David McCullough He squeezed through the line and said with a gentle smile, “Excuse me,” sterling blues looking up an inch or so at me. Well-coiffed white hair, thick arched eyebrows, wearing a blue sportscoat, his wife followed him, also well-coiffed and in a simple classic gray dress. The crowd, bending around the corner and down the block had come to see him talk. It was October 2015. He and his wife disappeared into the foyer of the small college town theater. In minutes

A mystery writer reflects on lost flags, a cryptic bird sighting, and the thrill of chasing clues—both in fiction and real life.

The old beige rotary phone rang. It was somewhere in the late 1970s. I answered, “Courtroom.” Pause. Michael, is that you? Familiar, soft tone. “Yes, it is Judge.” Oh, good. I am looking over a bail report you wrote on a Mr. Montgomery. And I wonder if you could come across the street. I want to do the hearing in Chambers. “Did you want to do it, uh…” Well, the hearing is on the calendar at 10:30 this morning. Can you make it over? I think it would be helpful for all, if

Don Ranly and colleagues wrote The Writing book in 1984. At that time, Ranly was a professor of journalism at the University of Missouri. I was a freelance writer living in Arizona. In the summer of that year he held a three day workshop in Minneapolis on how to write a good story. I headed up to attend the professor’s workshop. “Bring your best story,” Professor Ranly said in the seminar invite. I packaged my story on the murder investigation of a Tempe, Arizona school girl

Some thirty years ago an advertisement ran in the Phoenix Business Gazette for a stringer. In journalism, a stringer is paid by the story and is often a position keyed for persons wanting to break into the field. I immediately called an old newspaper man who was a family friend and told him about the job. “Wally,” I asked. “Knowing me, do you think that is something I could do?” Wally chuckled, then got serious and said, “I have three questions to ask, Michael.” “Shoot,” I