A feral child finds a family. An old bottle washes up with a note inside. A boy’s stuffed elephant flies out the car window.
I wrote these stories for a daily newspaper in Florida. Years later, I still receive emails about them from readers across the world. And from writers wanting to know: How did you do that? This anthology is my answer. It is for people who enjoy reading true tales, for writers of all types trying to improve their own work, and for teachers and editors eager to help. These are the stories that hundreds of readers have reacted to, that countless journalism students have studied. They are also my favorites.
The Tampa Bay Times, formerly the St. Petersburg Times, has long been known for pioneering literary nonfiction and consistently producing some of the best feature stories in the country.

The newspaper is more than a century old and is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute, which trains American and international journalists.
Since 2000 I have written for the Times, led classes and webinars at Poynter, and traveled to colleges and conferences across the country and around the world to teach other journalists, editors, professors, students and writers. In recent years I have also hosted a podcast, WriteLane, where my longtime editor and I share stories and talk about ways to find, report and write nonfiction narratives.
For years, people have been asking me if I had a book with my stories and the stories behind the stories. Now I do.

Some of the pieces in this collection are short, reported and written in a single day. Others are projects I worked on for months. A few are off the news. Most are about the struggles of ordinary people, recounting loss and love, pain and perseverance, tragedy and triumph. All of the stories are set in Florida. But many could have taken place in your backyard, wherever you live. I hope they feel universal and timeless. I also wanted the book to include not just my stories, but the kinds of advice other writers often ask for. As I was planning it, I thought about questions from classes and conferences where I’ve taught: Where did you find that young couple that just arrived in Florida? How did you get the murderer to talk to you? Did you really hear those girls talking in the woods?
I decided to use the stories themselves to answer these questions. Since I wrote them all, I can offer background no one else can about how I found the couple on a bus, wrote the murderer a letter, went camping with those girls. I share these insights through the book’s structure and several special features.
The book is divided into three parts: “Short Stories,” “On Assignment,” and “Narratives.” These reflect different story forms familiar not just to journalists but to other writers. Many of the short stories were reported and written in a couple of days; others took more time but are told in tight frames. Most of the ones on assignment came from editors asking me to find a unique angle on a news event—something any writer can do in any medium. The narratives are more immersive, taking readers into new worlds, introducing them to people who are suffering, struggling, celebrating. All sorts of writers can learn ways to find similar compelling characters to use in their own work.

At the center of each chapter is one of my stories, reprinted as originally published. The stories are all framed by some bigger theme related to how I found, reported or wrote the piece, in chapters such as “Talk to Strangers,” “Listen to the Quiet,” or “Use Their Voices.” I offer general advice on this theme along with background on how the story came about in the sections “Before the Story.” For several key pieces, I also include “After the Story” segments recounting what happened later, either to the people featured or because of the story or both.
Then there are the annotations. Each story contains ten to twenty Tips & Takeaways tied to specific details, sentences or passages. In these annotations I take readers behind the scenes of my reporting, organizing and editing processes. And I share thoughts that might help people navigate their own journeys to tell stories, such as “Go along for the ride,” “Compare memories,” and “Have the last word.”
Finally, three “Spotlight” features—one in each part—gather my most essential advice on finding ideas, reporting, writing and editing. Some of these suggestions appear in more detail in the Tips & Takeaways throughout the book, but the “Spotlight” features bring it all together, along with visual aids.
The annotations and other special features offer instruction for all sorts of storytellers—for journalists who write for newspapers, magazines and book publishers; for people who make podcasts, TV shows and documentaries; for anyone interested in immersing themselves in real-life stories and deconstructing the process of creating them.

These stories can be used as teaching tools in newsrooms, high school and college classes, and workshops. And by any writer who wants to learn how to develop ideas, set scenes, organize notes, write memoirs and find their voice. For each story, there is also an episode of my WriteLane podcast posted to the Poynter website (https://www.poynter.org/news/educators-students/writelane/), offering additional insight into some aspect of the story. The book also can be read by people who just want to dive into good stories, who crave narratives that make them think, laugh, cry—and connect.
No matter which of these you are, I hope this collection will entertain and inspire you.