What is proper phone call etiquette?
Someone (Heather Kelly) wrote an oped/opinion essay on the topic, using headings. Maybe you’ll want headings in yours. Or maybe not....
I love the fact that New York magazine has a recurring section called Noticing
Noticing what you notice is a great practice for a writer. Keep a notebook of your noticings, and make lists! Any one of them could turn into an interesting piece of writing. The Noticing piece by Katy Schneider (which I’d call an opinion essay) that I shared with you...
Another complaint about college students at elite colleges who can’t, or don’t, read whole books
And the author, an editor at the Atlantic magazine, sees an important cause as high school practices of giving students excerpts of books instead of whole ones. “Books can cultivate a sophisticated form of empathy,” she says, which “cannot be approximated by reading a five- or even 30-page excerpt....
Two relatively random examples of “public sphere research essays” from The New Yorker. One on people going “no contact” with their parents; the other is on the Rise of “therapy-speak.”
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What interviews have you seen?
In my source of choice, the NYTimes, many of the interviews are in a Q/A format. They are interesting, but not what we’re getting at for what I call interview essays. But there are exceptions–for example,here’s an interview essay about Parris Goebel, a dance choreographer for Rhianna and many...
GP’s first husband interviewed this week, what a coincidence!
I opened the lastest New Yorker Magazine and found this interview essay about Chris Martin of Coldplay. (I think you can get access to the magazine, and the full article via one search at our library after signing in. Try it! If it doesn’t work, I have a pdf...
Nuances of “brat”
I read this reflection on Charlie XCX’s album last summer, and was curious about Brat as a cultural phenomenon. Reading it again right now, I’m struck by the ending: “But while Charli’s album may seem to endorse a devil-may-care lifestyle and wry demeanor, it also touches on more earnest...
A nice interview of basketball star turned analyst, Rebecca Lobo
From the NYtimes, and a good model for interview writing....
Gender divides in Gen Z
I’ve seen quite a few articles about the fact that when it comes to the current US election, Gen Z women tend to lean Democratic, while more men lean toward Republicans. And here’s an interesting article saying that increasing numbers of Gen Z men are going to church these...
Opinion Essays
Opinion essays are short essays in which an author expresses a personal opinion about something in “the news” or something else that fits in the newspaper, magazine, or online forum it’s published in. (They are sometimes called “opeds,” a word that arose in the time of physical newspapers, when...