Noel Rubinton — Looking for a Story: A Complete Guide to the Writings of John McPhee - with Marc Fisher

John McPhee has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1965 and has written more than thirty acclaimed books that began on the magazine's pages. But few readers know or fully appreciate the true breadth of his writing. Looking for a Story is a complete reader's guide to McPhee's vast published work, documenting much rarely seen or connected with McPhee, including remarkable early writing for Time magazine published without his name.In chronicling McPhee's career where he broke ground applying devices long associated with fiction to the literature of fact, Noel Rubinton gives insights into McPhee's techniques, choice of subjects, and research methods, shedding light on how McPhee turns complicated subjects like geology into compelling stories. Beyond detailing more than seventy years of McPhee's writing, Rubinton recounts McPhee's half century as a Princeton University writing professor, a little known part of his legacy. McPhee inspired generations of students who wrote hundreds of books of their own, also catalogued here.With an incisive foreword by New Yorker staff writer and former McPhee student Peter Hessler, Looking for a Story also includes extensive annotated listings of articles about McPhee, reviews of his books, and interviews, readings, and speeches. Whether you are already an admirer of McPhee or new to his writings, this book provides an invaluable road map to his rich body of work.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780691244921?ic_referral=VWwiCeQBM0ovDdIIAUO0JjVyNPDxn1N039LFB1VfFCcwMwyUcOJypddyYRHTKDVlcH0QJ_jQF00LVpiWOvC1t2MMQnmFCr0cyzd0Lgfbp43icr6xuFsDX8ShIHipBjUDl-ksUTYNoel Rubinton is a journalist and strategic communications consultant whose writing has appeared in leading publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He was a reporter and editor for Newsday for many years. Rubinton is in conversation with Marc Fisher, an associate editor of The Washington Post who writes a column on Washington – the city, its suburbs, and the people and issues of big-city America. Fisher moved to Opinions in 2024 after 37 years as a reporter and editor across various news sections at The Post, most recently focusing on Donald Trump and major breaking-news events. He previously created and led the Metro staff's enterprise reporting group, spent a decade as local columnist and blogger, served as the paper's special reports editor, wrote about politics and culture for the Style section, worked as Central Europe bureau chief on The Post’s Foreign staff, and covered D.C. schools and D.C. politics for the Metro section, where he was also an assistant city editor. Fisher taught creative nonfiction writing as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, and was a student in John McPhee’s storied writing seminar at Princeton in his undergraduate years. *recorded 6/18/2025