Narrative Journalism Conference Celebrates the Flowering of a Literary Genre

By Jessica L. Dumpert

"Justify the ways of God to Man," author Ron Rosenbaum quotes from John Milton. "This, in a sense," the speaker continued, "is what story-tellers do. This is what, at their grandest, perhaps most drunkenly aspirational narrative journalists try to do...stories are often about man trying to control the uncontrollable."

Rosenbaum, who participated with other contemporary writers, reporters, editors and literary agents in a two-day conference on the tradition of narrative journalism, said he believes that the literary genre - inspired by the writings of Tom Wolfe and the "New Journalists" - is still rocking the boat of conventional ideas. Academics, students and 'fellow travelers' of the genre filled the Auditorium at Boston University's School of Management on February 27th and the Morse Auditorium on February 28th, and were treated to readings and panel discussions by some of the country's leading practitioners of literary journalism.

During a panel on "Reading" (February 27th), Roy Peter Clark said the requirements of a narrative journalist are to "make your aspirations explicit, and second, to read. Read the kind of material that you want to write." Clark, who is a writer and a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute and the director of the National Writer's Workshop, read part of a story he said was inspired by a Robert Frost poem.

Mark Kramer, the conference director of "All Aboard the Narrative Train," told the audience in his opening remarks that narrative journalism "couples cold fact and personal event, delivering its tales with non-institutional candor. It is of civic as well as artistic value for the truths, linkages and ironies it reveals."

Kramer described the tradition of narrative journalism as an essential element for understanding the complications of the modern world. Referring to Tom Wolfe, Kramer said that narrative journalism is "an innovative journalism - narrated scene-by-scene by knowing, compelling authors who, after immersion in fieldwork, explore meaning by describing character and events, using personal, status-life details."

Rosenbaum read from his 1993 article, "The Devil in Long Island," which is an incredibly funny but nightmarish depiction of Long Island. Drawing on personal memories of the small hamlet where he was raised, Rosenbaum questions, "What's possessed this once-somnolent suburban realm and turned it into a tabloid pandemonium of spouse-slayers, serial-killers and demented dungeon builders?"

Published in The New York Times Magazine, the story was inspired by the tabloid coverage of the kidnapping and dungeon imprisonment of Katie Beers. Rosenbaum incorporated facts about crime in Long Island into a frightening look at America's sordid underbelly. It is an example of what Rosenbaum and others call "factual stories about fictile people."

Other than references to Milton, Rosenbaum quoted from several other classic literary works, including "The Great Gatsby" and "The Tempest" as examples of good narrative accounts, explaining that "it's not a bad idea to be explicit about the ideas in your writing."

Many of the panelists said they began their careers writing for newspapers or magazines, and eventually adopted the style of narrative journalism as a more effective means of capturing the full picture of life. The problem with this, is that in an era of minuscule "sound bites" and "news holes," the media of expression for writers of this orientation are disappearing.

"Most of the writing in newspapers is dead," said writer and editor Brent Staples, during one of Saturday's panels. "You can't see the light, you can't smell anything and you don't know where you are."

Bruce DeSilva, Director of the Associated Press Enterprise, told the audience that "newspapers were more interesting when they were filled with failed novelists and not communications majors. No aspects of this writing are new." DeSilva compared this modern phenomenon to the age-old tradition of storytelling that seems to have been abandoned.

Staples also warned aspiring writers that a literary voice is found in the "subject matter and its relationship to you." He joked that "reading Tom Wolfe is incredibly dangerous. Cure yourself of trying to imitate Wolfe."

One of the more fundamental concerns of the conference was the degree to which literary journalists should honor, as Kramer puts it, the "objectivity contract of the conventional journalist." Kramer said he thinks the "intent of narrative journalism is to convey the truth, not to express opinion...It's a time sculpture. You're creating a sequential, intellectual and emotional experience for readers."