Extraordinary Faculty
Expertise: writing 
John Bennet is Senior Editor at The New Yorker.
Contact
E-Mail: jmb2014@columbia.edu Phone: 212-854-4150Classes taught
Write magazinesMagazine journalism offers the opportunity to break with newspaper conventions and find one's own voice. However, writing for magazines also involves rules and challenges - not least of all, positioning yourself in an uncertain field. In this course, we will discuss different forms of magazine writing, with a particular focus on substantive publications of general interest such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine - as well as their websites. We'll explore the types of suggestions that will appeal to editors, ways to get started, and some useful frameworks for structuring longer journal articles. We will work to develop or refine a more natural and talkative writing style by reading articles by accomplished writers and working on student pieces in workshops. In addition to weekly tasks in which individual journals are studied, the students practice pitching and writing short pieces. At the end of the course, each student has written a suitable magazine article of 2,500 to 3,000 words.
