This past Tuesday, I had the opportunity to speak with one of the greatest journalistic legends in my lifetime: William Nack.
The former Sports Illustrated writer and renowned author of “Secretariat” (yes, that Secretariat) came to my feature writing class and regaled us with tales of stalking his subjects across the country and meeting with mob bosses in prison.
While I had not heard of him before, after reading several of his stories from “My Turf” I was in awe. In fact, I think I had a little crush. I have never read anything before that flowed so beautifully, like poetry, with vivid imagery and the kind of quotes that make you feel like you actually know someone. Two of his stories, particularly Sonny Liston‘s, made me cry.
I listened, literally on the edge of my seat, for nearly three hours. When it was over I didn’t want it to end.
In addition to exciting us with stories of his past and the characters he had the opportunity to get to now, he gave us some extremely valuable pointers in terms of being journalist.
“I always like a dramatic lede,” Nack said. “Where’s the drama? Put that first. Make people want to keep reading. Then I’ve got you.”
Perfect advice, really. Writing a lede is always the hardest part for me when I’m not writing a news story, because I don’t know how to grab the reader’s attention. But drama? That’ll do.
Nack also gave us some unconventional advice that I’ve never heard from other professors: memorize poetry. He recited about fifteen minutes worth of poems for us and clearly could have kept going.
If memorizing poetry will help me write even a tenth as poetically as him, I’m all for it.
He even signed my book. I’m keeping it forever.
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