Was she the mother of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s — the movement that showcased the deep reporting of people like Truman Capote and Gay Talese? Many people thought so. Lillian Ross, who died Sept. 20, 2017, at the age of 99, was doing that kind of reporting and writing for the New […]
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Philip Yancey on reading and building a ‘fortress of habits’
Read. Think. Meditate/Pray. Listen. Who among us does enough of these vital activities? Who has the time? Who has the power to turn away from our Facebook feeds, tweets and texts, television ads, sidebars and come-ons — even our Distractor-in-Chief — to do the things we know would nourish us emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually? Religious […]
Another passing: the NYT copy desk
The copy desk saved me — more than once. In old-times newspaper terms, the copy desk in a newspaper’s newsroom was a horseshoe shaped table around which sat a number of editors who read what reporters wrote. On the other side of the table in the “slot” was the chief copy editor who handed out […]
Clear thinking, clear writing – and words relevant for today
For a long time we have gone along with some well-tested principles of conduct: that it was better to tell the truth than falsehoods; that a half-truth was no truth at all; that duties were older than and as fundamental as rights; that, as Justice Holmes put it, the mode by which the inevitable came […]
E.B. White on a writer’s responsibility
One of the great writers — a true craftsman — of the the 20th century, E.B. White, had this to say on the responsibility that writers have: “A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel […]
Literary journalism, explained
If it is to be literary journalism, the writer must be a journalist, not a fiction writer. That is, the writer cannot make anything up. The facts, descriptions and quotations must be true. They must be things that happened. Sometimes, for the sake of the story, writes create “composite” scenes or characters. If they do […]
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In which I answer the question, “What’s next?”, part 2: the suffrage ladies and me
The suffrage ladies may not be done with me. Those were the women who, between 1910 and 1920, affected the most profound change in the make-up of the electorate in the history of the Republic. In 2013, Seeing Suffrage was published by the University of Tennessee Press. The book was about the 1913 Washington suffrage […]
Self-published author: Why I’m Mad About the Self-Publishing Stigma
The good sense — even the morality — of self-publishing is blindingly obvious to some of us. So, doesn’t everyone see it that way. We need to be reminded that, no, everyone doesn’t see it that way. Most the world, including a few intelligent souls, see it otherwise. Self-published author Liz Long has a good […]
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