Emily Sohn on process and structure
For her award-winning narrative, "The Catch," journalist Emily Sohn profiled Virginia Kraft, who hunted with kings, drank with Hemingway, and wrote for Sports Illustrated—70 years ago.
A freelance journalist based in Minneapolis, Emily Sohn writes about science and the environment for National Geographic, the New York Times, Outside, Nature, the Discovery Channel, and other outlets. Last month’s issue of The Waterproof Notebook featured “The Catch,” her profile of Virginia Kraft. One of the first female staff writers for Sports Illustrated (SI) Kraft wrote about (and was skilled in) big-game hunting, tournament fishing, and other male-dominated pursuits in the 1950s.
“The Catch,” won a 2024 Webby Award, a Newhouse School Mirror Award for Best Profile, was anthologized in The Year’s Best Sports Writing, and and was selected by PopShift for the 2025 IP List, which includes 25 pieces of journalism worthy of film adaptation. She was selected as the winner of the 2025 Sharon Begley Award for Science Reporting and will use the $20,000 grant to work on a book, tentatively titled The New Wilderness, that “uncovers creatures thriving in human-altered environments.”
I asked Emily about her experience breaking into in outdoor writing and the challenges she encountered in reporting and writing “The Catch.”
How did you find this story idea?
The idea originally came from my friend David Wolman. He is a journalist, author, and founder of Story Bureau, an agency that works with writers to place stories that have potential for audio and video adaptation. He had come across a short piece about Virginia Kraft in a trade publication for horse breeders, and he had a feeling her life would make a good longform story. Given her background, he thought a woman should write it and brought the idea to me. I was intrigued.
How did your reporting unfold? Was your approach or process for this story different from that of other stories? What was it like to profile a character who isn’t around to interview?
When I’m profiling someone who is alive, they are usually the first person I reach out to. Since that wasn’t an option here, I cast a wide net. Kraft was a prolific writer in her journalism days, so the first thing I did was read her stories in the Sports Illustrated archive. It felt like the closest I could get to her voice, if an edited one. I scoured her work for any glimpses I could get of her opinions or personal life.
Then I reached out to anyone I could find who knew her. That included family and friends, as well as writers who overlapped with her at Sports Illustrated in the 1960s. I hit a lot of dead ends but every time I did find someone, they led me to others.
Kraft was well-known in her time, so I also collected a ton of newspaper and magazine stories about her. Those were fascinating because they helped me piece together a timeline of her life. They also raised new questions. Different accounts had different and sometimes contradictory details, which led to fascinating questions about how she may have shaped her own narrative.
What was your biggest reporting challenge? How did you overcome it?
One of the biggest challenges was just the sheer amount of material I ended up with. I am a huge fan of Scrivener, which helped me organize many dozens of interviews and articles in one place. I also wrote the story in sections, which helped me break down the process. Still, it ended up just taking a lot of time to read through everything and figure out how to string it all together. I went through all the materials multiple times to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important.
Can you describe the structure you chose for this story, and why you chose that structure?
When I first started reporting the story, I organized my interviews into three main buckets. There was Kraft’s personal life story (family and friends); her life as a sports journalist (colleagues); and her legacy and impact on women in sports writing (current women sports journalists). Part of my original plan was to retrace some of her reporting steps in order to investigate her legacy. So I added a fourth bucket, which became my reporting trip to Louisiana to attend a woman’s fishing tournament put on by the International Women’s Fishing Association. Kraft had written about the same organization back in the 1950s, and it is still going strong today.
The fishing trip became a useful narrative thread that brought me into the story. I was in the first draft but only minimally. The feedback I got was to slim down sections that I had over-reported and instead add more reflection. Ultimately, the narrative that emerged is a journey of discovery. Without giving too much away, I start out thinking I’m looking into the story of an overlooked hero. Along the way, I discover complexities. By the end, I’ve come to terms with a woman who broke down barriers but was far from perfect.
Did this story force you to learn any new skills in reporting or writing?
I had never written such a deeply historical or biographical story before. I learned a lot from story editor Glenn Stout about searching with Newspapers.com and Ancestry.com to track down a family history and articles that aren’t digitized. I also spent a few delightful hours in the archives at the University of Minnesota, looking through issues of Field & Stream magazine from the early 1950s. An old news story had mentioned that she wrote for the magazine under a male pseudonym, and I went looking for any mention of her actual name or image. Those old magazines were fascinating to look through. There was a lifetime of future story ideas in them.
Learn more about Emily and read her work at her website, Tidepoolsinc.com.