And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell each day.
Journalists are pretty good at getting the first four into their work.
As deadline approaches, many of us spend dwindling minutes thinking only in terms of plot and motive and possibly character. We grow up thinking place is unimportant. Meanwhile, the best writing weaves place into narrative and creates literature. Think of Mark Twain on the Mississippi and Cormac McCarthy in Mexico-the land in their work becomes another character. Joseph Mitchell, John McPhee, Alex Wilkinson, Jimmy Breslin, William Least Heat Moon, and Isabel Wilkerson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The New Yor Times this year for feature writing, brilliantly use place as well.