Next Wave: America's New Generation of Great Literary Journalists

by Mike Sager, Walt Harrington (Editor)

Next Wave collects the work of today’s finest young writers—nineteen creative reporters whose work builds upon foundations laid by previous generations. Although naysayers predicted the decline of quality long-form journalism with the rise of the Internet, Next Wave is evidence that the genre is thriving—aided by the very medium that was initially portrayed as the executioner.

*Selected as one of Amazon’s Hot New Releases in True Crime!

*For Table of Contents, Introduction and more please see: http://www.mikesager.com/next-wave-am...

Featured Writers: Pamela Colloff, Luke Dittrich, Todd C. Frankel, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Justin Heckert, Wil S. Hylton, Chris Jones, Michael Kruse, Thomas Lake, Dan P. Lee, Ariel Levy, Brian Mockenhaupt, Maximillian Potter, Tony Rehagen, Robert Sanchez, Eli Saslow, Wright Thompson, Seth Wickersham, Jason Zengerle.

“Some mighty great journalism here. I just wish I had assigned more of it.”
—Graydon Carter, Editor, Vanity Fair

“And literary journalism was supposed to be dying? This collection is proof positive that ambitious, inspired non-fiction storytelling has life in it yet.”
—Adam Moss, Editor, New York

“The kinds of gems that make us stop what we are doing for the sake of a good read.”
—Chad Millman, Editor-in-Chief, ESPN The Magazine

“Next Wave is a blueprint for the generation that will follow these writers.”
—David Granger, Editor-in-Chief, Esquire

Next Wave is fascinating and beautiful reading for enthusiasts and students of vibrant, you-are-there, literary non-fiction. Each chapter includes a photo, a bio, a personal essay, and an outstanding magazine or newspaper story from a different up-and-coming writer. Compiled by two award-winning literary journalists/educators from the last generation, Next Wave is a celebration of today’s greatest writing and a roadmap for aspiring practitioners of tomorrow, a joyful reminder that literary journalism alive and well, and that artful craftsmanship will never go out of fashion.

Genres: Journalism, Writing, Nonfiction

370 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2012

About the author

Mike Sager is a best-selling author and award-winning reporter. A former Washington Post staff writer under Watergate investigator Bob Woodward, he worked closely, during his years as a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Sager is the author of four collections of non-fiction, two novels, and one biography. He has served for more than fifteen years as a writer at large for Esquire. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Award for profile writing for his article “The Man Who Never Was.” Many of his stories have been optioned for film. For more information, please see www.mikesager.com.

Sager is also the founding editor and publisher of The Sager Group. for more information, please see www.TheSagerGroup.Net.

Reviews

[Maureen Stanton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. I'd hoped to find some great pieces to teach in my literary journalism class, but there is nothing innovative here, and because of the editors chose "only stories written fundamentally in third person," they leave out so much of what constitutes literary journalism. As a result, most of these pieces read like formulaic magazine feature articles. No surprise given the magazines and sites that the editors (and their students) gleaned for articles. The criteria is also "under 40" as they are trying to catch the "next wave," but this age criteria privileges writers who follow a fairly traditional path into journalism. The collection misses writers who come at literary journalism through the side-door of creative nonfiction, or writers who might come to their craft later in life, after other careers, or women writers who choose to raise families and whose careers are thus somewhat delayed, or working class writers who can't get to their writing until later if they are not supported by a newspaper or magazine (literary journalism demands time). For a next wave, why not select writers who don't yet have a book, or some other criteria for "emerging" rather than age?

The collection is so masculinist in the selection of writers and topics (15% of the pieces are by women writers--following the skewed proportion in nearly every other anthology of literary journalism published), and the stories tend to focus on dramatic events. (Again the 3rd person aim means the stories are often already sensational, odd, unusual [or focused on sports and other manly topics], rather than writers--through the sheer brilliance of writing, observation and intellect--transforming the ordinary into something strange and new.) There is no echo in here of Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace, Barbara Ehrenreich, James Agee, or anyone taking any real literary or journalistic risks. There are some standout pieces--gripping well-written stories (by Pamela Colloff, Luke Dittrich, Justin Heckert, Thomas Lake, Dan P. Lee). The subtitle should not be "America's New Generation of Great Literary Journalists" but rather ("A Pretty Strong Collection of Feature Articles by Mostly Male Journalists 40 and Under").

[Mackenzie McCreary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must read for any aspiring literary journalist. My favorites by far were definitely "Hannah and Andrew," "A Brevard Woman Disappeared" and "Three Minutes to Fort Totten."

[serenity · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives me more faith in the future of journalism and the irreplaceability of non-robot journalist. ;)

[Brian Vadakin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology of literary journalism was assigned in a class I took my junior year of college. We were assigned about half of them, I think I read a few of them, and I remembered one or two. So it was really enjoyable to read the anthology cover-to-cover, and discover some of the gems in here. The topics of these pieces really do span a wide range of interests, from a county prosecutor who shot himself after being tracked and identified by "To Catch a Predator", to an up-and-coming anesthesiologist who became addicted to opiates, to a family who bought, raised, and loved a pet chimpanzee. Some of these stories I felt deserved a few more reads, to go beyond the subject matter and really look at the writing. Really enjoyed this collection and highly recommend it.