A first-of-its-kind guide for new media times, this book provides practical, step-by-step instructions for writing first-person features, essays, and digital content. Combining journalism techniques with self-exploration and personal storytelling, First-Person Journalism is designed to help writers to develop their personal voice and establish a narrative stance. The book introduces nine elements of first-person journalism—passion, self-reporting, stance, observation, attribution, counterpoints, time travel, the mix, and impact. Two introductory chapters define first-person journalism and its value in building trust with a public now skeptical of traditional news media. The nine practice chapters that follow each focus on one first-person element, presenting a sequence of "voice lessons" with a culminating writing assignment, such as a personal trend story or an open letter. Examples are drawn from diverse nonfiction writers and journalists, including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Joan Didion, Helen Garner, Alex Tizon, and James Baldwin. Together, the book provides a fresh look at the craft of nonfiction, offering much-needed advice on writing with style, authority, and a unique point of view. Written with a knowledge of the rapidly changing digital media environment, First-Person Journalism is a key text for journalism and media students interested in personal nonfiction, as well as for early-career nonfiction writers looking to develop this narrative form.

Taking a thematic approach, this new companion provides an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and international study of American literary journalism. From the work of Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman to that of Joan Didion and Dorothy Parker, literary journalism is a genre that both reveals and shapes American history and identity. This volume not only calls attention to literary journalism as a distinctive genre but also provides a critical foundation for future scholarship. It brings together cutting-edge research from literary journalism scholars, examining historical perspectives; themes, venues, and genres across time; theoretical approaches and disciplinary intersections; and new directions for scholarly inquiry. Provoking reconsideration and inquiry, while providing new historical interpretations, this companion recognizes, interacts with, and honors the tradition and legacies of American literary journalism scholarship. Engaging the work of disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, African American studies, gender studies, visual studies, media studies, and American studies, in addition to journalism and literary studies, this book is perfect for students and scholars of those disciplines.

This book investigates the role of anonymous periodical journalism in the fashioning of women's authorial identities during the Victorian period. Alexis Easley provides a counterpoint to conventional critical accounts of the period that reduce periodical journalism to a monolithically oppressive domain of power relations - she instead emphasizes the ways in which women writers were able to exploit the gendered field of Victorian literary culture to create their own spaces of agency and meaning. Since it touches on two issues central to the study of literary history - the construction of the author and changes in media technology - this study will appeal to an audience of scholars and general readers in the fields of Victorian literature, media studies, periodicals research, gender studies, and nineteenth-century cultural history.

This New York Times bestseller intimately depicts urban life in a gripping book that slips behind cold statistics and sensationalism to reveal the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour. In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances—Jessica’s dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and Coco’s first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar—Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations—as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation—LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a riveting, haunting, and true story.

Telling Stories/Taking Risks includes many uncut stories from national, regional, and local newspapers, both mainstream and alternative, as well as from national magazines such as Esquire and Sports Illustrated; short biographies of each writer and explanations of how their stories evolved; and discussions of objectivity and subjectivity, accuracy and honesty, reporting strategies and writing processes.

"A collection of startling stories from celebrated authors and fresh new voices alike, Submersion Journalism serves as a proclamation in favor of unsanctioned reporting in an age of managed "news" and PR spin. The book is a defense of the radically first-person dispatch, filed from exactly those points of view where a reporter is not supposed to be."--BOOK JACKET.

Feature Writing for Journalists considers both newspapers and magazines and helps the new or aspiring journalist to become a successful feature writer. Using examples from a wide range of papers, specialist and trade magazines and 'alternative' publications, Sharon Wheeler considers the different types of material that come under the term 'feature' including human interest pieces, restaurant reviews and advice columns. With relevant case studies as well as interviews with practitioners, Feature Writing for Journalists is exactly what you need to understand and create exciting and informative features.