You do get emotionally involved with people, even though as a journalist you’re not supposed to. But as a human being, how can you not? Particularly people who had difficult, tragic, poignant lives. But there are also people that you just wish you had known. And, of course, the painful irony is that you’re only getting to know them by virtue of the fact that it’s too late.
Max Linsky interviewed Riddle of the Labyrinth author Margalit Fox about the other career she’s had for eight years: obituary writing.

Longreads: Students, Professors: We Want Your Best #College #Longreads

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Throughout May and June, a new generation of reporters, writers, editors, and essayists make their way out of school and into the professional world. They come bearing clips, work samples produced for class or during an internship. Hundreds of media outlets at colleges and universities across…

The Longreads team has teamed up with Syracuse assistant professor Aileen Gallagher in order to “search for and share outstanding student work.” If you’ve read (or written) something fantastic this past school year, they encourage you to tag it #college #longreads on Twitter or Tumblr.

Women are usually better than men at writing about women, because women have felt the distinct stab in the soul that happens when their gender is pulverized through oppressive language. It is time to let women write about their own gender and contribute to the recording of their own literary history. In writing poorly, male writers tacitly admit that women can do a better job.
Sure, male journalists are generally not the best when it comes to writing about women, but things have gotten better in the last few years, right? Maybe not.
Anyone who has a kid spends an enormous amount of his or her reading time with children’s books. This can be painful…The thing is, I love reading to my son, and there is almost nothing that thrills me more than when he begs me for just one more chapter. That he loves books is one of my greatest satisfactions. I just don’t always love his books. That’s why, when we first started The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, I hesitated.
Susan Orlean’s Year in Reading.
“It’s something that I wrestle with enormously but, as I explained to the people of Annawadi, I will explain to you. In the work that I do, the general belief is that you don’t pay people to tell their stories. And I adhere to that. It’s not without ambivalence. But I also know that if I paid people in Annawadi for their stories it would have distorted the stories that I got. The one thing that I try to be very careful about wherever I’m working is that I don’t pull people aside and do interviews. I go with them when they work. I try not to get in people’s way to make a living, so at least [the interview] doesn’t financially deplete them. Anyway, I think it’s a better style of reporting because you get to see people in action. It’s a very troubling thing.” - Katherine Boo, as interviewed by Paul Morton for The Millions [Image via Denver Post]
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“It’s something that I wrestle with enormously but, as I explained to the people of Annawadi, I will explain to you. In the work that I do, the general belief is that you don’t pay people to tell their stories. And I adhere to that. It’s not without ambivalence. But I also know that if I paid people in Annawadi for their stories it would have distorted the stories that I got. The one thing that I try to be very careful about wherever I’m working is that I don’t pull people aside and do interviews. I go with them when they work. I try not to get in people’s way to make a living, so at least [the interview] doesn’t financially deplete them. Anyway, I think it’s a better style of reporting because you get to see people in action. It’s a very troubling thing.”

- Katherine Boo, as interviewed by Paul Morton for The Millions

[Image via Denver Post]