In our new installment of written work worth checking out, we encourage you to think about the history of the soccer ball, the awesomeness that was the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, the expanding ramifications of the oil disaster in the Gulf, the many things we receive from our parents, and one former Marine’s problem with the [...]
Tag Archives: St. Petersburg Times
What we’re reading, second edition: in which we offer soccer balls, the Book of Revelation and a visit to the Khyber Pass
June 30, 2010 – 3:38 pm
Thomas Lake on mythical storytelling and the editing process: “sometimes it’s hard to kill your darlings”
June 17, 2010 – 2:18 pm
We spoke by phone this week with Atlanta magazine senior editor Thomas Lake about his story, “The Golden Boy and the Invisible Army,” our latest Notable Narrative. Lake, who also freelances for Sports Illustrated and is a regular commenter over at Gangrey.com, has previously worked at the St. Petersburg Times and The Florida Times-Union. His [...]
Michael Kruse profiles Tampa Bay fugitive
May 19, 2010 – 3:33 pm
These days, it can be hard for a star to keep up with his Facebook feeds and the television and newspaper stories about him, not to mention where he’s been and who he’s met—especially if he’s a monkey. But in our latest notable narrative, St. Petersburg Times reporter Michael Kruse ties up the loose ends [...]
Meg Laughlin on reporting from Haiti: “this is the face of the nation now”
February 4, 2010 – 2:09 pm
St. Petersburg Times reporter Meg Laughlin recently spent eight days in Haiti and the Dominican Republic covering the aftermath of the earthquake. She managed to file a series of short narratives, mostly at the rate of one a day. Earlier this week, she talked with us about finding stories with local elements, using small moments [...]
Meg Laughlin chronicles survivors’ suffering in Haiti
February 3, 2010 – 4:22 pm
Our latest Notable Narrative concerns the recent earthquake in Haiti but takes place in a public hospital in the Dominican Republic. St. Petersburg Times reporter Meg Laughlin finds one doctor who has done 22 amputations in two days, and another who says he has done 32 in just one day.
Many reporters in the region noticed [...]
Sherman Alexie, Garry Kasparov, The Caravan and more! It’s grab bag Friday…
January 29, 2010 – 3:36 pm
Take a gander at some of the more interesting writing we’ve seen lately. These pieces are more or less narrative, and come at storytelling from different angles, but are all are worth checking out.
An Indian narrative journalism magazine called The Caravan launched this month. Or perhaps re-launched might be the better term, as publisher Delhi Press traces the [...]
Tyler Cowen rails against narrative—can stories make us stupid?
November 19, 2009 – 2:12 pm
Earlier this month at the mid-Atlantic TEDx in Baltimore, blogging economist Tyler Cowen gave a 16-minute talk about the dangers of narrative. He spoke about the oft-discussed universal stories we use to make sense of events, such as the quest, a stranger comes to town, comedy, and tragedy.
But he quickly dove into why he distrusts the very [...]
Bursting into song and leaping out the window
November 4, 2009 – 2:04 pm
We often highlight stories from reporters who are well-known in the world of narrative journalism, but a lot of unsung writers slip narratives into print and online daily. Here are some moving stories with sharp scenes or imagery from three people we bet you’ve never heard of.
“Sacia’s Promise,” from Kaitlin Manry of The (Everett) Herald:
“She remembers waking up in the middle of the night, just 2 or 3 years old. Her nightgown is wet. So is her bed. She walks into the living room, calling for her mom. She’s not there. Sacia instead finds a stranger, a man, dividing piles of little white rocks spread across the coffee table. The pearly white stones are like baby teeth and crumble when he touches them. She runs back to her bed and stays up all night, kneeling on wet sheets, waiting for a mother who never comes.”
Gangrey’s Ben Montgomery wants to grab you by the shirt collar
October 29, 2009 – 2:04 pm
[The second in an occasional series aimed at helping readers find online resources that focus on narrative journalism.]
For more than four years, Gangrey.com has rounded up the best print narratives on a daily basis. Founder Ben Montgomery, who is also a reporter with Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, talks here about his personal motivation for starting his site and what he thinks narrative journalism can do.
On what makes a good Gangrey story:
Does it have something that’s surprising? Is it entertaining? Will it keep my attention? Is there some device being used that I’ve never seen before?
And on the multimedia components for his latest print narrative:
I couldn’t have pulled that off if it had required more effort from me. We wouldn’t have achieved the same level of—I don’t want to say excellence—the same level of story for either of those things, if both [the print story and the video] had required my attention. If journalists are required to write the story and compose the multimedia elements going into it, both parts tend to suffer.
