“The Girl in the Window” and Other True Tales

Tampa Bay Times reporter DeGregory debuts with a perceptive collection of 24 of her most popular pieces for the Times, each enhanced with commentary and annotations explaining how she reported them. It’s “easier to get readers to care about one family than to hit them with 200 needy kids,” DeGregory writes about how she reported the Pulitzer Prize–winning title story, recounting how her examination of the foster care system turned into an article about a six-year-old girl rescued from squalid conditions and nurtured back to health by her adoptive family. The annotations provide a master class in feature writing; for example, she recommends raising questions early to hook readers, as when she questions why a 12-year-old boy is so devoted to his autistic twin brother and only at the end reveals his answer: “I could have been him.” Other wisdom on the benefits of keeping descriptions brief and adopting the narrative voice of the article’s subject accompanies stories about a lifesaving Labrador, Evel Knievel’s curmudgeonly later years, and an etiquette school for teenage girls from troubled backgrounds. The entries testify to the rich panorama of human experience and the writing guidance is a boon. Aspiring journalists will want to check this out. Photos. (Apr.)