Eva Sommer

“Girl Reporter”: Tracking intergenerational trauma through the story of Eva Sommer, the  inaugural winner of Australia’s first national journalism prize

In 1956, Eva Sommer, 22, won the first-ever Walkley Award, Australia’s equivalent of the Pulitzers, for her article about a stowaway with amnesia and no identification papers. Sommer discovered he was 26-year-old Jacob Bresler, a Jewish immigrant and Australian citizen, accomplishing in days what the authorities had failed to do in months. But when she…

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CFP: Proposed Volume on Literary Journalism/Creative Nonfiction in East-Central Europe

Abstracts are invited for a proposed collection on Literary Journalism/Creative Non-Fiction in East-Central Europe. The volume takes as its central concern the current shapes and forms of what is variously called literary journalism, creative non-fiction, creative documentary narrative, or reportage (among other terms) in the region. We have already received preliminary interest from an academic…

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Star-Studded Panels Featured at IALJS at AEJMC Washington, DC

In early August, IALJS sessions at the annual AEJMC sparkled with insight on two panels featuring a mix of accomplished world-class scholars. Washington, DC was the site of last year’s conference, which hosted two full sessions dedicated to the theme of “The Art of Fact in Science and Nature Writing.” The sessions marked the last…

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New Book: “Seeking to Understand the World: Literary Journalism of Vincent Sheean” by Anish Dave

Vincent Sheean was a paradigmatic American foreign correspondent in 1930s and 1940s. He won the inaugural National Book Award for biography for his 1935 book Personal History. The book became a model for many other contemporary foreign correspondents who wrote their own personal accounts of their journalistic experiences. When Sheean died in 1975, the New York Times published…

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Second Call: Join Us in Creating an Interactive Map of Global Literary Journalism

Authors’ Note: We have received some great responses, and we’re beginning the process of compiling our bibliography. In the meantime, we’d like to renew our call for your help in moving this project forward. Thanks! Manuel Carvalho Coutinho and I (Fitz) are currently embarking on an ambitious project and we need your help! We are…

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Excerpt: Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York by Jordana Cox

The following is an excerpt from the introduction of Jordana Cox’s book Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York (University of Massachusetts, 2023). Authors who would like to promote their books of or about literary journalism in the newsletter can email us at literaryjournalismsubmissions [at] gmail.com. Not many people can say…

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Porsuk_River,_Eskişehir_

The priceless happiness that comes with $250

It was the night of a cold winter day—February 6, 2023. I was at home in Eskişehir, Turkey. The night had turned to frost. Suddenly, at 4:21 a.m., the phone rang pathetically. It was very late; I was scared. I felt as if I was about to hear some bad news. The person on the…

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Sydney Opera house

Looking ahead to “the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars” at IALJS 18 in Sydney, Australia

Willa McDonald, Matthew Ricketson and I could not be more thrilled to be together organizing IALJS-18 in 2024. It is more than 14 long years that we have battled to get on the IALJS annual conference roster. We understand that for many, we live and work on the other side of the world, and with…

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Excerpt: How the News Feels by Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

The following is a short excerpt from the introduction of Fitz’s new book, How the News Feels: The Empathic Power of Literary Journalists (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023). Authors who would like to promote their books of or about literary journalism in the newsletter can email us at literaryjournalismsubmissions [at] gmail.com. Literary Journalists’ Empathic Power…

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World map

Join Us in Creating an Interactive Map of Global Literary Journalism

Manuel Carvalho Coutinho and I (Fitz) are currently embarking on an ambitious project and we need your help! We are putting together a list of works of literary journalism from around the world with the objective of creating a database and, later on, an interactive world map that would be freely accessed to anyone interested…

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Ryszard Kapuściński

Details, emotions, and the multidimensional world of Polish literary journalism

Before deep diving into the universe of Polish literary journalism, stop for a moment and ask yourself a question: What first comes to mind when you think about Polish literary journalism? How does it look? How does it sound? Or maybe, how does it feel?  Today I would like to invite you to the magical and…

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From the Archives: Dispatches from Centerville, USA

A journalist seeks out the heart(s) of America. We were supposed to be better than this. That thought kept running through my head after the 2016 election. I simply couldn’t believe that the country I was born and raised in, the country that took in my Venezuelan immigrant mother, was really as angry, as caustic,…

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