Related Links
WriterL
A subscription-only listserve focusing on literary journalism. Co-founded by Jon Franklin, author of Writing for Story, and Lynn Franklin, who also moderates the discussion.
River Teeth
A biannual journal of nonfiction narrative.
Points of Entry
Subtitled "Cross-currents in Storytelling," this journal advocates narrative in journalism and journalism education.
Nieman on Narrative
Special issue of Nieman Reports.
Narrative Conference
Read about the 2001 Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference in Boston. See reviews of numerous speakers, including Rick Bragg, Tom French, and Isabel Wilkerson.
|
|
Children
Measure by Measure
Mary Miller of The News & Observer follows a high school band from the sweaty, sunburnt days of band camp to the biggest performance of their young lives that winter. In addition to the band director, Miller focuses the six-part series on a few band members, letting us follow their challenges for first chair and their butterflies before the big concert. The stories ran in "real-time" throughout the fall of 2001, one every couple of weeks.
Lost in the Music
David Stable of The Oregonian tells the tale of Sam Johnson, a teenage cello star who at 16 is struggling against rules at home and school. An African-American who is one of nine children adopted by a fundamentalist Christian family in rural Oregon, Sam can talk "about becoming the Tiger Woods of classical music without straining credulity." But the occasional private lesson with Itzhak Perlman doesn't shield him from more pedestrian teenage troubles that may derail his music career and threaten his relationship with his parents.
An Unbreakable Spirit
This five-part series in the Asheville Citizen-Times features a crippled 9-year-old from Honduras and a humble landscaper from North Carolina who had never traveled outside the country. In her first stab at a major narrative project, Susan Reinhardt tells the tale of this unlikely couple -- the landscaper promises to help and the boy keeps dreaming of walking. Published in 2001.
Comments from the writer
|
Staging a Comeback
Other writers have chronicled high school plays -- the auditions, the preparations, the big opening night. But Deb Kollars's four-part series in the Sacramento Bee has an added twist: Luther Burbank High School hadn't put on a play or musical for more than 10 years. Others rented out the spacious auditorium and once kids from another neighborhood filled in with water from the fire hoses. Then the new principal, a former football coach, decided arts would be part of the answer to Burbank's academic woes.
Choosing Naia: A Family's Journey
This project, by Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoff and photographer Suzanne Kreiter, began in August 1998, shortly after Greg Fairchild and Tierney Temple-Fairchild learned through prenatal testing that their unborn child had Down syndrome and a severe heart defect. The story follows the couple through their decision to have the baby, the birth and Naia's first months. Zuckoff won a ASNE distinguished writing award for his work. He later turned the series into a book.
|
Tales Under 2,000 Words
Sure six-part packages that took eight months to report are great, but here's a collection of shorter pieces that show the power of story.
Other Categories
Death & Dying
Children
Disasters
Sports
Military
Archives
November 2002
September 2002
Classics
The best stories last beyond the next morning's edition.
3 Little Words
Roy Peter Clark's "breakfast serial" chronicles a family struggling with AIDS. Published in the St. Petersburg Times in 1996, it was broken up into 29 chapters, each less than 1,000 words.
Black Hawk Down
Mark Bowden's detailed account of the Somalia fiasco. How many other newspaper series do you know that were made into Hollywood blockbusters?
More Classics...
|
|