Learn how to craft compelling feature articles from a professional writer and a New York Times editor.

Feature articles are the human side of journalism—pieces that go beyond the facts, exploring the world in a personal and compelling way. Such articles can examine virtually any topic, from the latest news to the newest trends to profiles of interesting people.

Feature articles abound in magazines and newspapers and they can even grow into books, such as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Perfect Storm.

Article writing combines the reporter’s hunt for a story with a storyteller’s flair. In our course, you will learn such journalistic techniques as angles, “ledes,” research, and interviewing, as well as such craft elements as description, structure, character, and voice. You will also learn how and where to market your work.

Whether you seek to write stories drawn from serious news or the lighter side of life, we’ll show you how to write articles that grab a reader’s attention.

During the first ten weeks of this eleven-week course, a professional writer will teach you the fundamentals of feature article writing. You will have a weekly writing assignment and two opportunities to present a longer work for instructor and classmate feedback. The eleventh week will be devoted to an online Q&A with a New York Times editor.

Using a balance of lecture, exercise, and feedback on work from the instructor and classmates, this  workshop gives students a firm grounding in all the basics of feature article writing. Everything is presented in a clear, accessible manner.

• Begin writing two feature articles
• Lectures on types of features and basics of craft
• Writing exercises
• Present work for critique (two times)

Only this Premium article writing workshop includes a week-long Q&A with an editor from The New York Times.

Article Writing I is for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.

Class size is strictly limited to 16 writers.

View a course syllabus

Instructors
Patty Lamberti (April 13) has served as an editor with Playboy, Latina, and Lifetime online. She has written nonfiction for Maxim, New York Metro, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, and Satisfaction. She has taught at the University of Illinois

Jonathan Mandell (May 11) has written articles for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and websites, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, New York, ArtNews, Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, Disney.com, and TheFasterTimes.com. He has served as editor-in-chief of GothamGazette.com, NYC editor of Culturemob, producer for CBSNews.com and CNN.com, and as a staff writer for Newsday and the New York Daily News. He has taught at the Columbia School of Journalism.

Guest Editors
Jodi Rudoren (April 13) has been deputy metro editor since September 2006.  Before that, she had been the chief of The New York Times bureau in Chicago since the fall of 2001, leading coverage of 11 Midwestern states.  She came to The Times in October 1998, as a general assignment reporter for the Metropolitan section, and then spent two years as National Education Correspondent, based in New York.
     While in Chicago, she wrote about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, particularly in the Arab-American community; the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic church; political campaigns in several states; and a wide range of feature stories including pieces on the rise in small-town bank robberies and the shortage of dentists in rural areas.
     A reporter with The Los Angeles Times for six years, Ms. Rudoren worked in its Washington, D.C. bureau from August 1997 until September 1998, in its Los Angeles City Hall bureau from August 1995 until August 1997, and for its Orange County Edition from June 1992 until August 1995, where she covered Newport Beach, education and the Orange County bankruptcy.

Bruce Weber (May 11) rejoined The New York Times as an obituary writer in April 2008, after a two-year hiatus during which he wrote As They See ‘Em, a book about baseball umpires that was published by Scribner in March 2009.
     Mr. Weber first joined The New York Times in July 1986 as a desk person for The New York Times Magazine and became articles editor in January 1991. He became a reporter on the metropolitan desk in November 1991 and moved to the culture department September 1992. From 1992 until 1994 he wrote the On Stage and Off column for the weekend section. In 1997 he became The Times’s first national cultural correspondent, and during that time he was based in the Chicago bureau. From 2000 through 2003, he was a theater critic, concentrating on Off Broadway and regional theater productions. He then spent two years as part of the “How We Live” cluster of reporters examining various aspects of American life; his focus was on recreation.

Learn how to craft compelling feature articles from a professional writer and a New York Times editor in this workshop for advanced writers.

Feature articles are the human side of journalism, combining the reporter’s hunt for facts with a storyteller’s flair. Such articles can examine virtually any topic: from news to trends to profiles to the offbeat corners. In our courses, you will learn such journalistic techniques as angles, structure, reporting, and interviewing, as well as storytelling craft such as scene, description, and voice. You will also learn how and where to market your work.

Whether you seek to write about serious news or the lighter side of life, we’ll show you how to grab a reader’s attention.

Article Writing II (Advanced) is for those who have completed Article Writing I or Travel Writing I or the equivalent.

During the first ten weeks of this eleven-week course, a professional writer will reinforce the basics of feature article writing, and delve into the fine points. You will have a weekly writing assignment and three opportunities to present a feature article for instructor and classmate feedback. The eleventh week will be devoted to an online Q&A with a New York Times editor.

Class size is strictly limited to 14 writers.

View a course syllabus

Instructor
S. James Snyder (Feb. 24 and April 14) has written articles for USA Today, Newsday, the Newark Star-Ledger, L Magazine, the Villager, and Art Forum. He has served as film critic for the New York Sun, arts reviewer with Downtown Express Collider, film editor for SOMA magazine, and is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. He holds an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Guest Editor
Nathan R. (Sonny) Kleinfield (Feb. 24) has been a general assignment reporter for the Metro Desk of The New York Times since 1991.  Mr. Kleinfield joined The Times in September 1977, reporting for the Business/Financial Desk.  He spent six years as a general assignment reporter for the Sunday Business section.  Before working at The Times, he was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in New York for five years.
     Mr. Kleinfield has received many awards, including the Jesse Laventhol Prize of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2002; a shared Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2001; the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Deadline Club Award in 1998; a Gerald Loeb Award from the Anderson School at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Media Award for Economic Understanding from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 1979; and the Mike Berger Award from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in 1974. 
     Mr. Kleinfield is the author of several books, among them The Hotel (1989); A Machine Called Indomitable (1986); Staying at the Top (1986); The Traders (1983); The Biggest Company on Earth (1981); The Hidden Minority (1979); and A Month at the Brickyard (1977).  He has also contributed to a number of magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, New Times, Rolling Stone and Esquire.

Manny Fernandez (April 14) joined The New York Times as a Metro reporter in 2005, where he currently covers the housing beat.
     Before joining The Times, Mr. Fernandez was a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post, and he covered the anthrax mailings, as well as the murders of two students at a university for the deaf.
     From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Fernandez wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle.  In 1998, his series on homeless runaways in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district was the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize nominee for feature writing.  In addition, he was voted Outstanding Young Journalist by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 1999.

• Begin writing two articles or a book
• Lectures on types of food writing and basics of craft
• Writing exercises
• Present work for critique (two times)

Only this Premium food writing workshop includes a week-long Q&A with an editor from The New York Times.

Food Writing is for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.

Class size is strictly limited to 16 writers.

View a course syllabus

Instructor

Adam Roberts (Feb. 16) is the author of the food book The Amateur Gourmet (Bantam/Dell), based on his blog The Amateur Gourmet. He has written about food for Bon Appetit.com, Salon, The Southern Voice, and SeriousEats, and he is the host of two online shows for the Food Network, F/N Dish and the Amateur Gourmet Show.

Fran McNulty (March 9) has written food stories and reviews for The New York Times and New York magazine. Her features have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Barrons, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, and New York Woman. Writing as Fran Schumer, she penned Most Likely To Succeed (Random House) and co-authored Powerplay (Simon & Schuster).

Guest Editor
Julia Moskin (March 9 and April 13) has been a reporter for the Dining section since 2004. A lifelong New Yorker, Ms. Moskin began writing about food in 1993 as restaurant critic for the weekly New York Press, while working as an editor of cookbooks. Later, as a freelance writer, she co-authored nine cookbooks while writing for magazines including Saveur and Metropolitan Home.
     At the Times, she has written on such diverse subjects as the punk-vegan movement, illegal traffic in Girl Scout cookies on ebay, the best recipe for macaroni and cheese, and the widespread practice of freezing fish for sushi.

Kim Severson (Feb. 16 and May 11) is a staff writer for the Dining section of The New York Times.  She previously wrote about cooking and the culture of food for the San Francisco Chronicle, after a seven-year stint as an editor and reporter at the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska.  Before writing about food full time, she covered crime, education, social services and government for daily newspapers on the West Coast.
     Ms. Severson has won several regional and national awards for news and feature writing, including the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for her work on childhood obesity in 2002 and four James Beard awards for food writing.  She has written two books, The Trans Fat Solution: Cooking and Shopping to Eliminate the Deadliest Fat from Your Diet, and The New Alaska Cookbook.  Her new book, Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life, will be published in April 2010 by Riverhead Books.

Learn the most effective methods for selling magazine and newspaper articles from a professional freelancer and a New York Times editor. 

Many writers make a living, or a sizable portion of their living, by selling articles to magazines and newspapers on a freelance basis. The trick is to generate saleable ideas, match them perfectly to the right periodicals, then write terrific query letters. In particular, you must know exactly which publications are appropriate for which ideas (and how to figure this out among the thousands of publications).

In this five-week class you will learn how to execute each of these steps. You will also gain a realistic understanding of how you can begin a freelance career, move up the ladder in terms of prestige and pay, and manage your writing as a business. In addition, this unique course will give you the opportunity to interact with an editor from The New York Times in a special week-long discussion.

Among the topics covered:

• Overview of the magazine/newspaper market
• How to generate saleable ideas
• How to write great query letters
• How to scope out and analyze magazines and newspapers
• Effective ways to make contact
• How to send your materials
• Deciphering rejections
• Understanding contracts
• Managing the business side of writing

This course focuses on the selling of nonfiction magazine and newspaper articles. During the first four weeks, a professional freelancer will walk you through the strategies for selling magazine and newspaper articles on a regular basis and each student will have two opportunities to present a query letter to the instructor for feedback. The fifth week will be devoted to an online Q&A with an editor from The New York Times, a feature unique to this Premium class.

Class size is strictly limited to 25 students. 

View a course syllabus

Instructor
Cindy Price (Mar. 17, April 14, and May 12) is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and writes for the American Michelin red guides. She primarily covers food and travel for the Times' Escapes, Travel and Dining sections, but has covered a range of topics for The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Sports section, Conde Nast Traveler, Philadelphia Weekly, Gotham, FHM, and the New Leader.

Guest Editor
David Corcoran (Mar. 17 and May 12) has been an assistant science editor at The New York Times since September 2001. In that job he works with the 30-member science staff, assigning and editing articles and helping to coordinate pictures and information graphics for the daily paper and the weekly Science Times. 
     He joined The Times in September 1988 and has worked in a variety of positions, including assistant special sections editor, 2000-01; education editor, 1999; deputy graphics director, 1996-99; deputy New Jersey editor, 1995-96; deputy Op-Ed editor, 1993-95; assistant to the national editor for weekend news, 1991-93 and copy editor, national desk, 1988-91. As assistant special sections editor, he edited The Times’s 150th anniversary issue, ``From the Newspaper Age to the Information Age,’’ published on Nov. 14, 2001.

LeAnn Wilcox (April 14) has been a staff editor at The New York Times for 17 years. She has worked on news and feature desks at The Times and is currently the deputy society news editor. She also worked on the sports desks of The Kansas City Star and The Miami Herald.

Learn how to write about travel—articles, memoir, essay, blogs, guidebooks—from a professional writer and a New York Times editor.

Travel writing lets us traverse the world on paper or screen, journeying everywhere from the cobblestone streets of Amsterdam to the brilliant-white beaches of Zanzibar. Reading of travel can provide the inspiration and information to set us in motion or it can transport foreign locales right into our homes.

Travel writing requires you to pack along a sense of adventure, a journalist’s eye, and a storyteller’s flair.  In our courses, you will learn about the full spectrum of travel writing, as well as such writing craft elements as description, structure, voice, and angles. You will also learn how and where to market your work.

Travel writing abounds in magazines, newspapers, books, and on the Internet. Whether you seek to write about places near or far, we’ll show you how to turn the world into words.

During the first ten weeks of this eleven-week course, a professional writer will teach you the fundamentals of travel writing. You will have a weekly writing assignment and two opportunities to present a longer work for instructor and classmate feedback. The eleventh week will be devoted to an online Q&A with a New York Times editor.

Using a balance of lecture, exercise, and feedback on work from the instructor and classmates, this workshop gives students a firm grounding in all the basics of feature travel writing. Everything is presented in a clear, accessible manner.

• Begin writing two travel pieces or a travel book
• Lectures on types of travel writing and basics of craft
• Writing exercises
• Present work for critique (two times)

Only this Premium travel writing workshop includes a week-long Q&A with an editor from The New York Times.

Travel Writing is for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.

Class size is strictly limited to 16 writers.

View a course syllabus

Instructor
Colleen Kinder (Mar. 16 and April 13) is the author of the guidebook Delaying the Real World (Running Press), and she co-edited the essay anthology Confessions of a High School Nerd (Penguin). Her articles and essays on travel and current events have been published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Salon, the New Republic, Transitions Abroad, Ms., Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, Quarterly West, Ninth Letter, A Public Space, and Prairie Schooner, and the anthologies A Woman’s World Again (Traveler’s Tales) and 20-Something Essays by 20-Something Writers (Random House). She has taught at the University of Iowa. She holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa.

Guest Editor
Dan Saltzstein (Mar. 16) has worked at The New York Times for over 10 years. He began as a producer at the Web site, handling the online production of sections including Dining, Home, Styles and the Magazine. He spent 3 years as Arts Editor at nytimes.com overseeing the Arts section, as well as the Book Review, the Magazine and the Week in Review. For the year, he has edited in the Travel, Home and Dining sections of the newspaper, as well as the Globespotters travel blog. He now edits full-time in the Travel section, handling columns including 36 Hours, Surfacing and Bites. His writing and photography has appeared in the Dining, Travel, Weekend Arts and City sections.

Joe Sharkey (April 13) writes a weekly business travel column for The New York Times.  He also contributes regularly to the Week in Review and other sections of that newspaper, and frequently writes for magazines.
     For six years until 1990, he was an assistant national editor and a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.  He also was a reporter and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer; a reporter and assistant city editor for The Philadelphia Bulletin, and the executive city editor at the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union.
     His first novel, Lady Gold, co-written with former NYPD detective Angela Amato, was published in August 1998. It is now in pre-production for a feature movie to be directed by Mel Gibson for Paramount Pictures. Sharkey and Amato are near completion of a second novel that will be published next year by St. Martin’s Press.
     His non-fiction books are: Bedlam (1994, St. Martin’s Press); Above Suspicion (1993 Simon & Schuster); Deadly Greed (1992, Simon & Schuster); and Death Sentence (1991, Dutton).

Michelle Higgins (May 11) writes the “Practical Traveler” column for The New York Times.  Ms. Higgins’ column – appearing every Sunday in the Travel section and online at NYTimes.com – provides luxury and budget-conscious travelers with insider information on where to go, how to find the best deal and what to see.  The topics range from how to secure the best seat on a plane to how to find the next hot spot to visit.  She also routinely writes feature stories for the Travel and Escapes sections.
     Ms. Higgins appears regularly on WNBC's Early Today show.  She has also been featured on the Travel Channel, CNN, NBC's Today and CNBC's Squawk Box and Power Lunch.
     Previously, Ms. Higgins worked at the Wall Street Journal covering travel, personal finance and automobiles.  At the Journal, she authored a weekly travel column, “Takeoffs & Landings,” and regularly wrote the “Cranky Consumer” column.  She also penned cover stories on, among other things, the online travel business, theme park vacations, and changes to the travel landscape after 9/11.