It’s Sunday evening and I’m standing among words and writers on the fourth floor of The Coop. We’ve come to the Harvard Square bookstore to hear renowned writing coach Jack Hart read from his recently published book, “A Writer’s Coach.” Standing next to me is Ben Montgomery, a 28-year-old staff writer for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
Gangrey. Someone asks him: “What does it mean?” Montgomery pauses.
Of the dozen or so people who have come to the reading, most are in Boston for the same reason I am. Harvard’s Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism has drawn nearly a thousand journalists — mostly writers, but some editors, photographers and at least one comic artist — to this city from all across the globe. Earlier this evening, it ended.
Gangrey. Montgomery says: “It’s a play off gangrene.”
On June 1, 2005, Montgomery launched a blog. In those days, he was working as a reporter for The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune. On deadline, he would click to the Pulitzer Web site and scan stories by Rick Bragg and Kate Boo. Their words helped him find his own.
Some call the work Montgomery channelled — and still does — narrative journalism. He says that term is redundant. Any good journalist, he says, tells stories, ones that have beginnings and endings, not wholly unlike the tales that opened and closed our eyes as children.
But in that summer, Montgomery felt there was no place that gathered those stories as they were told in the newspaper each day. There was WriterL, a popular listserv that tracks narrative journalism; but it was too academic for him. So he made a place of his own.
Gangrey. Montgomery tells me on the phone: “It’s a daily inventory of fresh good journalism that, at its best, sparks discussion about the craft.”
Since its inception, it has lured a growing community of writers. Roughly 150 of them now visit each day. Some 20 of them regularly post responses to the things they read. Montgomery, a father or two, maintains the blog with help. Michael Kruse, 29, also a staff writer at the St. Petersburg Times, is a driving force. Two other young journalists also assist.
Each day they post links to stories, tips and ideas. On a good day, the postings draw comments. On a great one, discussion.
“It’s a place to talk shop with people from all over the country,” he says.
Gangrey. Gangrey. Gangrey. Like an infection, Montgomery says, bad writing is destroying the craft of journalism. The blog’s humble mission: “To prolong the slow death of newspapers.”
It’s 11 p.m. Still Sunday. Books and pens and notes were put to rest hours ago.
In a 25th-floor hotel room, the television is on. Montgomery, Kruse, Thomas Lake (another talented young Times staff writer) and I watch football. In the morning, we will leave this city.
Despite the television, the young journalists talk about writing. They argue about nut graphs. What are they? Do we need them? Do they ruin narrative?
I sit among them and I listen, intrigued, curious and delighted at the thought of a blog.