Stranger than fiction

Truth is stranger – and more hazardous – than fiction.

Nonfiction can be dangerous for those writers who are obsessed with learning the truth and sharing it with the world. Journalists, for instance, often confront a variety of threats in the course of their work, including natural disasters and military conflicts. That point was demonstrated recently when VICE News reporter Simon Ostrovsky was taken prisoner by pro-Russian militants. He was in eastern Ukraine reporting on the crisis when he was pulled out of his vehicle and taken away at gunpoint. 

After several nail-biting days during which Ostrovsky was not heard from and all requests for information from the militants were met by conflicting responses, he was finally released unharmed. While Ostrovsky's story has a happy ending, there are still many journalists being held prisoner by militants in Ukraine, including a number of Ukrainian journalists.

If you're interested in reading about the exploits of famous journalists, there are plenty of books to choose from, including Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation. Or if being taken prisoner by militants sounds like a good day at the office for you, and you want to make investigative journalism your new career, Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases, and Techniques is a popular book that's commonly found in newsrooms and journalism classrooms. Finally, if you want to take a break from reading, check out the HBO show VICE that follows the intrepid VICE News reporters as they travel the globe in search of true stories that are often stranger and more fascinating than any fiction. Just be careful out there.