Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide From the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University

A book review of Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. This review is available in Journal of Applied Communications: http://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol91/iss1/8 Journalof Applied Communications, Vol. 91. l. 91. Ncs. 1 & 2. 2007, 81-82 ©ACE Telling True Stor ies : A Nonfiction Writers' Guide From the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University Edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call (Plume, New York, 2007. 287 pages. $15.00, paperback , ISBN 978-0-452-28755-6) Review by Barbara Rixstine It's two hours to deadline. Your fingers are tapping the keys, but the words in your head seem to have taken a holiday. This seems like the trillionth story you've had to put together on deadline this week, and there's nothing but dust where your creative flow used to be. Sound familiar? Cheer up-there's help to be had at the local bookstore. Telling True Stories is a compendium of articles about writing, reporting, news, and the newsroom. It could be a good, inexpensive resource for both the novice and the experienced writer in need of a little journalistic kick-start to rev up his or her own news story. Written by journalist s for journalists, the book helps writers and editors think about the work they're doing, why they do it, what may be missing from a story, and how a story might be written differently. It includes experiences in the editing trenches, a storyteller's lexicon, and on-the-road reporting. Editor Mark Kramer is currently the director and writer-in-residence of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University. Prior to his appointment at Harvard, he spent a decade as writer-in-residence and professor of journalism at Boston University and a decade teaching at Smith College. Editor Wendy Call is a freelance writer and editor based in Seattle . She has been a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs in southern Mexico, a scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and writer-inresidence at Seattle's Richard Hugo Hou se. Telling True Stories contributors range from Jay Allison, an indep endent broadcast journalist who has rece ived five Peabody Awards, to Tom Wolfe, the author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Right Stuff Two Pulitzer Prize winners David Halberstam and Tom French-weigh in with "The Narrative Idea" and "Sequencing: Text as Line," respectively . Journal of Applied Communications I 81 1 Rixstine: Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide From the Nieman Published by New Prairie Press, 2017 Director and screenwriter Nora Ephron writes about 11 What Narrative Writers Can Learn From Screenwriters 11 and Washington Post writer Anne Hull discusses 11 Revising Over and Over Again. " Chicago Tribune reporter and editor Louise Kiernan talks about 11 Writing Complicated Stories . 11 People sometimes ask me, Are you an investigative reporter, or a features reporter, or an explanatory reporter? 11 I never know how to answer. Why ask at all? Categorizing journali sm is in part why many investigative stories are dull, feature stor ies can be superficial, and explanatory stories explain so little. For complicated stories, we need to combine all three. This blending is both my central goal and biggest challenge as a repor ter. (p. 145) The book also offers a suggested reading list, Web sites, Intern et resources, a listing of contributors, and an extensive index. The last section offers career advice, including time management for writers, working with an agent, and book contracts. I particularly enjoyed the fact that you can open the book to any page and find something valuable from someone who really knows how to write. While linear in structure, the book's articles can be read in any order the reader chooses. Susan Orlean, one of my favorite writers and author of The Orchid Thief contributes the concluding article, A Passion for Writing. 11 We are a species that communicates, that wants to know about the rest of our species. As writers we go out and learn about the world, and then come back and tell others. Any story can be worth telling if the author is passionate about it. (p.285) About the Reviewer ACE member Barbara Rixstine is a communications specialist in the Universi ty of Nebraska-Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources Communications and Information Technology unit. Her e-mail address is brixstine2@unl.edu. 82 I Journal of App lied Communicat ions 2 Journal of Applied Communications, Vol. 91 [2007], Iss. 1, Art. 8 http://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol91/iss1/8 DOI: 10.4148/1051-0834.1258 Journal of Applied Communications I 83 3 Rixstine: Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide From the Nieman Published by New Prairie Press, 2017