John Woodrow Cox
/How did you become a writer?
My mom, Nan, told me to give it a try. I came to college as a philosophy major, inexplicably, before switching to psychology, which didn’t work out. She knew I liked to write as a kid (though I wouldn’t have described myself as a writer before college; I’ve read some of the stuff I wrote back then, and it’s awful). So, at her suggestion, I signed up for a journalism class.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
Mike Foley’s class changed my life. He’s a legend at the University of Florida, where he teaches an intro reporting course. I knew by the end of the semester that this is what I wanted to do for a living. Ted Spiker, also at UF, was a terrific teacher as well. He introduced me to voice, pacing, structure. I also must have read Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools a half-dozen times before I graduated. So many narrative journalists influenced me in those early years. Kelley Benham, Tom French and Anne Hull all come to mind.
When I started at what was then the St. Pete Times, Mike Wilson (now at the New York Times) and Bill Duryea (now at Politico) both did a lot to shape my sensibilities as a young reporter and writer. Now, at the Washington Post, I have the privilege to work for Lynda Robinson, one of the great narrative editors in America.
I admire so many authors, and for reasons I can’t explain, I’m often drawn to the ones whose styles most diverge from my own. I find Cormac McCarthy’s prose to be captivating, and I try to learn something from them, though I can’t imagine attempting to write a single sentence the way he does.
When and where do you write?
Anything of length, I write at home, mostly in the afternoons and into the evening. My prime writing hours come after my wife’s gone to bed, from about 9:30 p.m. until 2 a.m.
What are you working on now?
I’ve just published my first book, Children Under Fire: An American Crisis, and am working on a couple more projects about what the gun violence epidemic does to kids in this country. I’ve devoted much of the past five years to that subject, but, unfortunately, the stories keep coming.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
Only at the beginning, middle and sometimes end of every piece I write.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I struggled with this question, mostly because I’ve received an abundance of great advice through the years. I cherish many tips that editors and colleagues have offered on craft, but I think the best lesson I’ve learned is the importance of empathy, both as a reporter and a writer. It’s so essential to every phase of what we do, and I’d like to believe it, as much as anything else, is what makes me good at my job.
Here’s one example from early in my career, when I was working as a cops reporter in Florida. I wrote a story on deadline about a child who drowned in his backyard pool. It was a brutal day. The photographer and I arrived on scene just as the ambulance was pulling away. An officer we knew soon told us the boy was dead, but police hadn’t shared that news with his parents yet. When they told them, the dad burst out of the front door and collapsed on the grass in front of us, weeping. His wife staggered out behind him. We saw the whole thing. The photographer, Will Vragovic, captured the moment. Then we heard what the couple said to each other as they got into the cruiser and left for the hospital.
I wrote and filed the story, which, I suspect, was a mess. Mike Wilson, who I believe was the managing editor at the time, handled the story himself. He helped me reshape and sharpen it, but he did something else that has stuck with me ever since. Mike cut two details: one, that the police initially wouldn’t let the mom in the house because her husband was vomiting inside; and two, that the boy’s older sibling left the backdoor open, allowing the toddler to wander outside and drown. A reasonable person could argue that one, or both, of those details should have stayed in the story, but I so admired the way Mike thought about that story, and every story. These were human beings first, not subjects. Was the detail about the dad vomiting necessary in a story that was already so devastating? And don’t we have a responsibility not to do additional harm to the innocent child who left the back door open? I believe Mike made the right choices that day, but I’m certain that the reasons for his choices were the right ones.
What’s your advice to new writers?
Well, I suppose I’m now obligated to implore them to show empathy. Do that, please.
Also: read good writing. There are only two ways to get better at this. One is to do it, and the other is to read people who do it well.
Finally, because I always give this advice, never undervalue hard work. Someone will always be more talented. You can’t control that. What you can control is how hard you work. That’s a choice.
John Woodrow Cox is an enterprise reporter at The Washington Post and the author of Children Under Fire: An American Crisis. In 2018, his series about the impact of gun violence on children in America was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He has won Scripps Howard's Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Storytelling, the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, Columbia Journalism School’s Meyer “Mike” Berger Award for human-interest reporting and the Education Writers Association's Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting. He has also been named a finalist for the Michael Kelly Award, the Online News Association's Investigative Data Journalism award and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He previously worked at the Tampa Bay Times and at the Valley News in New Hampshire. He attended the University of Florida, where he has taught narrative writing and currently serves on the Department of Journalism’s Advisory Council.
