ISSUE

Winter 2011

Writing the Book

How does a journalist make the journey to author? A variety of paths and potential pitfalls are here for you to learn from. Authors of memoirs, novels and nonfiction narratives write frankly about the ups and downs. These days the topic of books can’t be discussed without mentioning online platforms and self-publishing so you’ll also hear from the individuals behind The Atavist and Byliner as well as an author who brought his book back from the dead via print-on-demand. If you have a publishing (horror or success) story you’d like to share, please drop us a line at nreditor@harvard.edu.

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Articles

Transit: An Assignment and an Idea—Now a Book, Exhibit and Website
Visual Journalism

Transit: An Assignment and an Idea—Now a Book, Exhibit and Website

An Essay in Words and Photographs
Espen Rasmussen
December 15, 2011
A Way to Understand the World
Nieman Notes

A Way to Understand the World

An Essay in Words and Photographs
Eli Reed
December 15, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Feeling It’s a Book, Then Pausing to Wonder If It Is

‘Does the fact that this story hasn’t been told mean that there’s not enough to tell it?’
Mitchell Zuckoff
December 15, 2011
Nieman Notes

Winter 2011: Class Notes

Annual Report Chronicles Foundation’s GrowthThe past year has been a time of transition and new beginnings for the Nieman Foundation. Bob Giles, NF ’66, retired as Nieman curator, wrapping up…
Jan Gardner
December 15, 2011
Nieman Notes

Tom Wicker, Political Columnist for The New York Times, Dies at 85

Tom Wicker, at Attica prison in 1971, spoke and wrote with force and conviction. Photo by Michael Evans/The New York Times.Tom Wicker, NF ’58, a columnist and Washington bureau chief…
December 14, 2011
Nieman Notes

Grateful for Well-Timed Words From Wicker

RELATED ARTICLE“Tom Wicker, Political Columnist for The New York Times, Dies at 85”Tom and I worked together in the Washington bureau of The New York Times for some six years—I…
Alvin Shuster
December 14, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Compelling Story, Unflappable Belief, and Digital Teamwork

How does a journalist make the journey to author? A variety of paths and potential pitfalls are here for you to learn from. Authors of memoirs, novels and nonfiction narratives…
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
December 14, 2011
Visual Journalism

A Photography Book—Absorbed in Print and On the iPad

‘In “Capitolio,” a book and an iPad app, Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson connects circumstances of Caracas’s common folk with the failure of urban modernization.’
Boris Muñoz
December 8, 2011
Books

E-Books as a Business Strategy

Owni ‘doesn’t carry advertisements and publishes all of its content under a Creative Commons license. Selling products—including e-books—is its big bet.’
Federica Cocco
December 8, 2011
Books

Making a Book—Digital and Print—From Scratch

‘By building a book in modules—rather than constructing it as a complete “bible”—I can gain flexibility, respond easily to the rapid pace of changes, and be happier than if I…
Elizabeth Castro
December 8, 2011
Books

Out of Print, a Book Reappears—And Earns Its Author Money

‘Because of the Internet and some very slick printing technology, “Little People” remains visible and available. It’s even making me money for the first time since 2002 …’
Dan Kennedy
December 8, 2011
Books

Transformation in Publishing and Optimism About Books

‘An enduring challenge for journalists is to take their experiences, background and skills as a writer and turn them into a fully developed narrative.’
Peter Osnos
December 8, 2011
Books

It’s a Long Article. It’s a Short Book. No, It’s a Byliner E-Book.

‘Our idea was to create a new way for writers to be able to tell stories at what had always been considered a financially awkward length.’
John Tayman
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Journalists and Memoir: Reporting + Memory

‘The story must move beyond a verbal regurgitation of hastily recalled anecdotes. You need to report live from your life, researching with interviews, data and documents that support your recollections.’
Michele Weldon
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

A Year of Reinvention

Ours was a year of uncertainty, especially after reverberations from September’s economic crash worked their way through the global economy. It was the fall of 2008, and my Nieman year…
Alfredo Corchado
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

On the Road to Writing Books: Blazing New Trails

‘What transforms journalists into nonfiction authors is the heft of their voice, the narrative arc of their idea, and its marketability. These aren’t lessons that tend to be reinforced on…
William Wheeler
December 8, 2011
Nieman Notes

A.C. Thompson of ProPublica Named Winner of 2011 I.F. Stone Award

A.C. Thompson, whose reporting from post-Katrina New Orleans revealed hate crimes and police brutality, is the winner of the 2011 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence.A reporter with ProPublica, Thompson…
Jonathan Seitz
December 8, 2011
Nieman Notes

Trying to Make a Difference

A series that points the way to preventing deaths when police respond to 911 calls involving the mentally ill elicits praise, but not change or even a public conversation.
Annmarie Timmins
December 8, 2011
From the Curator

Guided By a Simple Vision

Not far from the Nieman Foundation’s Greek Revival house on Francis Avenue, the future dimensions of media are being explored in the modernistic glass-walled zones of the Massachusetts Institute of…
Melissa Ludtke
December 8, 2011
Books

Learning the Inner Workings of an E-Book File

RELATED ARTICLE“Making a Book—Digital and Print—From Scratch”– Elizabeth Castro“EPUB Straight to the Point—Creating Ebooks for the Apple iPad and Other Ereaders” explains how to make an e-book that takes advantage…
Elizabeth Castro
December 8, 2011
Books

Journalist to Marketer—With a Book In-Between

‘... being a great reporter is no guarantee that you can successfully sell your book, even when you’ve done cool stories about books.’
Rochelle Lefkowitz
December 8, 2011
Books

The Writing Life: Examined in a Digital Minibook

Earlier this year novelist Ann Patchett published on Byliner what it described as “a practical memoir about the agony, ecstasy, and occasional lunacy of the writing life.” What follows is…
Ann Patchett
December 8, 2011
Books

Journalism: Done The Atavist Way

‘… I liked the idea of being part of something new and something that attempts to reinvigorate the field of long-form journalism by re-engineering the business model that pays for…
David Wolman
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Leapfrogging the Book: A Newspaper Story Jumps to Film

‘The desire to have the best—or most salable—story must never undermine our responsibility to challenge even our most compelling material.’
Paul Lieberman
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Dealing with Hollywood

Paul Lieberman, whose newspaper series is being adapted into the film “Gangster Squad,” offers tips—and cautions—for journalists when film or TV folks are interested in a story you have reported.…
Paul Lieberman
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

A Literary Exploration of How Power Corrupts

This story is ‘about how the worlds of journalism and fiction writing are not as unimaginably different as one might think.’
Thrity Umrigar
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Narrative Writing: Craft to Ethics, Theme to Characters

In ‘Storycraft’ Jack Hart ‘reveals the story behind the stories.’
Beth Macy
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Tips for Journalists Writing Memoirs

Several journalists have participated in Michele Weldon’s Writing to Save Your Life memoir writing workshops during the past decade. While she finds that journalists are at an advantage because of…
Michele Weldon
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Brief Story, Book Proposal, a Longer Feature, Then a Book

‘… it would be a while before people would say, “Hey, this is a book.” ’
Amy Ellis Nutt
December 8, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Starting as a Journalist, Ending as a Memoirist

‘I have come to realize that my obsessive precision—a great virtue in a reporter—wasn’t necessarily the greatest quality in a would-be memoirist.’
Lucette Lagnado
December 7, 2011
Books

Books Take Over Where Daily Journalism Can’t Go

‘It is difficult to do justice to the complexities of Zimbabwe’s story while still grabbing and sustaining readers’ interest when so much of what reporters hear is depressing.’
Andrew Meldrum
December 7, 2011
Features

Powerful People and a Book They Almost Stopped

When a Philippine investigative journalist revealed the inner workings of her nation’s Supreme Court, the country’s largest book publisher and leading distributor walked away.
Marites Dañguilan Vitug
December 7, 2011
Books

Visual Intensity of Words

‘Does the Kindle allow the visual even more dominance over the other senses in the act of reading?’
Len Edgerly
December 7, 2011
Books

Sooner Sounds Better

Recently I wrote a memoir with the working title "Paper Route: Finding My Way to Precision Journalism" and then I started looking for a publisher. One of my first stops…
Philip Meyer
December 7, 2011
Books

Telling Political Stories in Closer to Real-Time Books

‘The digital book project is a way of ensuring that these tips and anecdotes and character insights don’t get pushed aside, and instead are developed and given to readers in…
John F. Harris
December 7, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Will I Ever Write the Book? Why Not?

‘I teach nonfiction books. I study them, praise them, and pick them apart, and as I do so, I often wonder what’s holding me back from writing one.’
Bret Schulte
December 6, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Novels Win Out Over Journalism

‘The biggest shift in going from journalism to books is not from scribe to artist, but employee to entrepreneur—suddenly self-employed, with no benefits, no expense account, and no security.’
William Dietrich
December 6, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Newsroom to Classroom: Books as a Thread of Connection

With a forthcoming book about undercover reporting—along with a reporter-friendly database of historic examples—a j-school professor keeps her focus on familiar topics.
Brooke Kroeger
December 6, 2011
Journalist’s Trade

Writing a Life, Living a Writer’s Life

‘At one point, my mother, a woman who is anything but acid, told me: “Get a job, and get a life.” She said this out of love and concern because…
Gaiutra Bahadur
December 6, 2011