von DREHLE, David 1961-

PERSONAL: Born February 6, 1961, in Denver, CO; son of Richard (in business) and Dorothy (a homemaker and administrator; maiden name, Love) von Drehle; married Karen Ball (a journalist), October 7, 1995; children: Henry James, Ella Grace, Adeline Rose, Clara Morgan. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of Denver, B.A., 1983; Oxford University, M. Litt. Hum., 1985. Religion: Episcopalian.

ADDRESSES: Home—4625 Reno Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20008. Office—Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071; fax: 202-496-3883. Agent—Esther Newberg, International Creative Management, 40 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Miami Herald, Miami, FL, staff writer, 1983-91; Washington Post, Washington, DC, staff writer, 1991-95, assistant managing editor, 1995-99, senior writer, 1999—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Livingston Award, 1989, for national reporting; Silver Gavel Award, American Bar Association, 1989, for coverage of the legal system; Distinguished Writing Award, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1990; Distinguished Writing Award, American Bar Association, 1996, for Among the Lowest of the Dead: Inside Death Row.

WRITINGS:

Among the Lowest of the Dead: Inside Death Row, Times Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Dead Wrong: A Death Row Lawyer Speaks Out against Capital Punishment, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1998.

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Best Newspaper Writing, Poynter Institute (St. Petersburg, FL), 1990, 1995; Best American Sports Writing, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1993; and Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election, PublicAffairs (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: David von Drehle told CA:"I know only a few things about writing. The best way to communicate most information is to use stories. This worked for the tribal ancestors, and it worked for Homer, and it still works today. Tell a story; for nonfiction writers, tell a factual story. It is impossible to write clearly if you haven't figured out exactly what you are trying to say. By the same token, when your writing turns difficult or muddy, chances are you don't know quite what you want to say. If you are writing a book, choose a subject that you really love. It takes a lot of time and effort to write a good book, and sometimes all you have to keep you going is your belief and passion, so make sure you have it at the start. That's about it.

"The most recent story I told was called Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, the most complete account of a dramatic and horrifying turning point in American history. On March 25, 1911, at closing time, a fire broke out in New York's largest blouse factory, in a loft building high above the crowded city streets. A huge crowd watched as more than fifty victims, mostly young immigrant women, plunged from the windows to their deaths. Nearly 100 other victims died out of view of the crowd, many of them behind an illegally locked door.

"The Triangle factory was already well known to New Yorkers. A year earlier, it had been a center of an uprising by garment workers. After the fire, the same alliance of working-class organizers and wealthy progressives that had backed the strike came together again to demand safer facilities. And they forced a surprising reversal: the boss of New York's Tammany Hall machine approved sweeping reforms—paving the way for urban liberalism and the New Deal.

"Triangle is a story rich in colorful and important characters, from Tammany boss 'Silent Charlie' Murphy to suffrage leader Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont; from the immigrant seamstress Rosie Freedman to the wealthy Shirtwaist Kings Max Blanck and Isaac Harris; from labor firebrand Clara Lemlich to the once-fabled, now forgotten Max D. Steuer, the master trial lawyer who won a controversial acquittal for the owners of the Triangle factory. It recounts a moment when early feminism, progressivism, labor activism, and plain hardball politics came together to force lasting change. From violent picket lines to the horrible inferno itself, culminating in one of New York's most dramatic trials, Triangle tells one of America's most powerful and important stories."