MAGAZINE WRITING
Ten Young Writers On The Rise
Caille Millner, 23
Free-lancer
Career Path: At 16, wrote for Pacific News Service's
youth division. Headed to Harvard in 1997, wrote for Diversity
& Distinction and Harvard magazines. Interned (summers) at
San Jose Mercury News, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Newsweek. Graduated,
moved to South Africa to write and volunteer.
Reporting Style: Purposeful. "I choose to focus
on what happens when life gets messy," Millner says. Wrote eye-opening
piece on child rape in South Africa for Essence. Has written about
young South African novelists and on graffiti as art in Cape Town
for Newsweek.
Quote: "She's one of those young people about
whom you think, 'It's not going to be long before I'm working
for you.'" — Nell Bernstein, former Pacific News youth editor
Joshua Green, 30
Editor, The Washington Monthly
Career Path: Came to the capital by way of The
Onion, Medill, U.S. News in Chicago, and a year at Playboy (writing).
Says the Onion experience "opens up more doors than my graduate
degree." Moved to Washington Monthly July 2001 after year at American
Prospect. Contributes to The New Yorker and Slate.
Reporting Style: Shrewd. Digs for stories that
get powerful people talking: David Broder wrote a column in May
contesting Green's piece on why John McCain should run for president
as a Democrat; and Paul Krugman, in a July New York Times column,
called Green's profile of Tom White a "must-read."
Quote: While Green "comes across as an amiable
and guileless frat guy," he has a talent for "gaming out how information
flows." — Paul Glastris, editor-in-chief, Washington Monthly
Jason Fagone, 24
Associate editor, Cincinnati MagazineCareer Path: Hired at Cincinnati Magazine May
2001 straight out of Penn State, thanks to "a very clever cover
letter" and college newspaper experience.
Reporting Style: Fearless. Fagone will "ask anybody
anything," says Cincinnati's editor, Kitty Morgan. "He'll go back
again and again. Sometimes I have to rip him away." Arrived in
Cincinnati when city was still recovering from April 2001 riots,
and wrote what Morgan calls "the two pivotal stories" for August
2001 issue (National Magazine Award nominee for single topic issue
about growing up young, black, and male).
Quote: "I really like doing the immersion thing,
sort of like an ethnologist." — Fagone
David Samuels, 35
Contributing editor, Harper's
Career Path: Tour of duty in Ivy League (wrote
for Harvard Lampoon as undergrad; history master's at Princeton).
1991 free-lance piece on rap music and race for New Republic was
ticket to Harper's four years later. Writes for The New Yorker.
Published in New York Times Magazine, The American Scholar.
Writing Style: Cerebral. Got into the heads of
Woodstock '99 promoters and concert-goers for 1999 Harper's story.
Explored motivations of young con artist in fall 2001 New Yorker
piece. Says his best stories come from someone "standing on the
sidelines and tugging my coat with a weird look in their eye."
Quote: "He's one of the most thorough reporters
I've ever worked with and one of the most stylish writers, and
that combination is exceedingly rare." — Ben Metcalf, Harper's
literary editor
Pamela Colloff, 30
Senior editor, Texas Monthly
Career Path: Cops to ghostwriting column for
law enforcement magazine after graduating from Brown in 1994.
Free-lanced, then joined Texas Monthly in 1997. Five articles
optioned for film.
Reporting Style: Penetrating. "She has a great
sense of place," says Paul Burka, Texas Monthly's senior executive
editor. "She finds all the layers . . . The people and places
are alive on the page." Says Colloff, a native New Yorker, "I
generally pick topics that for the audience who reads this magazine
are controversial," including the death penalty, school prayer,
race.
Quote: Colloff is a "first-rate storyteller"
with a "great ear for the way people talk." — Greg Curtis,
Texas Monthly's former editor.
Brendan Koerner, 28
Contributing writer, Mother Jones; contributing editor, Wired
Career Path: Did it all in three years at U.S.
News (began as a researcher in 1997, wrote cover story same year).
New America Foundation fellowship jumpstarted fruitful freelance
career in 2000— writes weekly for Slate and Village Voice,
byline has appeared everywhere from Legal Affairs to Popular Science.
Says his "lack of hobbies" makes possible his prolificacy.
Reporting Style: Probing. A self-described "information
junkie," Koerner says he looks "for things that haven't gotten
a lot of attention." Among his finds: a piece on the politics
of sainthood and one on the pharmaceutical industry's involvement
in the marketing of "new" mental illnesses.
Quote: "He's sort of a traditional, exhaustive
reporter" with a "distinctive Gen-X take on things." — Jim
Impoco, an assistant managing editor, Fortune (edited Koerner's
work at U.S. News)
Matt Labash, 32
Senior writer, The Weekly Standard
Career Path: Road to The Weekly Standard paved
with magazine gigs— at Albuquerque Monthly, Washingtonian,
American Spectator. Reached The Standard in 1995. Free-lances
for Salon, New York Press, Nerve.
Writing style: Colorful. "Matt uses the conventions
of gonzo journalism — outrageous descriptions, great eye
for detail and a taste for the absurd — and knits them into
pieces that have a conservative political overlay," says David
Carr, a New York Times media reporter.
A USA Today entertainment brief inspired a tongue-in-cheek piece
on Angelina Jolie's divorce. A traffic ticket sparked an investigative
series on red-light cameras.
Quote: "I'm sort of on the nibble-around-the
edges political beat." — Labash
Matthew Teague, 26
Writer-at-large, GQ
Career Path: Covered girls' softball for Vicksburg
(Mississippi) Post in high school. Left community college after
two semesters, schooled at several southern newspapers, including
New Orleans Times-Picayune. On contract at GQ since 2001.
Writing Style: Cinematic. Story on a three-time
prison escapee optioned for film. Jim Nelson, GQ's executive editor,
praises Teague's "descriptive powers," his "highly literate individual
style," and his "old-fashioned scoop the reporter quality." Wrote
about Martin Luther King Jr.'s heirs profiting from their father's
legacy a month before 60 Minutes did a similar, much-written-about
story.
Quote: Teague has a "natural gift for investing
sentences with an energy so they lift off the page." — Nelson
Benjamin Wallace, 34
Executive editor, Philadelphia Magazine
Career Path: From Budapest to Brill and beyond.
Free-lanced two years in Central Europe. Wrote for an American
Lawyer Media newsletter. Joined Philadelphia in 1996. Has written
for Details, House Beautiful, Food & Wine.
Reporting Style: Voracious. He is "a wordsmith
with dogged reporting skills," says Larry Platt, Philadelphia's
editor. Wallace says he pursues stories with "out-there characters,"
and they "do the work for you." Case in point: a piece on a 23-year-old
Ponzi schemer who dated a Playboy playmate.
Quote: Wallace has "that X-factor that all great
magazine writers have — a twisted, obsessive nature about
his stories; he tells them because he has to." — Platt
Sara Corbett, 34
Contributing writer, New York Times Magazine
Career Path: Has worked in Portland, Maine,
Santa Fe, and Chicago, but never in a cubicle (free-lancer since
1994, after earning master's degree in — and teaching —
creative writing). Correspondent for Outside, contributing writer
at SKIING and the late Sports Illustrated Women. Writing for New
York Times Magazine since 2000.
Writing Style: Compassionate. "She has this exquisite
sensitivity to individual people's stories," says Joel Lovell,
a New York Times Magazine story editor. Examples: a piece on Sudanese
"Lost Boys" relocated to Fargo; an exposé of the buying
and selling of Cambodian children for American adoption.
Quote: "She's interested in complication and
nuance… so you find yourself thinking throughout the story."
— Ilena Silverman, New York Times Magazine story editor
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