David Koon and Gerard Matthews of Arkansas Times, who took home a first place award for media reporting, will be interviewed by Las Vegas Weekly editor Scott Dickensheets on AAN.org this Friday (Dec. 11) at 3 pm EST.
In the fourth installment of this year's "How I Got That Story" series, Arkansas Times associate editor David Koon talks to Corina Knoll about his feature profile of writer Mohja Kahf, a novelist, poet and sex columnist working to change public perception of Muslim women. Koon talks about finding the story, trying to paint a true picture of a sympathetic source, and how his creative writing background informs his work. "A lot of the things I know -- how to create character, how to create mood and theme -- translate straight across to features," he says. "I think a lot of people who gravitate toward alternative journalism and do it well come from a creative-writing background."