Word from Boston U's narrative conference: Long-form narrative is anything but dead

Highlights, via Bill Kirtz at poynter.org:

• Jill Abramson, ME of the New York Times, said tablets and iPads give narrative a new way to reach new readers.
• New Yorker writer Ken Auletta says nonfiction writers should use blogs and other new media, not whine about it.
• Susan Orlean said new technology means the packaging of a story might be different, but content is still the thing.

Stories, direct to you

Longform.org , which allows you to 'bookmark' long-form stories to read later via Instapaper or Read It Later, now has another deal: Send Me a Story. You give them your e-mail, they send you a nonfiction story every Saturday morning (plus one right away when you sign up).

I got "Can You Say ... Hero?/a profile of Mr. Rogers" by Tom Junod from Esquire in 1998.

Story singles?

The Atavist is, it says, a publishing house that produces "nonfiction stories for digital, mobile reading devices. We like to think of Atavist pieces as a new genre of nonfiction, a digital form that lies in the space between long narrative magazine articles and traditional books and e-books. Publishing them digitally and offering them individually—a bit like music singles in iTunes—allows us to present stories longer and in more depth than typical magazines, less expensive and more dynamic than traditional books.

Most importantly, it gives us new ways to tell some inventive, captivating, cinematic journalism—and new ways for you to experience it."

I'll be interested to see if this takes off. Right now the stories are priced at $2.99 (for Idevices), $1.99 for Kindle and Nook. I'd probably pay that for the right story -- especially with the promise of unique features that come with the story -- although I need them to come out with an Android app (for some reason, both Kindle and Nook for Android crash my tablet). 

Let me know if you try this. 

A Christmas list of good reads

Writers behind Gangrey.com just posted their "Top Longreads of 2010." Can't imagine better tips if you're in search of a compelling story or 20 to read.

Here's an easier way to read long stories online

 A tweeter's link to a long-form journalism site -- http://longform.org/ -- led me to something called "Readability," which is a way to read an online story without all the web-page stuff that comes with it. And it's amazingly easy to use.

If you go to the link above, you just drag the "Readability" button on to your bookmarks toolbar. When you come across a long story you want to read, click that "Readability" button and it will convert the page into a format that's easier to read. Basically, it strips away all the ads and web-page accessories and gives you a bigger type size while keeping the art. The story is much more suitable for printing, too.

That longform.org site, by the way, posts narrative stories that you can convert and read on an iPhone or iPad (or Kindle, or web) using its Instapaper program, which also allows you to save stories to read later. 

A deep profile

Mark Bowden on Gen. David Petraeus in Vanity Fair. Great example of a deep profile story.

Short goes long

So Twitter is the beacon (in a way) of short writing, yes?

Sure.

But even on Twitter, long stories are breathing, if just under the surface. I came across @longreads on Twitter, which says it's there to provide "links to long-form journalism and fiction ..." There's stuff on there from The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Time magazine, Vanity Fair, and on and on.

Nice.