Journalism departments produce good reporters, MFA programs train beautiful writers. At the Literary Reportage concentration, we combine the best of both. Literary Reportage students pursue their own long form projects, mentored by veteran writers in reporting classes, literature seminars and writing workshops and master classes taught by working editors.
Reporting is at the center of everything Literary Reportage students do. They then take that reporting and channel it into well-researched, compelling narratives. This is why, after a great deal of deliberation, we named the concentration Literary Reportage. Our goal is to publish in professional venues while at NYU and, of course, beyond.
Literary Reportage became a full-fledged concentration in 2009, growing out of the Portfolio honors track, in which students learn how to build a coherent body of work over the course of two semesters. It worked well, and we suspected it would work even better if students applied with projects already in mind.
How does Literary Reportage differ from other the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s other concentrations? Our applicants must apply with a project and, like the Global program, remain here for an additional (fourth) semester, so there is time to complete their master’s projects.
How do you apply? Send us a description of your project. Like an aspiring novelist who submits short stories to an MFA program in the hopes of writing a novel, you submit a sample of your existing work (articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, essays), and a detailed description of what you want to do at NYU. We don’t care which journalistic form you choose. Some Literary Reportage students want to write books, others want to write articles. Some want to combine podcasts, video, books and articles. We will teach you how to work in all of these forms. We’ll teach you how to use the technology (come visit and see our high tech facilities), whether in semester-long classes or intensive, week-long workshops. (All Literary Reportage students take a month-long, non-credit introductory multimedia course covering video, audio, slideshow and web skills.) But the most important thing we teach is how think in terms of “stories.” Rigorously reported, well-researched, imaginative, artfully written stories.
What makes a good Literary Reportage project? Ideas. You’ve got to have them in order to avoid what we call the “check list” approach (“Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know about Cats”). A subject is not an idea. An event is not an idea. An idea is an argument, a question, an interpretation, an hypothesis. Ideas are the things that make subjects and events worth reading about. How does one come up with good ideas? Join Literary Reportage and we’ll teach you.
What else? The project must have a strong NYC are dimension, although it need not be restricted to the area. The fact is that you will do most of your reporting while in residence at NYU, so you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a project that works here. In addition, access is important. You can’t be a reporter if your subjects won’t talk to you. We’ll help you as much as we can, but there are some worlds, like Hollywood, that simply can’t be covered by NYC-based, student reporters.
How does Literary Reportage work? The courses are divided between journalism seminars and writing workshops. The first semester leans toward the former, while the remaining semesters leans toward the latter. For an overview of the curriculum click here.
News:
The Banff Centre for the Arts and the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute are pleased to announce a fully funded fellowship for students in, and alumni of, the Literary Reportage concentration. The fellowship offers an opportunity to develop a major essay, memoir, or feature piece during a month-long residency. Writers will work on their manuscript during weekly consultations with faculty editors, and round-table discussions with the other participants. By placing writers in a situation designed to challenge and stimulate their creativity, the program encourages the exploration of new ideas in journalism and experimentation with writing a piece that might otherwise be difficult to complete. The fellowship covers round trip airfare to Banff, and food and lodging during the month at the Banff Centre for the Arts. More information is available here.
Lit Rep 2011 student Robert Moor wins Middlebury College Fellowship in Environmental Journalism. The program supports intensive, year-long reporting about environmental issues. Moor’s project: Trails — topographical and cognitive — in contemporary society, human culture and the mind. Read more about it here.
New Yorker editor Susan Morrison to teach Literary Reportage's Fall 2011 Master Class
This fall's master class will be taught by New Yorker editor Susan Morrison, who edits the "Talk of the Town" and has been the articles editor of the magazine for fourteen years. She is the former editor in chief of the New York Observer, and an original editor of SPY magazine.
Every semester, Literary Reportage invites a veteran journalist to teach a master class emphasizing a particular skill, idea or genre. Past master classes have been taught by Lillian Ross, Bill Finnegan, Sam Tanenhaus, Frank Rose, Elizabeth Royte, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and others.
Robert S. Boynton
Robert S. Boynton is the director of NYU's Literary Reportage concentration. He was graduated with honors in philosophy and religion from Haverford College, and received an MA in political science from Yale University.
Ted Conover
Ted Conover is the author of five books, most recently The Routes of Man, about roads, and Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, an account of his ten months spent working as a corrections officer at New York's Sing Sing Prison.
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill is a veteran New York journalist and novelist. He's the author of numerous books, including Downtown: My Manhattan, Diego Rivera and A Drinking Life.
Perri Klass
Perri Klass, M.D. has been writing as a medical journalist dating back to her years as a student at Harvard Medical School in the 1980s, when she published a series of essays, reflections on medical training, in the Hers column...
Brooke Kroeger
Brooke Kroeger directs Global and Joint Program Studies and is the faculty liaison for The Local East Village, the collaborative community news and information site of NYU Journalism and the New York Times.
James McBride
James McBride is a writer and composer. His memoir, The Color of Water (Riverhead/Putnam), is an American literary classic. It rested on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years, and is read in colleges across America.
Suketu Mehta
Suketu Mehta is a journalist and fiction writer. His nonfiction book "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found" won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award, and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, the Lettre Ulysses Prize, the...
Michael Norman
Michael Norman, is the co-author of TEARS IN THE DARKNESS: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath (2009), a work of narrative non-fiction that was on the New York Times bestseller list for eight weeks and was...
Sarah Saffian
Sarah Saffian is an author, a journalist, and a teacher. Ithaka (hardcover: Basic Books, paperback: Dell), her memoir of being an adoptee who was found by her birth family, was widely and favorably reviewed—by The New York Times Book Review,...
David Samuels
David Samuels, contributing editor at Harper's Magazine and regular contributor to The New Yorker, was named one of 50 "Writers to Watch" by Editor and Publisher in 2000 and named one of the "Top 10 feature writers 35 and under...
Lawrence Weschler
Lawrence Weschler, a graduate of Cowell College of the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been, since the early '80s, a staff writer for The New Yorker, where his work has shuttled between political tragedies and cultural comedies.
