My job was to write the wrap-ups – the story that put all of the events of the day into one package. I had to keep updating the story as it developed that day and the biggest challenge was keeping ahead of events which were moving so fast. I remember the newsroom as a maelstrom with phones ringing every second, TVs blaring, a hubbub of people talking and yelling. I recall taking a call from my son, who was a college freshman and was worried about me. I told him I was OK and he shouldn’t worry but I couldn’t talk to him just then. There was a big cloud of smoke over Washington from the Pentagon and rumors of more planes heading for the White House, just down the street from our bureau. The challenge was to stay calm and focused in the middle of all this and to just write clear, clean sentences.
I remember the next day going to work on the Metro and reading in the New York Times about people jumping from the buildings and I choked up with emotion. Yet, I had included this in my story the day before. It’s just that while I was working, while I was writing, I hadn’t allowed myself to respond emotionally – I was too busy concentrating on getting the words down.
Q: Your latest book, "The Nazi Hunter," is your first novel. What was it like, as a journalist, to cross from nonfiction to fiction?
It’s really quite different. I do believe in good, tight, terse, taut writing in any genre but I had to learn how to pace myself in fiction, how not to give away too much information all at once but to dole it out bit by bit as the story developed. I also learned how to write dialogue and build character. In journalism, one always tries to get to the point quickly and focus on the big picture. In fiction, the small details become crucial. In reporting, one is always as specific as possible. In fiction, I learned the power of suggestion, of allusion, of revealing things slowly. It’s been a very rewarding experience and I see my future more and more as a novelist. In fact, that’s really what I’d like to devote the rest of my professional life to. I’ve been in Romania for the past eight months teaching journalism on a Knight International Fellowship and during that time have completed a second novel, a love story set against the background of the 1989 revolution. I’m very excited about that.
Q: Which story has stayed with you the most over the years?
In 1997, I covered an execution in Virginia. I had interviewed all the people involved in the case, including the victim’s family, lawyers on both sides and the condemned man about four hours before the execution. Then I had to witness the execution itself. In some ways, it was anti-climactic – the man’s chest heaved a few times and then he stopped breathing. But10 years later, I still find myself thinking about it from time to time – how one minute, he was a living, breathing, human being and the next he was dead. It made me see how temporary and fragile life can be and also how precious.