Pulitzer winner Mark Warren on earning trust in a community hurt by media, shaken by tragedy
Mark Warren won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for the Esquire story “A Death in Alabama,” a narrative about a big event in a small Alabama town: The death of Bubba Copeland, a Baptist pastor and local mayor who ended his life after his private life was exposed on social media. Warren shared the story behind that story at the 2025 Society for Features Journalism conference in Phoenix.
The 4 elements you need to tell a great narrative
The dynamic duo of writer Lane DeGregory and editor Maria Carrillo shared their tips for telling a great narrative. They believe in having four essential ingredients: character, action, setting and theme.
Congratulations to SFJ Hall of Fame inductees Lane DeGregory and Maria Carrillo!
The Society for Features Journalism inducted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lane DeGregory and veteran editor Maria Carrillo into the SFJ Hall of Fame at our conference in Phoenix on Nov. 6, 2025. Only 29 people, including Lane and Maria, have received this honor since 1997.
Why features journalism matters, by Lane DeGregory and Maria Carrillo
2025 SFJ Hall of Fame inductees Lane DeGregory and Maria Carrillo co-write an essay on why features journalism provides an important record of history.
The SFJ conference is back! Join us in Phoenix in November
The Society for Features Journalism is bringing back an in-person national conference from Nov. 6-8, 2025 at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in downtown Phoenix. Speakers will include Eli Saslow, Lane DeGregory, Mike Wilson, Mark Warren, Kim Cross and more, and AI realities will be tackled head-on.
This will be SFJ’s first official national conference since the pandemic. The theme is “Rewriting the Narrative.”
