springs Creek, in the Ocala National Forest, where Lee Allen Young lives on a raft he calls the Huckleberry Finn with a faithful mutt he has named…
T. Lake: There was a young millionaire in Denver whose white limousine came under gunfire on a snow-lined boulevard in the dark of a winter morning. When the shooting began he had…
Damn. The Mayborn conference looks good this year. I might go just to increase the frequency in which I say Mandalit del Barco. Mooney (also appearing) suggested a road trip. Who's…
On the minus side, Gangrey Nation didn't exactly take the National Magazine Awards by storm this year. On the plus side, Michael Paterniti's fantastic story "The Suicide Catcher…
Help a brother out. This comes from a friend who teaches journalism to college kids: hi, for a teaching panel i'm on in may (literary journalism conf. in belgium), i am asked to…
Andrew Higgins, Brigid Schulte and Joel Achenbach (thanks, Mark): Hiroshi Kameyama, the mayor of Ishinomaki, put on a formal business suit that morning, March 11, and drove 35 mile…
The return of Justin Heckert (free registration required): The journey wore on them. The road wore on them, as it curved into the mountainside. For five days, the Beards of Comedy…
Alex Zayas: TAMPA — Alone, she stood in a hospital bathroom, peering into a small mirror at a woman she had never seen — herself, the new Audrey Mabrey. She'd been beaten, douse…
Skip Hollandsworth: In December 1970 two teenagers disappeared from the Heights neighborhood, in Houston. Then another and another and another. As the number of missing kids grew,…
Another harrowing tale from our friend Anonymous. Read it here. (Password is gangrey.)
I'm up in the Panhandle chasing a good one and creeping myself out. I'm staying in this bunkhouse on a private campground where a man went missing seven months ago. Tonight I drove…
Wright: DHAKA, Bangladesh — The guy walking across the parking lot is famous. That's easy to tell from the reactions. Crowds part for him. Security guards mirror his every step. Ot…
Take a look at this one, by Joe Kovac Jr.: The big-city gal had just spent her Friday night in the Twiggs County jail. Saturday morning found her out on bail, on the phone with the…
Yes. Mooney: Ron Washington is not happy to see me. I wasn't supposed to come here. Not to New Orleans, the place where he was born, the place he has called home his entire life. N…
Dan Barry: FORT MYERS, Fla. — Our planning went no further than to meet at the ballpark. Simple in theory but madness in practice, given the thousands of others with similar plans.…
Michael Kruse: One wet, raw day last April, at the Broadmoor public golf course in Portland, Ore., Dan McLaughlin stood in the center of one of the greens. He wore running shoes, b…
To Wright Thompson, for winning this year's Ernie Pyle Award. Black Maple Hill bourbon's on you tonight, pal.
Stephanie Hayes: Several cases at a St. Petersburg CVS were stocked Wednesday with ridiculous celebrity perfumes. Malibu by Pamela Anderson. Queen by Queen Latifah. Fancy by Jessic…
Roy Wenzl: COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS — Scientists along Buttermilk Creek north of Austin, Texas have found flint knife blades, chisels and other human artifacts lying in a soil layer…
From Sam Shepard's new book, via WWT: Horses are calling each other across big acres. Acres of fresh-cut hay where the tractor's stripes lay dark and flat against the blue-grass mo…
This is making the rounds. I'll dogpile. And I'll vouch for Matthew Doig. Did a panel (video, bottom) with him at last year's Florida Press Association Awards, where he talked abou…
In honor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factor Fire, here's Wil Haygood from 2002 (thanks, Mara): HAMLET, N.C. — It seems as if the dead are still dying here. Everyone had mentioned "t…
Joan Garrett: It's 11:59 p.m. and Mark Davis settles into a seat in the basement room of a church on Lee Highway, pulls a microphone to his mouth, straps on earphones and signals t…
Mark Johnson: Some nights, after Kurtisha Jackson and her science team had struggled to wrap their brains around transcription factors and chromatin, after she had taken the city b…
Jeff Klinkenberg: Heather Green drives with a camera on her lap. If something wild scampers across the highway or flies out of the trees, she won't be fumble-fingered with surprise…
Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for your concern about the blog in the past few days. Sorry for the recent trouble. Next week, the fella who hosts it for me is going to migrate the wh…
William Browning: Saturday night, moments before halftime, and Scottie Mason wraps what have to be longest fingers in the building around the handles of a dust broom. The buzzer s…
I caught a quick Q and A over at Poynter with Bob Woodward. Quick, like 20 minutes. The audience was made up of a great group of journalists from Denmark and students at Indiana Un…
Jorge Valencia: The Irishmen have ironed their kilts and dusted their 12-foot cross. The Vikings have polished their iron helmets and their 12-foot ship. Not that anyone's going to…
I'm so glad Jones is on our side. We win every time. Here's his THE YOUNG REPORTER'S GUIDE TO LOCKER ROOM DECORUM, ETIQUETTE, AND NOT COCK PEEKING. Read it. Even if you never step…
Stuever: Anne Hathaway hosted the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on ABC Sunday night, as scheduled. And her co-host, James Franco, did what exactly? (Besides be handsome? Besides a lit…
Storyboard's latest notable narrative, by Jeanne Marie Laskas: She had no idea, back then, that he was sick. She had no idea he was losing his mind. Something neurological, the doc…
So much good stuff in here. Ben in sunny St. Pete: On the street, the word was fear.
Alex Zayas: TAMPA The four should've watched The Office together that Thursday night, teenage girls giggling on webcams, alone at their computers but connected by things only they…
Justin Heckert, circa 2005: It was a small wedding. Bill and Doug arrived together for the ceremony, as for the past 50 years they had arrived together for everything. Each wore a…
Seeing some FoGs as the APSE rolls out its awards this year. Congrats to Reid and Kevin for explanatory reporting and Dirk for feature writing. Am I missing anybody? More to come,…
I drove back from Oklahoma this weekend in the '98 Cadillac STS my wife's father gave us. It was a long, (mostly) beautiful drive, made better by a steady cycle of Old Crow's Big I…
Tom Junod, circa 1996 (thanks, Corey): First it was Lubriderm, what my father rubbed briskly between his palms and extended in glistening offering. "How about a bit of the Lube?" h…
Jones: Ken Jennings — the legendary contestant who won seventy-four consecutive games of Jeopardy! in 2004 — is sitting on a bench in Seattle, watching his kids play at the park. H…
Some leakage from this year's not-yet-announced ASNE awards. And some FOG names, too. I'm hearing firsts for Michael Kruse and William Wan. Finalist for Joan Garrett. Big congrats,…
Two of the five finalists for the City and Regional Magazine Awards Writers of the Year? TLake and Tony Rehagen. Tom is also up for best feature. Congrats, fellas. That's great new…
Sorting through some old stuff and found this. Somebody should revive this series. Brady Dennis: He missed Cheyenne's first steps. Missed her first Thanksgiving. First Christmas. F…
Our friend Matt Tullis, now teaching at Ashland U, is looking for help with an upcoming panel. Here's Matt: First off, the conference: This is the annual conference for AWP (Associ…
Tom Friend (thanks, Nigel): AIKEN, S.C. — Every day begins with William Perry needing help out of bed. Usually, it's 10 a.m. before he even gives it a try, and to support his 400 p…
Lane: OLDSMAR Lorraine Yaslowitz wanted to go back to work last week. But her principal, the guidance counselor and the other teachers at Forest Lakes Elementary kept telling her:…
Does A.J. Daulerio represent the future of sportswriting? According this story, Buzz Bissinger seems to think so. If he's correct, I'm in serious trouble. Jones, maybe you could te…
Roy Wenzl: Jeff Miller of El Dorado crawled exhausted into his airplane seat and had himself a two-finger serving of Scotch in a glass. It was 2004, and he'd been coming to Ghana a…
I know I'm about seven years late to this party, but damn if this isn't cool. Two songs on the same subject from near opposite perspectives. And, man, the ending on "Uncle Frank" i…
Tom Friend: EDMOND, Okla. — Something keeps calling Zane Fleming to the back bedroom, 10 years later. It's not a voice he hears; it's a throb in his temples, an outright ache to wa…
Alex Zayas: TAMPA — Four years ago, John Wade Agan told deputies he was robbed at gunpoint in his taxicab, roughed up and stuffed into the trunk of the car. Three years ago, he dro…
The blog has been ill the past few days thanks to either a terrible boll weevil infestation or an STD from Wickersham's last comment. My man is working to get her up and running in…
Stephanie Hayes: There are stage lights and a clap board and a Chihuahua named Dane, as in Great Dane, who is very, very calm, considering what's about to happen. Dane is fitted wi…
Reynolds Price, whose novels and stories about ordinary people in rural North Carolina struggling to find their place in the world established him as one of the most important voic…
Dirk Chatelain: AUBURN, Neb. — On a Thursday in November, at a nursing home just before dawn, a 97-year-old man took his last breath. Elly Ingersoll hunted pheasants and chased gol…
From the great rurritable: At one point in my college career my then girlfriend and I decided to rent a place a little off the beaten path, where she might indulge her fondness for…
From Mental Floss, via Hank: Ben Franklin turned 305 today! To celebrate, here's a list of expressions meaning "inebriated" that Franklin first published in the Pennsylvania Gazett…
Tom Junod: Today, here at Esquire — and only at Esquire, because only Esquire has the guts to tell you this story — we're going to tell you about a man you need to know a little be…
"One of the deadliest forms of self defense consists of … a rolled up newspaper." — Ronald Duncan Holy heavens. The next time somebody trots out one of the old jokes about bird-cag…
NYT staff, written by Dan Barry: TUCSON — Moments after the swirl of panic, blood, death and shock, the suspect was face down on the pavement and squirming under the hold of two ci…
Peter Maass (thanks, Ramsey): On April 9, 2003, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan McCoy, commander of the 3rd Battalion 4th Marines, awoke at a military base captured from the Iraqis a few…
Pauline Arrillaga (thanks, Nigel): TUCSON, Ariz. — She arrived right on time – smiling, as Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords so often did, as she made her way through the small crowd that…
This is the best thing out of there yet, right? David Von Drehle (h/t Tommy T): So much of this story is ugly and twisted that it's best to begin with something beautiful and good.…
"You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. The memory traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in…