Archive
Writing once featured on the original Gangrey blog.
Some good stuff from the folks over at the Indiana Daily Student: Katie Mettler: HE'D ALREADY BURNED HIS PRISON JUMPSUIT AND SECURED A NEW DRIVER'S LICENSE. He'd put back on his fi…
Michael J. Mooney: When Rafael Cruz walks into the VIP room at the River Plantation Country Club, there's a spontaneous round of applause. People who were sipping strawberry punc…
Jamie Thompson: On the last night of his life, Kidd Kraddick picked out a stranger on a street corner in the French Quarter. It was a broiling evening last July in New Orleans. Kra…
In case you missed it in the comments, here's a three-part series from the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Joan Garrett McClane: Her son's body was left splayed on a road where the s…
Mike Hixenbaugh: VIRGINIA BEACH The man in the grainy surveillance footage strides through the sleepy cul-de-sac with purpose, like someone in command of his own destiny. Freeze th…
I'm making a list of the best newspaper stories this year and could use some help. Don't be shy. Please and thank you.
For your booklovers, here are a few from our friends from this year. The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese, by Michael Pater…
Christopher Goffard, Joel Rubin and Kurt Streeter: The man emerged from a charcoal-gray pickup and approached the hotel check-in counter. He wanted a room and the Internet pass cod…
Jessica Contrera: In the days before they buried her, no one knew how not to come undone. Her roommate dropped out of school. Her father kept abruptly needing to leave the room. An…
Eva Holland: Alaska's Teklanika River runs fast and cold. One chilly, drizzly day in early September, I stood on its eastern bank and watched two young hikers strip down to boxer s…
Justin Heckert with a heartbreaking story on a woman who didn't want to die alone: This is something that happened during a long, dry summer, and if I don't write it down now I fea…
Jacob Jones: Enclosed in the broken glass and crushed steel of a crumpled 1969 Plymouth Fury, Margaret Nordhagen sits next to the love of her life. Both of them are dying. For more…
Pam Louwagie: Opening the door, he paused to let his eyes adjust from the bright light of the summer day outside before he could see her. The girl was huddled with a friend on a gr…
T Lake: He arrives early, wearing a white T-shirt and red cotton shorts, and during the handshake he reaches out with his free hand, as if to say, I'm open to hugging, but I'll lea…
Dan Barry: PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The last full-time employee in the tallest building in Rhode Island has grown accustomed to the 26 stories of emptiness. He doesn't even hear the abse…
Matthew Stanmyer: At 11 o'clock on a Thursday night in August, the thermostat inside George Sullivan's apartment is cranked to 90 degrees. This might as well be hell. Over the next…
Peter Cooper: On Nov. 10, 1973, Tex Ritter stood on the Ryman Auditorium stage and brought David "Stringbean" Akeman to the "Grand Ole Opry." "Stringbean, like Grandpa Jones, since…
Jeremy Markovich: Cody Adams takes a drag off his cigarette, and looks over at Andy Smith. "You scared yet?" he asks. "Definitely scared," Smith tells him. "I'm trying to convince…
And Brandon Sneed tried his best to write it, even though he wasn't sure he should. This brings up a good question that Brandon wrestled with during the reporting and writing proce…
Scott Farwell: Lauren is alone in the dark. She's naked, sitting cross-legged in her own filth, eyes focused on a sliver of light. It's all she has, that light. It glows from unde…
Dan Barry: The Protestant minister and the Roman Catholic priest had a $10 bet riding on the 1946 World Series. The minister, a Lutheran from Missouri, went with the St. Louis Card…
Andy McCullough: NEWARK, Del. — The rarity rests behind a stack of papers on a desk inside a first-floor office at the University of Delaware. Kevin Kerrane rises from his chair to…
Michael Kruse: In the dark, in the wet, whirling roar of Hurricane Sandy, on a ship tipping so badly the deck felt like a steep, slick roof, the desperate, damaged sailor searched…
Boston Globe's new owner, John W. Henry: "Now I see The Boston Globe and all that it represents as another great Boston institution that is worth fighting for. There isn't a clear…
Jessica Contrera: On the last morning, before the waffle irons went cold and the pictures came down, before the lock refused to lock, before the claw crashed through the roof, the…
If we define "narrative" in a broader sense than "well-told text story" then this absolutely qualifies http://t.co/6EgfY4Xano @gangrey — Nigel Duara (@nigelduara) October 23, 2013…
Neil Swidey has turned his Globe Magazine piece about the divers who became trapped in an enormous underwater sewage tunnel into a book. (I pre-ordered mine today.) The story (behi…
Brick: I am a third-generation fan of the professional football team in Washington. When my family sat down for pancakes last weekend, with a big game against Washington's archriva…
The second paragraph from "People In Hell Just Want A Drink Of Water," in the 1999 collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories. Dangerous and indifferent ground: against its fixed mass…
Debbie Nathan When the couple met in 2005, Emily was a methamphetamine addict, living in a suburb near Phoenix. She was in her early 20s and could barely hold a job, but when she w…
Impressive work by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and by J. David McSwane: Wearing only a sports bra and boxers, bruises on her back, the girl surged through the salon's door. Her fee…
From our friend Varma: In buildings old and new, in their dungeons and lairs occupying prime space in the heart of things, in their swivel chairs, pack rats of status quo, nibbling…
Mark Johnson: The noisy, first-day-of-school chatter subsides. A hush falls over 200 students in a lecture hall at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Already, their thoughts are dri…
Dugan Arnett: MARYVILLE, Mo. — There wasn't much left by the time she arrived, just a burnt-out structure and the haze of smoke that lingered around it. The siding and gutters had…
J. Freedom du Lac: He didn't hide his scars. That part of the healing had finally begun. Nearly half of Kevin O'Toole's body had been burned the night a vacant house turned into a…
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Meg Kissinger: The farther north Verna Schmidt rode that sweltering July day, the more she worried about her son, Paul, back in Milwaukee in his second-story apartment with its sou…
Tom Lake: In Andy Lamb's memory, a football field is the scene of a murder. The victim is black, the killer white, the weapon a helmet. The year is 1972, the place Alabama. The mot…
Lane DeGregory: ST. PETERSBURG — As soon as they pulled into the church lot, Davion changed his mind. "Miss! Hey, Miss!" he called to his caseworker, who was driving. "I don't want…
Chris Goffard: Jonathan Warren walks through the maze of corridors until he finds the little room. Anxiously, he puts on the earphones and adjusts the wraparound visor. The image b…
Tony Rehagen: The Mexicans—thirty-two of them—wait for the pickup truck. They are dressed, almost to a man, in dirty jeans, boots, long sleeves, and baseball caps. Some wear bandan…
Brendan Bernhard, via Romenesko, by way of Varma: I was going through my files recently and found Brendan Bernhard's amusing New York Press story titled, "A Casual Affair: Temporar…
Winner of a Casey Medal this year. Thanks to Alex Zayas for passing this along. Jennifer Gonnerman: Cheryl McCollins got her first hint that something was wrong when she answered h…
If you haven't seen it by now, Matt Tullis is really running with the podcast. Nine episodes so far: Jason Fagone, Luke Dittrich, Brian Mockenhaupt, Jesse Lichtenstein, Stephen Rod…
Paul Duggan: For 16 minutes, doctors in an emergency room treatment bay called Trauma 1 worked urgently to resuscitate the patient, a gunshot victim with no vital signs and a wound…
Mary Pilon: Scott DiPonio raced to make sure everything was in order — the fighters were ready, the ring girls were on time and the Bud Light was cold. DiPonio was a local promoter…
Kyle Swenson: The grin was a dead giveaway. Bob Sellers spotted the smile on his friend's face as he pulled up to the end of the tarmac. Bill Warner was still straddling his race b…
Ed's note: I got my hands on the following email from Lane DeGregory to a journalism student in response to a couple questions: "Is there anything you wish you could tell yourself…
David Finkel: The way it worked was that they joined the Army because they were starry-eyed or heartbroken or maybe just out of work, and then they were assigned to be in the infan…
Leah Sottile: When I was 13, I dreamed of kissing boys in the backseat of a car while Scorpions, a German hard rock outfit, crooned "Winds of Change" from the car stereo. It's stil…
Recall reading this when it came out. Still holds up. David W. Dunlap: Tania Head's story, as shared over the years with reporters, students, friends and hundreds of visitors to gr…
Chris Goffard: ne night her husband thought he was back in Iraq and tried to kick down the door of their home on Garden Gate Lane. He shouted something in Arabic she didn't underst…
Ellis Smith: Funeral speeches are supposed to include certain words. The deceased was a loving father. An adoring husband. At peace now. But there are other words that require a li…
Chris Jones: Our new hundred-dollar bill, like every other single piece of American folding money, is born in this rotary boiler. It's a perfect sphere, an angry kettle fifteen fee…
John Woodrow Cox: MADEIRA BEACH — She cracks open the first can of Busch at 6:22 a.m. "Ching ching," she says, holding it up to her roommate. "To a good day, a good trip." She has…
Ian Frazier: THE POLICE REPORT listed the name of the deceased as Joseph Adam Randolph and his age as 48. It did not mention the name he had given himself, Stealhead Joe. The addre…
Our friend Nigel Duara is delivering a talk in February and was looking for some advice. Specifically, how do you teach the importance of story to an audience of non journalists? A…
Thomas Gibbons-Neff: Baby shoes for sale. Never worn. The six-word story–legendarily but probably falsely attributed to Hemingway — has since inspired imitators, creating a new gen…
Konrad Marshall: Christopher Ryan Lane should not be present at this mournful event, on this mercifully mild winter morning. He grew up here but he does not belong in this place. N…
Liz Robbins: The tales of Colin Devlin's generosity sound like fables. Once, though he was nearly broke and working as a bartender, he pulled $1,000 out of his sock and gave it to…
Don Van Natta Jr.: … All of the vaudevillian hoopla made it easy to forget the enormous stakes and the far-reaching social consequences. King was playing not just for public accept…
Katy Vine: Although the city of West sits just off Interstate 35, on a stretch twenty miles north of Waco that is saturated with harried drivers, the town itself is tranquil. A cou…
Our old friend Raja Abdulrahim: Battoul makes her way around the smashed bus full of sandbags and steps into sniper territory. A man balancing a large box of produce on his left sh…
Dave Tarrant and Sarah Mervosh: He sat alone in the dark, the tip of his Marlboro glowing red with burning ash. After the fire and the explosion and the mushrooming black cloud tha…
Good question from Roy Peter Clark: I've been thinking a lot recently of the famous piece — about 1,100 words — that Jimmy Breslin wrote 50 years ago this November for the New York…
Louis Hansen: Manuel Montez walked with a Colorado sheriff's deputy into a small room. Two Norfolk detectives entered and closed the door. Montez, a weathered man in his mid-50s, s…
Take a look at this four-part series from Meg Kissinger. Part 1: San Francisco — Rob Sweeney sucked on an unlit cigarette while his mother stood at the car rental counter, trying t…
Here's Dan Barry: FORT WORTH — In a corner of the Shannon Rose Hill Cemetery, close to a chain-link fence that separates the living and the dead, a patch of ground has been worn fr…
A few days ago, Charlie Hurt at the Washington Times wrote with nostalgia about the Washington Post of old, and particularly the "simple stories about mundane life that were so bea…
Ben Wolford: PAHOKEE — The pianist at First United Methodist Church was as nervous as he'd ever been before a performance. Music comes naturally to Chad Stoffel. So he wasn't worri…
Brian Haas: In a graveyard filled with those who died with no money and sometimes no family, he died with even less. His gravestone simply read, "John (19) Doe." He was the 19th un…
Wright being Wright (again): Four days after the tweet, Johnny Manziel did what many boys do when they're in trouble. He went home. The farm roads and state highways between Colleg…
Amy Harmon: CLEWISTON, Fla. — The call Ricke Kress and every other citrus grower in Florida dreaded came while he was driving. "It's here" was all his grove manager needed to say t…
I'm a sucker for narrative and science meshed together. Jason Fagone: What's your full name? Where are you? What month is it? What day of the week is it? Walter Keller tried to…
"Imagine it's your daily coffee. Each time you put down your money the cup gets smaller and the brew gets weaker. That's essentially what's happened to American newspapers. We took…
I can't stop looking at this photo of The King reading a story about himself in the St. Pete Times on August 6, 1956.
Wright Thompson: MANHATTAN, Mont. — Something strange is happening at the house glowing in the distance. Or rather, a web of strange things, magic almost, if you'll permit what mig…
Earl Swift: NORFOLK He found poetry in tomatoes, corn bread, in old dogs and the scent of magnolia blossoms. He found romance, adventure and inspiration in the past and its stories…
Lane DeGregory: ST. PETERSBURG His alarm beeps at 3:30 a.m., drowning out the talk radio that keeps him company all night. He rolls over slowly and prays: "Please, Lord, give me th…
This is a belated congrats, but a well-deserved one. Several FOGs are on this year's list of winners for the Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism. The award recognizes the best…
Charles Anderson: The land slipped and crumbled beneath his feet. It had been several hours since Gerry Tonkin began the search and while the topography around him had shifted wild…
Spend $1.99 for this story by Luke Dittrich. If you do, and you read it, and it fails to blow you away, I will personally double your money back. Triple it, even. Go.
A humble request from Doug Miller: Can you possibly start a thread at Gangrey where you ask writers to list one or a few of their favorite stories and HOW THEY GOT THE IDEAS for th…
Just got a link from Justin H. to a cool story by Esquire's Tom Chiarella on what it's like to be a celebrity profiler: I once had dinner with Halle Berry at a clamshell table, a s…
Tim Rohan in the New York Times: BOSTON — Jeff Bauman stared straight ahead, his eyes wary and unconvinced, as his doctor told him the next procedure would be easy and painless. He…
Michael Kruse: One of the southernmost parts of the Old North State, one of the northernmost points of this country's subtropics, hard where the warmer, calmer waters of the Cape F…
Joe Kovac Jr.: The endless salad and breadsticks were on the way, but the margarita arrived first. Deborah Monroe had dreamed about it. Now here she was, about to take a sip. She l…
Justin George: Fear is as fresh as the stubborn blood stains on the street in the 900 block of Bennett Place. Three men have been killed this year on this short stretch of three-st…
Andrew Pantazi: Rayne Perrywinkle sometimes pretends nothing happened. She imagines her Cherish in the kitchen, getting something to eat. Cherish in the bathroom, washing up. Cheri…
Thanks to George Getschow for allowing us to publish these two essays on writing, from George and Michael Mooney, which will be published in Ten Spurs, an anthology of the "best of…
Thanks to KVV for pointing to this cool feature in ESPN The Magazine in which star athletes write letters to their younger selves. I wonder if we can adapt this as a learning exper…
I'm excited to welcome a new voice to the mix here. Our friend Janine Anderson has graciously volunteered to help us in our search for the perfect story. You probably know her alre…
Recently, Brandon Sneed posted a quote from writing guru Robert McKee on his website: "Convert exposition to ammunition." This is tremendous advice. Here's what I think it means: E…
Baxter Holmes: Flames licked at the vinyl paneling and the plywood boxed around a stovepipe. They crept skyward, toward scattered clouds hung late in the frigid North Shore night.…
Rick Maese: The secret was already weighing on him as the team bus pulled out of Washington and headed north. Tal Bayer, coach of one of the District's most unlikely athletic succe…
Port Magazine heralded the "New Golden Age" of print publishing by featuring six male editors on its cover. Lots of folks took issue, including Alyssa Rosenberg, who wrote: "The ch…
We don't often get to hear Gary Smith talking about the craft. Here's a rare treat: a conversation with Richard Deitsch about Gary's Sports Illustrated cover story on a football co…
From The Mayborn: DENTON (UNT), Texas — An article in TheWashington Post about a Manassas, Va., swimming pool salesman experiencing the unraveling of his decades-long success story…
Has anyone else noticed that people don't comment on this site as often as they used to? I'm wondering what's changed. Is it because more people are instead posting their comments…
Joshua Sharpe: This Father's Day marks the 13th anniversary of the death of a Woodstock teen killed in a car accident. The man accused of causing the crash was believed to be in th…
Robert Sanchez: Steve Rolln was on the line with his man DC the Brain Supreme. DC had been talking to three strippers—Cinnamon, Chocolate, and Dark-N-Lovely—who'd just gotten back…
More Eli Saslow: In NEWTOWN, Conn. — They had promised to try everything, so Mark Barden went down into the basement to begin another project in memory of Daniel. The families of S…
Wright Thompson: VERONA, Italy — Right up until he started quoting Hitler and dropping N-bombs, my new friend was a great dude. I'll call him The Hooligan. A more generous host wou…
Danielle Paquette: Early morning, on a US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Tampa, Taryn Stone cradles a bonsai tree and chats with a gray-haired man who just bought her two shots…
Ben Montgomery: In February 1961, Vic Prinzi pulled into the visitors' lot at the Florida School for Boys in Marianna and sat in the car collecting his thoughts. He was apprehensiv…
Eli Saslow on the allegations that ruined a football coach's career: THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR walked onto the field unannounced, wearing jeans and sandals, and Todd Hoffner knew in th…
Peter Jamison: CLEARWATER — Ivan "Van" Farber, 68, careens through suburban traffic beneath a Florida sky the color of ash and indigo, squinting against the wind as his convertible…
I'd be very interested to hear your immediate reaction to this Snow Fall-esque multimedia presentation from The Guardian. Take a look. Firestorm: The photograph of the Holmes famil…
Gotta respect his passion: Every Monday at 7 a.m. Andrew Davis sits down and writes a letter to Warren Buffett. His goal is to get a meeting with the billionaire and chat about the…
Tommy Tomlinson on the core elements of storytelling: Thanks for having me here today. I want this to be more of a conversation than a speech. I don't need much time for a speech,…
Ten years ago I bought a copy of the annual Best American Magazine Writing collection. It contained a story called "Hollywood's Information Man," by Amy Wallace, originally publish…
Tom Lake: Jerry Jerome Brown Jr. comes along at a strange time in history: a time when humans willingly enter cages of glass and steel that move in such great numbers at such terri…
Sabrina Rubin Erdely (pdf): She told everyone her boobs were real, which was a laugh: They were immobile and perfectly round, and looked airbrushed, even in person. She credited he…
Steve Friedman (thanks, Don D.): You know what people think. They see jeans too short and winter coat too shiny, too grimy, and think, homeless. They watch a credit card emerge fro…
Danielle Dreilinger: Ka'Nard Allen, 10, does not want to talk about what must be the longest and hardest 10th year of life in all New Orleans. He doesn't want to talk about Mother'…
Deadline is approaching on the Best American Narrative Newspaper Writing Contest. Don't forget to submit your best work. In an effort to encourage narrative nonfiction storytelling…
GBSNP Varma at a hospice in India: Rajamma weathers these episodes one dreaded night after another. Time, for him, is measured in breaths. What does he like about his wife? "Goodne…
Dan Stockman: FORT WAYNE – Four times, doctors said Sandy Koeneman was dying. Four times, they tried to tell her husband, Richard, that this was the end. Richard wasn't ready to le…
House ad from the Jackson County Floridan, 1961, for all you kids who had a route back in the day. Be proud. "You're learning the importance of responsibility. You're learning the…
Amy Wimmer Schwarb: LARGO — Two years ago, Bob and Connie Cain bought a two-bedroom, two-bath house in the suburbs. They added a porch swing and painted it a pleasing shade of gree…
John Archibald (thanks, Sara): ike Hubbard can take a flying leap off a Montgomery County bridge, and belly flop right there on the Alabama River. Ker-splash. Joe Reed can swan div…
Radiolab dedicates an entire episode to Kelley Benham's birth story. Listen.
Roy Peter Clark studies what made Eric Moskowitz' Boston Globe story work. Look and learn.
Fairly amazing story by Dan Zak on a nun and two male companions who breached security at a nuclear facility in the name of God: The devil was just over Pine Ridge. From the desert…
Konrad Marshall: My week at the wheel begins in darkness, at 3.50am on a Monday on an industrial side street in Richmond, out the front of a small taxi depot opposite a panel shop…
Matthew Teague: TUPELO, Miss. — Federal agents of all sorts invaded northeast Mississippi several days ago, on a mission: Find the man who sent a poison-laced letter to the preside…
Another ebook you should by, from our friend Michael Mooney. So much to read, so little time. Journalist Michael Mooney reveals the life story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the American…
Our pal Michael Brick delivers a Kindle Single. Buy it. When a mysterious military vet lures hundreds of bikers on a ludicrously dangerous transcontinental motorcycle ride, he draw…
Dan Barry: HOPKINTON, Mass. It all starts here, as Hopkinton likes to say. And last week, once again, thousands of marathoners formed a block of Main Street determination that stre…
Is it me, or do these jobs get more interesting the further down the list you go?
Mailbag: Attention longform newspaper writers — Big news from the Mayborn: In an effort to encourage narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across America, the Mayborn Li…
Ezra Klein: My wife has been training for a marathon. She leaves the house early in the morning and runs for hours and hours. She comes home tired and sore. And then she does it ag…
SI Rosenbaum: Lisa Verrico was passing Mile 21 when her cell phone pinged in its arm holster. Then it pinged again. And again. Without breaking stride, she took it off her arm and…
Big congrats to my colleagues here at the Tampa Bay Times. Tim Nickens and Dan Ruth won for editorial writing. Kelley Benham was a finalist for feature writing for 'Never Let Go.'…
Congratulations to our friend Brian Mockenhaupt, whose Byliner Original "The Living and the Dead" is a National Magazine Award finalist.
Leonora LaPeter Anton: CLEARWATER — Terry Power's face tightened as he listened to his wife's attorney tick off their assets on the final day of his divorce trial. He sat in a leat…
Dan Barry: LINCOLN, Del. — A steel-haired woman, 89 years old and an inch short of five feet, sat on a pillow in the driver's seat of her Buick LeSabre, just thinking. Parked outsi…
Below the Virgin was a kind of converted glove box, and in it were a Smith & Wesson .45-caliber revolver, a roll of bandage, a bottle of iodine, a vial of lavender smelling salts,…
Congratulations to Mark Johnson, winner of the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics.
By MIKE WILSON St. Petersburg Times 11/29/1995 ST. PETERSBURG — On Tuesday morning, the viewing room at Memorial Park Funeral Home bloomed with the bright colors of sorrow: pink…
Last night on Twitter, emboldened by a combination of Pamela Colloff and Woodford Reserve, Ben was moved to declare, "All you sports folks, I love what most of you do, but there ar…
Michael J. Mooney: There's a story about Chris Kyle: on a cold January morning in 2010, he pulled into a gas station somewhere along Highway 67, south of Dallas. He was driving his…
In which a titan of narrative journalism admits that he spent more than $587,000 on clothes, mostly leather from Gucci, between 2010 and 2012. Pretty sure that's even more than Wri…
Doug Miller: The sun is hot on top of a hill in San Diego and the house is white, so white that it looks perfect. A late-model 1990s sedan stops in the middle of the quiet street i…
Chris Jones: For as long as anyone can remember, Monday night has been Manly Night at the Playboy Mansion. A little after five o'clock, nine or ten of Hugh Hefner's best friends —…
Remember the classic Gary Smith story on the boating accident that killed two big-league pitchers? Here's Anthony Castrovince with the next chapter (thanks, Doug): The cloudless sk…
Evan West (thanks, Tony): I was walking the cracked and crumbling sidewalk along the street where I grew up, on the near-east side of Indianapolis, with my dog, a basset hound name…
Joe Kovac Jr.: BUTTS COUNTY — After hours of waiting, Andrew Allen Cook's execution moved quickly to conclusion late Thursday once the process began. Cook was guided into the death…
Robert Samuels: The field was barren, all dead grass and half-frozen mud until two weeks ago, when copious amounts of yellow corn mysteriously started to appear on the ground. Fair…
Mike Mooney sent me the link to this story by Michael Graff. Please read it, and then let's talk about it. I was riveted. *** You think you know them. You're watching from home. Yo…
Allyson Bird: I get asked two questions several times a week, and I brush off both with a verbal swat. One — because I'm in my late 20s, I suppose – is when are you getting married…
Laura C. Morel: WIMAUMA — He felt his mother's hands shaking him from sleep. "Get dressed," she whispered in the dark. Bobby Rodriguez, 12, slipped on the first thing he could find…
Leah Sottile: By all rights, Agwa Taka should be dead. If starvation didn't get him as a kid in Ethiopia, then disease, three wars, childhood slavery and a year in a hellhole priso…
I went to the morgue here at the Times today for the Jack Kerouac clips. I'm doing a little story on his old house in St. Pete, where he spent his last lonely years. I found a litt…
And once again, lots of friends up for CRMA awards this year. Congrats, one and all.
Warren Buffett: Indeed, skimpy news coverage will almost certainly lead to skimpy readership. And the less-than-daily publication that is now being tried in some large towns or cit…
Lane DeGregory: PLANT CITY — The queen was late. By the time she pulled into the new RaceTrac, hundreds of people already packed the parking lot for the grand opening. The high sch…
Eli Saslow: Chanse Mullinix arrived home from fourth grade on the school bus, carrying a Cherry Coke and a plastic bag of his classmates' handmade valentines. He shouted goodbye to…
Leonora LaPeter Anton: ST. PETERSBURG — Last November, Ken Conklin sat in a Pinellas County courtroom in his Sperry deck shoes and tried to ignore the men with sallow cheeks who, b…
Lori Kurtzman: Mike Francois doesn't go to bodybuilding competitions anymore, not even to watch. There's a part of him that still can't let go. In 1995, Francois was hamming it up…
Steve Friedman, (thanks, Harry Hall): They are sitting together at a round oak table in a sun-soaked living room on a mountain ridge in Ukiah, California, surrounded by fir trees a…
Dan Zak: LOS ANGELES — The gowns swish up to the gate. Checkpoint Charlize, let's call it. "Not on the list, sorry," says a pert Vanity Fair staffer, checking her papers as black t…
I'm so happy for our friend and colleague, Alex Zayas, who has won the 2013 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, which includes a cash prize of $35,000. Her series, In Go…
Passing this along from our friend: Company: The Pacific Northwest Inlander Position: News Reporter at successful weekly Location: Spokane, Washington St. Job Status: Full-time…
Nigel Duara: On opposite sides of the world, the brother and sister sat transfixed before their computers, reading a stranger's account of long-ago secrets and deeply buried sins.…
Tim Botos: Still inside his mom's womb, Austin Gerstenslager began a journey to his birth and medically certain death. A half-dozen nurses and assistants wheeled mom and unborn out…
Kevin Pang: It was the most important night of his career. Curtis Duffy hovered over plates inside the gleaming white kitchen of his new restaurant, Grace. Head down, with the poke…
Andrew Meacham: TAMPA — Tiffany Messingham wanted to get her first-grade students thinking about how the sun works. How does it change things? So in November, the bubbly teacher at…
Wright Thompson: CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Five weeks before his 50th birthday, Michael Jordan sits behind his desk, overlooking a parking garage in downtown Charlotte. The cell phone in f…
Diana Moskovitz and Brenda Medina: It was Feb. 24, girls' night out. Best friends Vilet Torrez and Clarissa Garcia went out to the Cheesecake Factory, where they ordered drinks and…
Ben: Let us take a moment to pause here in the middle of February, the Goldilocks' porridge of Florida weather, to take stock of our place in the world and engage in communal celeb…
Dugan Arnett: It was quiet the night he decided to flee. Since moving his wife and five children to Liberty to join a fringe religious group known as the Fellowship of the Martyrs,…
From the archives (thanks, Jennifer). Helen O'Neill: LITTLE PRAIRIE, Wis. —It was cold the night Grandma Braun was taken, that bitter dead-of-winter cold when the countryside is sh…
Tom Dinard, on the memories brought back by a Billy Joel song: Regret is seeping into this Chevrolet Traverse. I'm thinking about a night on the Long Beach sand when I was 17 years…
Kruse: The crowd gathered on the grass around the man with the bag. In the bag was a 13-foot Burmese python. This was last month, a hot, sunny Saturday morning, in Davie at a Unive…
Tony Rehagen: It was a bright weekday in mid-September and the Cormier boys—thirty-one years old, identical twins, best friends, incorrigible malcontents—were coming home. Their si…
Jamie Rogers (thanks, Bill): Earlier in the day of Sept. 22, 2012, Dan and Heather Fredenberg were once again feeling in love. Their second wedding anniversary was three days away,…
Charles Scudder (thanks, Justin): In his home in the dusty flatland of West Texas, the aging legend was surrounded by memories of his victories and his defeats. The artifacts inclu…
George Getschow: Penny Hawkey set out to write the Great American Novel. Instead, she ended up writing the Great American Ad. "What does a great novel have to do with a great ad?"…
Mark Johnson passed along this story, from March 6, 1988. Take a look. By TAD BARTIMUS, Associated Press Writer BUCKNER, Mo. BUCKNER, Mo. "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…
Dan Barry: VICCO, Ky. — In a former pool hall that is now the municipal building for a coal smudge of a place in eastern Kentucky called Vicco, population 335, the January meeting…
Zack McMillin: They came floating through her Chicago office, two words transmitted from a news alert on Dec. 14, two words conjoined to form the awful phrase that has become all t…
Paige Williams: Natural history goes to auction five or six times a year in America, and one Sunday last May a big sale took place in Chelsea, at the onetime home of the Dia Center…
Me and Tom and Chris talked to Matt Tullis about all sorts of things. Kruse has the highlights.
Tim Botos: "Did you commit this robbery?" the attorney asked her client. Emil Jaroszyk (pronounced Ja-ross-ik) had answered that question many times over the years. First, as a you…
Two-fer. Read up. Justin Heckert: Behind the empty bleachers he parks his green pickup truck and cuts the engine, spits Copenhagen into an empty plastic water bottle. He opens the…
Michael J. Mooney (thanks to Dixon for the link): As David Pomerantz tells the story, his grandfather was 6 years old at the beginning of World War II, when Pomerantz's great-grand…
Joe Kovac Jr.: The man who has witnessed more Atlanta Falcons games than anyone on Earth can see them no more. Oh, he can watch them a little when he scooches his leather easy chai…
Dean Starkman takes the temperature of longform at a few papers. It's not looking good. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, published 256 stories longer than 2,000 words last year…
This is how you start a story. Luke Mogelson: The village was abandoned. Streets deserted. Houses empty. Behind the central mosque rose a steep escarpment. Behind the escarpment mo…
I imagine a few of you guys have thoughts about this: It's a dream tucked in the backs of many journalists' minds: the article they write becomes a blockbuster movie and they reap…
RIP Gene Patterson, who wrote this on September 15, 1963: A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe,…
Mara Lee: In Newtown on Christmas Day, love and grief were mingled. At St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, hundreds of families filed into Mass, white-haired couples, a little…
Robert Samuels: She hadn't been in the motel room an hour when her cellphone rang. Perhaps this client would take the risk. "This is Lushous," she said in a soft, seductive voice.…
Stephen Rodrick: Lindsay Lohan moves through the Chateau Marmont as if she owns the place, but in a debtor-prison kind of way. She'll soon owe the hotel $46,000. Heads turn subtly…
Episode two of gangrey the podcast, ft Michael Mooney and his bowling story.
Justin's first story for Sports Illustrated: His mother. He wanted the number because of her. She had never seen him play, so he decided that if he scored 100 points on the night s…