Story

Read more about the article How I Got That Story: Malcolm Gay

In the third installment of this year's "How I Got That Story" series, Malcolm Gay, a regular freelancer for Riverfront Times, talks to Corina Knoll about his feature profile of author Qiu Xiaolong. Gay, who was formerly a Village Voice Media fellow at the East Bay Express and staff writer at the RFT, says he learned how challenging it is to write about a writer. "What they do physically and in terms of their day-to-day existence is very uneventful. So it's hard to bring drama and animation to those scenes," he says. "That's the challenge: to access that inner world and make it evident in the story."

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As Editor in Chief of L.A. Weekly, Laurie Ochoa tries to find innovative approaches to special issues, so that "you don't feel like you're reading the same copy over and over again." Viewing the "Best of L.A." through a theme of the seven deadly sins won Ochoa and her staff a first-place AtlWeekly Award for Special Section. This is the 38th and final in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingLaurie Ochoa: Building Reader Loyalty Through Special Issues
Read more about the article J.J. Marley: Keeping Visual Options Open

J.J. Marley likes to dabble in different creative fields, from illustration to photography to music. His varied background and his desire to "generate a good vibe" resulted in three very different Orlando Weekly covers that won a first-place 2005 AltWeekly Award. This is the 36th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingJ.J. Marley: Keeping Visual Options Open

According to NBC-affiliate KSBY, some area residents were upset by the paper's Feb. 2 cover package on methamphetamine, which included a recipe for manufacturing the drug. After the paper hit the streets, one former meth user suggested that citizens should take matters into their own hands: "Everybody should just get [copies of the paper] and burn them. It's just ridiculous." The next day, KSBY reported that "angry readers, recovering addicts, police, and drug counselors" were removing papers from the streets and pressuring store managers to do the same. Andrew Carter of Cellular One, which spends $52,000 annually advertising on the back cover of the New Times, said, "As the lead advertiser in the publication, they've not only, in my mind, embarrassed themselves, but they've embarrassed us." SLO New Times Managing Editor King Harris noted that "instructions for making meth are readily available on the Internet" and said the paper's intention was to inform people, "especially worried parents, about what to look for and what to consider suspicious."

Continue ReadingSLO New Times Meth Story Sparks Controversy
Read more about the article Don Eggert: Making Stories Into Something More

Don Eggert is an art director who loves deadlines: he thrives on the challenge of working against time constraints and enjoys the sense of relief that a job is done. He spent two hours, start to finish, creating his award-winning layout, "The Blogger." This is the 35th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

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Mara Shalhoup's award-winning feature story is a long-form narrative that often assumes the perspective of a teenage prostitute-turned-killer. It wasn't a hard article to write, Shalhoup says, and the strong response proves that readers want more stories with a human focus. This is the 34th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingMara Shalhoup: Depicting the Life of a Teenage Killer
Read more about the article Jeffrey C. Billman and J. J. Marley: Slicing Pie-in-the-Sky

Tired of political rhetoric that went unchallenged, the Orlando Weekly team of Jeffrey C. Billman and J.J. Marley set about creating an annotated version of a speech by the mayor. Their format-busting work earned them an AltWeekly Award, even though Marley was rooting for a different issue to be entered. This is the 33rd in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

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Read more about the article Tom Christie: Listing Toward the Left

Tom Christie led the staff of L.A. Weekly in kicking their year-end "Zeitlist" issue into gear. He says "it's surprising how the past year comes into focus" when compiling lists like "6 Reasons Why November 2 Wasn't a Total Gay Political Nightmare." This is the 32nd in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingTom Christie: Listing Toward the Left
Read more about the article David Butow: Capturing Images of War

David Butow has photographed some of the most dangerous places on Earth, including war-torn Iraq, where he documented violence and destruction in his award-winning shots for Los Angeles Citybeat. Yet he says it doesn't take him long to readjust to the L.A. mindset. This is the 31st in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingDavid Butow: Capturing Images of War
Read more about the article Rene Spencer Saller: Music Criticism Without the Testosterone

Rene Spencer Saller began writing music reviews for a fanzine when she was in her mid teens and has since made her way in a field that seems to be dominated by "white guys." She can admire a band and still take it to task for its misogyny. Her award-winning column, Sound Patrol, appears in Illinois Times. This is the 26th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingRene Spencer Saller: Music Criticism Without the Testosterone