This week we are featuring writers from UMD’s Reporting and Writing II and Specialized Reporting courses. Our theme is longform, a narrative form of journalism. Students were prompted to write a magazine-length piece and get out of their comfort zones to produce some creative nonfiction.

Following my ears I head back to the kitchen where I find everyone laughing hysterically. April Peterson, an intern from Le Cordon Blue, is on her hands and knees on the shelf beneath the industrial sink holding a broom and crying with laughter. Katie Berg, another employee, is doubled over beside her.

John Marshall looks like he was born for one reason and one reason only: to be in the armed forces.

Towering above the businesses and homes of Duluth’s Central Hillsideis a three-story, red brick gothic building that sits on the corner of West Fourth Street and North Second Avenue West. It’s beyond the walls of this abandoned Catholic elementary school that Oscar Lopez carries out his passion for helping children.

On April 12, 1941, at the age of 14, the German police invaded and evacuated my village of Grebien, Poland. The police went to our houses and ransacked our family’s homes, tore up the floors, and destroyed furniture trying to find any kind of hidden weapons or any evidence at all so they would have an excuse to execute us.

The future of baseball at the historic stadium, however, is looking dire unless funding can be secured for renovation. Plans call for $8.1 million worth of repairs and upgrades to the structure, amenities and playing field, with the state and city each covering half of the cost.