Here’s what I wish I knew when I first tried to write one A book proposal is a marketing document that nonfiction authors write to sell a book idea to literary agents and book publishers. Book proposals take most authors months to complete and are unpleasant to write. It’s spec work — you do not know if the effort will pay off in…

Chapter 22 of The Clipper Ship Era (1910) by Arthur Hamilton Clark In our struggle to keep up with all the nonfiction writing published every day, we often lose sight of the remarkable popular-history articles and essays of the past. Many of them are worth remembering. The piece you can…

The editor and the postmaster were its entire population — In our struggle to keep up with all the nonfiction writing published every day, we often lose sight of the remarkable articles and essays of the past. Many of them are worth remembering. The piece you can read below is one such notable work. I first read it on the…

How I discovered, developed, and wrote an article, book, and podcast about one of history’s most puzzling disappearances of children. This is the second in my series of Origins essays about the spark and development of my books, articles, and other works. You’ll find the first in the series here. …

How I discovered, wrote, and sold a strikingly distinctive magazine article to The Atlantic — In 2018, I published an article in The Atlantic about three middle-aged sisters, long estranged from one another, who reunited and grew close by becoming neighbors in a nudist camp. The article drew much attention and felt satisfying to write. In this first in a series of Origins essays about…

Since 2018, I have published Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers and writers of popular history. The newsletter features links to exemplary popular-history articles, resources for people who read and write history, and updates on my own work. Here’s a recent issue. Follow the included subscription links to…

Peter Ellenstein’s donated sperm produced 35 (and counting) kids who taught him how to be a dad — For years, Peter Ellenstein never considered himself dad material. He is a 60-year-old resident of Los Angeles, an actor and stage director, who was short on money during the 1980s and ’90s and made cash by selling his sperm. His good looks and artistic background made his sperm a popular…

A work of flash nonfiction On a summer day in 1980, a boy waded into the water at the 14th Street Beach in Ocean City, New Jersey. Dennis, a lifeguard, monitored the crowd as the boy bodysurfed. He dove, glided, plunged. The sun moved a notch. Then the boy walked out of the water streaming…

There were plenty of unpleasantries on St. Paul’s Pleasant Avenue in 1911, when a moustached ghost made life miserable for a widow and her family. — Some people in the crowd believed the strange stories; others remained skeptical. All were curious. On February 18, 1911, scores of them gathered outside a home at 486 Pleasant Av. in St. Paul, Minnesota. Gawkers in automobiles strained for a clear view from the street. Two blocks away the Grand…