Doug Underwood
In his book Journalism and the Novel: Truth and Fiction, 1700-2000, Prof. Doug Underwood focuses on the many notable journalists-turned-novelists found at the margins of fact and fiction since the early eighteenth century. He is joined, in this video, by Sibella Giorello, a former reporter who has become an award-winning author of novels, including The Rivers Run Dry and The Stones Cry Out.
Filled with examples of writers who have made the transition from non-fiction to fiction, Underwood's book covers three-hundred-plus years of great writing, including the works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, Truman Capote, and Joan Didion.
He discusses the traditions that connect journalistic to novel writing, and why it is that so many journalists have aspired to fiction writing careers.
Giorello, a former UW journalism student, discusses what it has been like to go from being a student journalist to a reporter covering police and FBI matters to a novelist who has used her journalism background and knowledge of criminal forensics to fashion her detective novels. Her second novel, The Rivers Run Dry, is set in the Seattle area and features her FBI agent-protagonist, Raleigh Harmon, who debuted in her first novel and has just been transferred from Richmond (the scene of The Stones Cry Out).
Roger Simpson
Roger Simpson is the Dart Professor of Journalism and Trauma and from 2000-2006 was the founding director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Simpson has studied how journalists are affected by traumatic situations. This video shows a training exercise for journalism students, that allows them to interact with actors in a traumatic scenario. Simpson's book Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting about Victims and Trauma, written with William Cote, was published by Columbia University Press in 2006.
