27 days ago by Vlad Jecan

At the Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference at Harvard University in 2002, Bob Giles moderated a discussion between eight writers on the best approach to creative non-fiction. Giles opened the discussion by asking a relatively simple and direct question: “What does it take to do fine narrative wri ...

Vlad Jecan - vladjecan.com

36 days ago by Valerie Gregg

By Valerie Gregg Lilburn, GA—Mrs. A. was the first to rent in a room in a squat blue ranch house on Killian Hill Road. The landlord was still rolling out carpet, the underside black with mold, when other weekly renters trundled in with boxes and plastic grocery bags, remnants of lives on the edge. “ ...

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

38 days ago by Valerie Gregg

Out in the Cold, By Valerie Gregg Lawrenceville, GA—I arrived at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center early yesterday. By 8, a line of 15 to 20 people snaked through the parking lot. We stood around, chatting in the cold until the doors opened around 8:20. I was third in line. First was a man who had to ...

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

41 days ago by Valerie Gregg

Black holes are not empty. They are fu BlackHoles-PittMag1996-ValGregg

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

68 days ago by Valerie Gregg

BlackHoles-PittMag1996-ValGregg Let the Mystery Be Some say once gone, you’re gone forever, and some say you’re gonna come back. Some say you’ll rest in the arms of the Savior, if in sinful ways you lack. Some say you’ll grow in a garden, bunch a carrots and little sweet peas. I think I’ll just, Let ...

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

68 days ago by Valerie Gregg

Sometimes the truth is hard to find . The pendulum swings back and forth. Scientists examine genes, blood, and behavior. Papers are published. Academics stake claims in the popular press. Experts weigh in with opinion and anecdote. Voices clamor for answers. News anchors shout, and shock jockeys ran ...

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

69 days ago by Valerie Gregg

Kingdom It’s a good day to start fresh. A dome of blue sky arches up and over Pitt Stadium, shutting out the sound and fury of another Oakland rush hour. Track star Roger Kingdom, a student and athlete at Pitt in the early ’80’s, emerges from the dark portal leading to the football locker rooms. He ...

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

71 days ago by Valerie Gregg

Can’t get to Linda Galloway’s house by car. Yet the trail there is littered with road trash and oddball junk. Empty antifreeze jugs, a dead-eye TV, Kenmore washer on its side. A confetti of paper and plastic lines the way around the bend, through a thicket of weeds. Tucked away, the tarpaper shack s ...

Ricochet - valgregg.wordpress.com

73 days ago by Constance Hale

An intriguing collection of unlike things ends up on the New York Times list of 100 notable books each year. A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review about the blurring of fiction and nonfiction claims that nonfiction is losing its “frisson.” I hardly agree—see my essay in Talking Story—bu ...

Sin and Syntax - sinandsyntax.com · 1 reference

73 days ago by Constance Hale

A recent piece in the Columbia Journalism Review set me on edge. In “The Rise of True Fiction,” my colleague Alissa Quart writes about a trend she perceives in the literary landscape: “an increase in the blurring of neat and certain categories of ‘fiction’ and ‘nonfiction’ into something that we mig ...

Sin and Syntax - sinandsyntax.com · 1 reference