Tag: journalism

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Falling in Love Again

Mindy Kinnaman

I started reading when I was three. It started small – my mom, while driving down the highway, noticed that I would read billboards (especially McDonalds’ billboards). She thought that someone had read them to me, and I subsequently memorized them. I mean it’s possible. “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun” was a particularly catchy jingle around that time. But then she realized that I was reading other things as well.

Despite the fact that we were poor (or because of that, you’ll see why in a sec), my mom nurtured that ability. She encouraged me to keep reading, thinking that a smart kid could get free – or at least greatly reduce – college tuition. Spoiler alert: it definitely helped.

When I got to first grade, my teacher, Mrs. Hiles (who has been mentioned in this blog before), also pushed me to read. With access to a library at school, I took full advantage of this gift that I had been given. And ever since then, I have been a huge book nerd.

I always knew that I wanted to do something adjacent to books. I loved immersing myself in other worlds, so it was only natural to want to be a writer. In high school, I excelled in English, was on yearbook staff, and was president of the Writing Club. When I went off to college, I joined the yearbook staff immediately, dove into my English major and took multiple journalism classes, all in an effort to be a better writer.

Telling stories was a big part of my life, and I continued to immerse myself in the stories told by others. But most of what I read was fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I did read newspapers and magazines, especially as I worked out that I wanted to be a features writer for a magazine. I am a girl who loves to be entertained, and I wasn’t finding that in journalism the way I was with authors like Christopher Moore and Stephen King, who told the most incredible stories.

But then my life went in a different direction. I discovered higher education as a profession and began moving toward it. Journalism and storytelling was pushed to the back burner. Occasionally, I’d have a job that had a tangental connection to journalism – creating newspaper-esque newsletter at UTSA, advising the student newspaper at FRCC. I did also spend 8 years writing for The Kansas City Star. That was nice, but I wasn’t telling the stories I wanted to tell. So, as my 30th birthday approached, I decided to start telling those stories instead.

For the last 15 years, I have focused on my writing pretty hard core. I’ve also spent that time reading a library’s worth of books (again, mostly fiction). But a couple years back, I stumbled across an article online that did something huge: it reminded me of my love of journalism and long-form storytelling. The recent surge of true-crime podcasting helped as well. With shows like Serials, Up & Vanished, and The Coldest Case in Laramie, shows that spent an entire season dedicated to one person’s story, I started to fall back in love with non-fiction.

For the past three years, I’ve been diving back into the deep end of the non-fiction pool. I’ve been reading a lot of books (mainly about working in the death industry, thanks to the little part of me that always wanted to be a medical examiner). But I’ve also been diving back into long-form journalism. It started when I read the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Tampa Bay Times article, Angels & Demons about serial killer Oba Chandler and how he basically destroyed a family when he murdered a mom and her two daughters, who had been vacationing in Florida.

And it evolved from there. As time went on, I read more articles (my favorites of which I’ll share shortly). This last year, I discovered Texas Monthly and their true crime articles, which then evolved into their other articles as well. Trust me, they’re damn good. I’ve loved them so much that I wound up subscribing to the magazine (best $10 I ever spent, quite honestly). Since then, I’ve come to realize that there are so many great storytellers working in journalism, but we don’t always get to hear from them all.

So, with that, I want to share a few of my favorite pieces, as I want you to discover these incredible stories as well. As you check out these stories, I hope you’ll share some of your favorites with me. I’m always on the hunt for new, incredible storytellers who deserve exposure for their writing skills.