Humor is the lubricant that enables us to slide through the obstacles life places in our way. That's why we say: "If I didn't laugh, I'd cry."
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Nov 1, 2015 2:10 AM CST
Illustration by Lars Leetaru
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I am driving to the law school where I work, listening to Sirius radio. The Bridge plays music from the 1960s and '70s. Carly Simon sings "You're so vain. I…
Oct 1, 2015 7:50 AM CDT
Illustration by Sam Ward
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Character is crucial in most popular storytelling practices. Most especially, it is at the core of the modern novel. The late literary critic and novelist John Gardner observed that at…
Aug 1, 2015 6:50 AM CDT
Illustration by Brenan Sharp
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Last summer I attended an intensive, weeklong postgraduate writing workshop at Vermont College for Fine Arts given by the novelist and memoirist Andre Dubus III (
House of Sand and Fog…
Jun 1, 2015 6:00 AM CDT
Illustration by Brenan Sharp
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Trial storytelling is often highly creative and innovative. It is filled with aesthetic danger and strategic risk-taking—as are all forms of narrative art. But there is far more at stake…
Feb 1, 2015 6:21 AM CST
Part of Donovan’s courtroom performance involved telling jurors what Failla really meant by his recorded statements—that Failla didn’t have homicidal intent. Donovan drew poster-size cartoons to make his argument (shown above).
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Peter Brooks, the esteemed narrative theorist, tells an anecdote about a brilliant graduate student in his advanced narrative theory seminar at Yale.
Jan 1, 2015 2:30 AM CST
“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” was a key part of Johnnie Cochran’s famous closing argument in the O.J. Simpson case. AP Photo/Vince Bucci, Pool File
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I've taught at five law schools for almost 30 years now. Here's one takeaway from the experience: Law schools tip the storytelling practitioner's factually complex, often indeterminate and ambiguous world…
Oct 1, 2014 7:00 AM CDT
The petitioner’s brief in Atkins v. Virginia persuasively evokes the voice of Lenny in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.
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Photo of Gerry Spence by ©Bettman/Corbis/AP Images
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