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How to record your elders’ stories before it’s too late
Hands of Mr. Henry Brooks. Library of Congress. Generations pass on funny stories and family myths without really trying. That’s not what I’m talking about. The truth is perishable. You ...
How and why I’m competing for your attention
To get people’s attention, you must give them something at least as valuable in return. Writing online makes that exchange explicit—brutally so, when a piece flops and the writer is ...
How to write about sex or boredom
Few writing tasks are as risky as describing sex. The task itself is easy and can be fun—but even celebrated writers make fools of themselves doing it, revealing their own ...
Half a career, one story, four lives saved
Brian Patrick O’Donoghue spent half his career covering one news story, about four young Alaska Native men convicted of a 1997 murder. In 2015, thanks to his work, they were ...
Is ghost-writing dishonest?
Alaska founding father Vic Fischer inscribed the book Charles helped him write. Eyes widen at parties when I tell people I am a ghostwriter, as if I’ve admitted I do ...
The skill and ethics of a great investigative journalist
Recently I used a computer shortcut Rich Mauer taught me 35 years ago. A little later, I got news he had died at 76. I want to share some of ...
How to detect exaggerations and lies
A journalist pulled out a notebook in a bar in a tiny town in Alaska and started to write down the stories the bullshitter on the next stool was feeding ...
Hopeful shoots grow amid the stumps of dead newspapers
Michael Armstrong. Photo by Janet Shook Michael Armstrong dedicated 22 years to the small-town weekly Homer News before he retired. When it blew up over a Charlie Kirk article last ...
Charles Wohlforth has written many of his own books, has ghost-written others, and helps many writers find their own way into print. Learn how to work with Charles.
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