Mark Armstrong

2 weeks ago | niemanstoryboard.org | Frank Bures |Mark Armstrong

Not long ago, I came to the realization that I’d written a lot of stories about canoeing. It made sense: I live in Minnesota, and that’s what we do. I’d written about Guinness World Records, paddlers trapped in wildfires, and even my own near-death experience. Before long I started to dream of trying to bring these stories together in a collection that someone could have at their cabin…or even take on a canoe trip.

4 weeks ago | niemanstoryboard.org | Britany Robinson |Mark Armstrong

On February 6, Claire Willett was in the middle of writing an application for a National Endowment for the Arts grant on behalf of the Portland Opera when she received a press release that would completely upend her work. There were two big announcements from the NEA: First, the Challenge America program, which awarded $10,000 grants to smaller organizations, typically going to underserved communities, was canceled.

1 month ago | niemanstoryboard.org | Minda Honey |Mark Armstrong

Just one day after New York magazine dropped a story package about people secretly subsidizing their Big Apple lives with generational wealth, I took a train into New York City for the book launch of Edgar Gomez's “Alligator Tears,” a memoir-in-essays about a very different experience: growing up poor in Florida. Gomez was joined by bestselling novelist John Manuel Arias (“Where There Was Fire”), who praised Gomez for their ability to make us look at and interrogate class on every page.