Rick Bragg
Rick Bragg
Rick Braggis an American journalist and writer known for non-fiction books, especially those about his family in Alabama. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 recognizing his work at The New York Times...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMemoirist
Date of Birth26 July 1959
CountryUnited States of America
paper journalism backgrounds
The best writers who have put pen to paper have often had a journalism background.
send time unusual
It is not unusual to send someone to conduct an interview you don't have time to conduct. It's what we do.
thinking people ignorant
People who think there is something pedestrian about journalism are just ignorant.
clerks assistants news
Most national correspondents will tell you they rely on stringers and researchers and interns and clerks and news assistants.
writing phones editors
I have dictated stories from an airport after writing the story out in longhand on the plane that I got from phone interviews and then was applauded by editors for 'working magic.
beautiful pain nuts
The Haitians, who knew something about suffering and survival, had a beautiful phrase... The Translation is not perfect, but the nut of it was: 'The season of pain is never over until the sky begins to cry.
wall drug porcelain
And Sandy Martindale ... dated Elvis before the rhinestone jumpsuits and the drugs, when he was sharp and cool and jagged, like porcelain that has been hurled against a wall...
home remember moments
This is home and home is not something you remember, it is something you see every day and every moment.
real writing thinking
There are these boutique writers out there who think if they are not writing their novels sitting at a bistro with their laptops, then they're not real writers. That's ridiculous.
smart home thinking
These were people... who built redwood decks on their mobile homes and have no idea that smart-aleck Yankees think that is somehow funny. People of the pines. My people.
unique games earthquakes
When you're a sportswriter, you learn how to use your imagination and to flex your literary muscle, because it's the same game played over and over again. There's nothing unique or marvelous. It's not an earthquake, or a weird mass murder. It's just the same old game played over and over, and you have to bring out the personalities. You have to drag them kicking and screaming out into the light of day, or you're not a good sportswriter.
dream hard-work people
The only thing poverty does is grind down your nerve endings to a point that you can work harder and stoop lower than most people are willing to. It chips away a person's dreams to the point that the hopelessness shows through, and the dreamer accepts that hard work and borrowed houses are all this life will ever be.
love-you passion boys
Passion is something you really don't miss, after it has cooled. It is like looking at an empty bottle on the side of the road and thinking, "Boy, I wish I had a Coke." The loves you miss are the ones that go away when they are still warm, even hot, to the touch.
people way helping
I made some friends for life, the way I usually make them. Any jackass can be pleasant company, but if people help you when you're at your worst, that's a friend.