Michael Little, a freelancer for Washington City Paper, knows what he likes to write about: "failure and futility -- and losers." That fascination led him to write an arts feature about a woman consigned to an insane asylum in the early 1900s who produced a piece of lace that hinted at her dark sexual story. This is the ninth in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
Jen Sorensen's comic strip, Slowpoke, has moved a bit away from social commentary in the past few years to be more political. Her ideas come from, among other places, progressive blogs. She describes here how she draws her cartoon, what inspires her and the creative process. This is the eighth in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
The scoop Nigel Jaquiss got about political leader Neil Goldschmidt was one that would create a terrible stir in Oregon, if only he could nail it down. If he couldn't lay out sufficient proof, he risked destroying his paper, Willamette Week. Jaquiss describes the twists and turns that led to the publication of the stories that won him the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting, along with an AltWeekly Award. This is the seventh in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
An abnormally high number of children in Sierra Vista, Ariz., were getting leukemia, but government agencies had repeatedly declined to investigate the cause of the cancer cluster. Freelance writer Renee Downing stepped into the breach. In her article for Tucson Weekly, "Cancer Wars," she discusses two scientists' research exploring a possible environmental link as well as the politics surrounding the identification of a cancer cluster. This is the sixth in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
AAN has made available the complete list of submitted biographies for winners and runners-up.
Nobody seems to have questioned Clay County, Florida, Sheriff Scott Lancaster about his spending until Susan Clark Armstrong started nosing around his records. What were all those extra cars being used for? The airline tickets? The underwear? After Armstrong's story "Booty Call" appeared in Folio Weekly, an investigation ensued, and the sheriff lost in the Republican primary. This is the fifth in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
When an interview extends over 10 days -- as it did for Melissa Maerz when she went on tour with Minnesota band Friends Like These -- it was important to set up the rules from the start. Whatever wasn't immediately declared off the record was on the record. The resulting account, published in City Pages, was unsparing in its portrayal of the band's disappointments as well as its hopes, offering a dose of on-the-road realism. This is the fourth in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
The winners of the 2005 AltWeekly Awards unveil the process they went through to create their first-place articles, photography, cartoons and design. The series sheds light on the work found in the book "Best AltWeekly Writing and Design 2005."
People who don't know Jennifer Loviglio's work sometimes say, "Oh, you write a 'mommy column.'" Far from it. Even when Loviglio is writing about her kids, her City Newspaper column, The XX Files, makes important political and cultural points. In between columns, she's always looking for an issue that will raise her hackles. This is the third in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
