Empathy
“[T]he reporter must be able to empathize with
personalities outside his usual imaginative range, mentalities unlike his own,
kinds of people he would never have written about had he not been forced to by
encountering them inside the journalistic situation. This last is what first
attracted me to the notion of narrative reportage.”
—Truman Capote (1924-1984), novelist and screenwriter, in
interview with George Plimpton, “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel,” The New
York Times, 1966.
• Editorial Comment: Get outside your comfort zone, and take up with axe murderers, plumbers, journalists, politicians and other unsavory sorts.
PeezPix by Ted Pease
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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD
“I
don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If
you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a
little.” —Tom Stoppard
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