Great Americans: Stories of Resilience and Joy in Everyday Life

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Great Americans: Stories of Resilience and Joy in Everyday Life is a collection of 30 of my favorite and most inspiring stories from 30 years at The Philadelphia Inquirer. I was a Pulitzer Prize winning staff writer there until late 2015, and concentrated on human interest stories and narratives. I am a storyteller and believe profoundly in the power of stories to inspire, to bring people together, and to change the world. My compass point as a writer has long been a quote by William Faulkner from his Nobel Prize winning speech. He said that it is the writer's privilege and duty "to help man endure by lifting his heart." In my own small way, in a career in daily newspapers, I've tried to do that. I chose these stories in particular because they highlight our spirit and sacrifice and determination and commitment and goodness. Most of these people in this book faced and overcame incredible adversities. They are indeed Great Americans. With a lifetime of stories to choose from, selection was a challenge. I tried to include stories of different lengths, stories that reflected important milestones in my writing life, stories that generated huge responses from readers, stories that just stuck with me. The book also has other features that I think are very important. At the end of virtually every story I've added a postscript. This includes an update on the subject of the profile, and a discussion or focus on one element of the writing. In addition to being a source of pleasure for anyone who loves to read great stories, I hope this book can also serve as an excellent teaching tool for aspiring feature writers. I include a list of many rules and tools of writing and reporting that I've learned over a lifetime. And I expand on many of these writing points at my website, www.michaelvitez.com/great-americans. There is one other component to this book. I've include five of my own personal stories, short narratives about my life that reflect on and highlight my own development as a writer. I am profoundly grateful to the photographers whose work appeared with the original stories and is included in this book. They are all supremely talented journalists and many of them good friends. Photographers April Saul and Ron Cortes won the Pulitzer Prize with me. I also must thank Bill Marimow, the Inquirer editor, and Gerry Lenfest, the former owner, for giving me permission for using these stories in this book. And I must say one of the greatest joys of putting this book together was working with Gene Foreman, the longtime and much esteemed managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who advised me and edited this book. These stories are a sampling of my life's work, an expression of how I see the world, and I suppose an example of my own resilience and joy.