Origins: Three Nudist Sisters
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 the spark and development of my books, articles, and other works, I will lay out how I discovered, sold, reported, and structured the story about the nudist sisters. I’ll also include a bit about the afterlife of this unusual nonfiction tale.
Genesis
I wish I could say I tracked down the story of the nudist sisters through some kind of inspired search, but I didn’t do anything to find it. The story came to me.
One evening in 2017, my wife came home from her regular appointment to get her hair done. Her longtime hairstylist, Juliette, had told her about her summer’s adventures at a nudist camp called Avatan in the company of her sisters, Denise and Nanette. The three siblings, Juliette told my wife, had reclaimed their closeness after years of feeling distant from one another. Living together at the camp brought about their reconciliation.
