Longform

The Mastermind (Evan Ratliff • Random House • 2019) @cragcrest Aschwanden's personal site [3:40] Aschwanden's archive at 538 [3:45] Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery (W. W. Norton & Company • 2019) [5:20] Fleishman Is in Trouble: A Novel (Taffy Brodesser-Akner • Random House • 2019) [13:35] Courage Camp: A Master Class on the Business of Freelancing [17:35] Aschwanden's freelancing archive [25:40] "The Change in Mammogram Guidelines" (LA Times • Mar 2011) [25:45] "Cancer Screening Can Do More Harm Than Good" (Popular Science • Jul 2014) [28:25] "Believe Tyler?" (Bicycling • Nov 2007) [pdf] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lydia Polgreen, former foreign correspondent and director of NYT Global at The New York Times, is the editor in chief of HuffPost. “Like a lot of people, I think I went a little bit crazy after Donald Trump got elected. ... If Hillary Clinton had won the election, I have a feeling that I would still be a mid-level manager at The New York Times. But after the election, I really started to think about journalism, about my role in it, about who journalism was serving and who it was for, and I just became really enamored with this idea that you could create a news organization that was less about people who are left out of the political and economic power equations, but actually for them.” Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @lpolgreen Polgreen on Longform [1:00] "Layoffs Underway at HuffPost a Day After Parent Company Verizon Announced Cuts" (Tom Kludt • CNN • Jan 2019) [7:45] Polgreen's New York Times archive [8:30] Marty Baron on Twitter [13:30] Roseveill Area Middle School [23:15] Washington Monthly [27:00] "Correcting the Record Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception" (New York Times • May 2003) [28:30] "A Racial Acceptance That Resonates" (New York Times • Dec 2013) [29:00] "200 Years After Napoleon, Haiti Finds Little to Celebrate" (New York Times • Jan 2004) [33:30] "Covering Sudan and Darfur's Plight" (NPR • May 2006) [35:30] "Money and Violence Hobble Democracy in Nigeria" (New York Times • Nov 2006) [45:30] "Lydia Polgreen on Leaving to Lead Huffington Post: ‘Hardest Decision I’ve Ever Made’" (New York Times • Dec 2016) [53:00] "Layoffs Hit HuffPost After $4.6 Billion Verizon Media Write-Down" (Andy Campbell • HuffPost • Jan 2019) [55:30] "Mic Shuts Down, a Victim of Management Hubris and Facebook’s Pivot to Video" (Mathew Ingram • CJR • Dec 2018) [56:00] "Founder’s Big Idea to Revive BuzzFeed’s Fortunes? A Merger With Rivals" (Edmund Lee • New York Times • Nov 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thomas Morton is a writer and former correspondent for HBO's _Vice News_. He was at Vice from 2004-2019 and is a major character in Jill Abramson's _Merchants of Truth_. “You have to go with your gut and I feel like that’s one of the most essential qualities in doing anything of the nature of what we did. Of making documentaries or reporting news or current events, you really have to have a good sense of intuition for who you’re dealing with, what they’re telling you, what you’re telling them, how you’re behaving. It’s all human interaction, you can’t govern that with hard and fast rules or with extremely set rules. Beyond the extreme ones there are always going to be murky areas. You have to be willing to accept that and work with those.” Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. The Mastermind (Evan Ratliff • Random House • Jan 2019) The Longform Podcast Live: The Mastermind book release party with special guests @Babyballs69 Morton on Longform "Oh, This Is Great" (Vice • Jan 2008) "In the Land of the Juggalos—A Juggalo Is King" (Vice • Sep 2007) [0:50] "News to Me" (Medium • Jan 2019) [1:00] The Merchants of Truth (Jill Abramson • Simon & Schuster • 2019) [20:45] Morton's archive at Vice [23:50] "I Joined Three Cults Simultaneously" (Vice • Sep 2006) [24:45] Aum Shinrikyo Wikipedia page [35:30] "Tobaccoland" (Vice • May 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Grann is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book is The White Darkness. “I do think in life, and in reporting, that reckoning with failure is a part of the process. And reckoning with your own limitations. I think that’s probably the arc and change I have made as I get older. Just as O’Shea doesn’t get the squid, failure is such an integral part of life and what you make of it. Too often we’re always focused on the success side, and I don’t always think the successes teach us as much as the journey and having things elude us. ... I'm being completely honest, I look at every story I've ever written as a failure. Because I always have some model, some perfect ideal, that I want to try to reach.” Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. The Mastermind (Evan Ratliff • Random House • Jan 2019) The Longform Podcast Live: The Mastermind book release party with special guests @DavidGrann Grann on Longform Longform Podcast #3: David Grann Longform Podcast #241: David Grann [1:50] The White Darkness (Doubleday • 2018) [1:55] "The White Darkness" (New Yorker • Feb 2018) [4:10] "The Squid Hunter" (New Yorker • May 2004) [11:40] Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Doubleday • 2017) [13:35] "The Lost City of Z" (New Yorker • Sep 2005) [13:40] The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Vintage • 2010) [14:45] "The Hero Myth" (New Republic • May 1999) [22:30] "The Yankee Comandante" (New Yorker • May 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tommy Tomlinson, a former newspaper columnist, is the host of Southbound podcast. His new book is The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America. “The thing that galvanized me was the death of my sister. I signed the contract November 2014, she died Christmas Eve of that year. She had been overweight just like me. She was older than me and died from complications, an infection that was directly connected to her weight. And that more than anything made me think if I don’t deal with this now, I’m not going to be around in 10 years to write this book. So, the book helped certainly. The idea that I was going to put this stuff on paper and expose myself in this way to the world and I didn’t want to be a failure at the end of it. More than that, I didn’t want to be a failure because I didn’t want to be a failure. I don’t want to die.” Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. The Mastermind (Evan Ratliff • Random House • Jan 2019) The Longform Podcast Live: The Mastermind book release party with special guests @tommytomlinson Tomlinson on Longform tommytomlinson.com [1:55] "You Can't Quit Cold Turkey" (ESPN Magazine • Aug 2014) [2:10] The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America (Simon & Schuster • 2019) [2:25] "The Weight I Carry" (The Atlantic • Jan 2019) [14:45] Longform podcast #317: Paige Williams [18:25] "The Hunley 8, The Charleston 9" (Charlotte Observer • Apr 2004) [22:20] "Something Went Very Wrong at Toomer's Corner" (Sports Illustrated • Aug 2011) [31:55] Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Roxane Gay • Harper • 2017) [36:20] Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout • Random House • 2008) [48:20] Southbound podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Julie Snyder, one of the first producers at This American Life, is the co-creator of Serial and S-Town. Serial Season 3 is out now. “I am constantly second-guessing myself. I am full of regret and recrimination all the time. I don’t pride myself on it cause it probably goes too far, but in other ways I do feel like I am a person who is very flawed and I make mistakes and I try and learn from them. And I try to be very open to other people’s thoughts and input and everything like that. So to be that open to criticism after season one [of Serial] was rough for being that open because we just got so much attention. I could feel people being like, ‘Oh, go cry on your bags of money.’ It was huge. I got that, but at the same time, it was hard to ignore.” Thanks to MailChimp, First Day Back, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. The Longform Podcast Live: The Mastermind book release party with special guests Serial S-Town Longform Podcast #159: Ira Glass Longform Podcast #239: Brian Reed Longform Podcast #273: Zoe Chace [7:20] Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse (Steve Bogira • Vintage • 2006) [58:50] Snyder on This American Life [59:05] "Throwing the First Punch" (This American Life • Mar 1998) [1:11:45] "Ira Glass's Commencement Speech at the Columbia Journalism School Graduation" (Ira Glass • This American Life • May 2018) [1:18:10] "Harper High School—Part One" (This American Life • Feb 2013) [1:18:15] "Harper High School—Part Two" (This American Life • Feb 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Doug Bock Clark has written for GQ, Wired, and The New Yorker. His new book is The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life. “I think for me the answer has always been you just find the people. You just listen to their stories. I think we're all microcosms, right? We're all fractals of the bigger world. Whether it's my own life or your life or the Lamalerans or other people I've encountered reporting. I think one of the things I'm constantly aware of is how these sort of greater world historical forces are working on us and shaping our lives. For more people than most people would assume, if you just followed their life and looked at it in the particulars but also in the broader circumstances, you could probably draw larger themes from them and their experiences. I never had any worries about whether I could expand the Lamaleran story. It was always just about getting those specific stories right, and I knew the rest of it would come.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. The Longform Podcast Live: The Mastermind book release party with special guests @DougBockClark Clark on Longform [1:10] "The Untold Story of Otto Warmbier, American Hostage" (GQ • Jul 2018) [1:20] "The Untold Story of Kim Jong-nam’s Assassination" (GQ • Sep 2018) [2:10] The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life (Little, Brown and Company • 2019) [2:10] "The Whalers' Odyssey" (The Atavist Magazine • Nov 2018) [2:20] The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal. (Evan Ratliff • Random House • 2019) [8:00] Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (Katherine Boo • Random House • 2014) [16:40] "The Second Tsunami" (Glimpse • Oct 2011) [22:20] "The Bot Bubble: How click farms have inflated social media currency" (The New Republic • Apr 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lizzie Johnson covers wildfires for the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s kind of like when you’re a beginning journalist and you have to write an obituary—calling the family of the person who died seems like this insurmountable, very invasive task and you really don’t want to do it. That’s kind of how I felt about interviewing fire victims at first. I felt like I was somehow intruding on their grief and their pain. But somewhere along the way I realized there’s healing power in talking about what you’ve been through. Saying it out loud and being able to claim ownership to it. I found that time after time these people are very grateful because they need to talk. They have something to say in the aftermath of this big, massive thing that just came and wiped out everything they knew. They really do just need someone to listen to them. I have never had someone tell me, ‘Go away, we don’t want to talk to you.’ And I’m completely bowled over by that every single time.” Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @lizziejohnsonnn Johnson on Longform Johnson's archive at San Francisco Chronicle [0:40] "A Fire, a Newborn Baby and a Pact: Tales of Survival From Paradise" (San Francisco Chronicle • Nov 2018) [3:20] "For Survivors of the Tubbs Fire, a New, Unhappy Normal" (San Francisco Chronicle • Oct 2018) [4:05] "After Deadly Carr Fire, a Question of How—and Whether—to Rebuild 1,000 Homes" (San Francisco Chronicle • Aug 2018) [17:45] Noah Berger Photography [23:40] "After Wine Country Fires, Victims Confront Emotional Ruins: ‘We Have a Long Way to Go’" (San Francisco Chronicle • Dec 2017) [29:45] "150 Minutes of Hell" (San Francisco Chronicle • Dec 2018) [39:20] "Ed Bledsoe Couldn’t Outrace the Carr Fire to Save His Family. But in His Heart, They’re Alive" (San Francisco Chronicle • Aug 2018) [41:05] "Signs of Life Amid Scars and Loss" (San Francisco Chronicle • Apr 2018) [42:50] "Regret Haunts Wine Country Fire Hero: ‘I’ve Never Cried This Much’" (San Francisco Chronicle • Jul 2018) [55:10] The Centerpiece [55:15] "City of Ash"(The Centerpiece • Oct 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Malcolm Gladwell is a New Yorker staff writer, the author The Tipping Point and Blink, and the host of Revisionist History. His new podcast is Broken Record. “The loveliest thing is to interview someone who’s never been interviewed before. To sort of watch them in a totally novel experience. Particularly when you’re interviewing them about things they never thought were worthy of an interview. That’s a really lovely experience. It’s like watching a kid on a roller coaster for the first time. But a celebrity is a very different kind of experience. The bar for them is quite high. They’ve been interviewed a million times, so you have to be on your game. You have to take them somewhere that’s a little unfamiliar to get them to perk up. Otherwise it’s just another of a long line of interviews. It’s a lot more demanding.” Thanks to MailChimp, Aspen Ideas To Go, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @Gladwell Gladwell on Longform [0:30] Gladwell on Episode 62 of the Longform Podcast [0:35] Gladwell on Episode 204 of the Longform Podcast [0:40] Revisionist History [0:45] Broken Record [2:20] David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (Little, Brown and Company • 2013) [2:30] Panoply [10:45] It's a Long Story: My Life (Willie Nelson • Little, Brown and Company • 2015) [28:00] Gladwell's archive at The New Yorker [28:50] Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Little, Brown and Company • 2005) [30:20] Revisionist History: Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis [30:45] Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments (Gina Perry • The New Press • 2013) [38:20] Revisionist History: Free Brian Williams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Samin Nosrat is a food writer, educator, and chef. She is the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and hosts a series by the same name on Netflix. “I kind of couldn’t exist as just a cook or a writer. I kind of need to be both. Because they fulfill these two totally different parts of myself and my brain. Cooking is really social, it’s very physical, and also you don’t have any time to become attached to your product. You hand it off and somebody eats it, and literally tomorrow it’s shit. … Whereas with writing, it’s the exact opposite. It’s super solitary. It’s super cerebral. And you have all the time in the world to get attached to your thing and freak out about it.” Thanks to MailChimp, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this episode. @CiaoSamin ciaosamin.com Salt Fat Acid Heat (Netflix) Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking (Simon & Schuster • 2017) [01:00] Pop-Up Magazine [23:00] Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Michael Pollan • Penguin Books • 2014) [25:15] Nosrat’s Archive at Edible [25:00] "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch" (Michael Pollan • New York Times Magazine • Jul 2009) [28:45] Wendy MacNaughton on the Longform Podcast [32:30] An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace (Tamar Adler • Scribner • 2012) [34:00] Levels of the Game (John McPhee • Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 1979) [46:50] Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell • Back Bay Books • 2011) [49:00] Golden Boy Pizza [50:15] "Cookbook Author Samin Nosrat Celebrates with Champagne and Babybels" (Sierra Tishgart • Grub Street • Apr 2017) [51:50] Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (Michael Moss • Random House • 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allison P. Davis is a staff writer at The Cut and New York. “I have no real advice other than don’t fuck it up and be afraid all the time. That’s the key to success. Don’t fuck it up. Be a little bit anxious all the time.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, Aspen Ideas To Go, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @AllisonPDavis Davis's archive at New York Mag [0:35] "Lena Dunham Comes to Terms with Herself" (The Cut • Nov 2018) [0:40] "Cardi B Was Made to Be Famous" (The Cut • Nov 2017) [0:50] Longform's Best of 2018 List [5:40] "Teen Mom Maci Bookout: In Her Own Words" (Teen Vogue • Nov 2010) [12:40] Davis's archive at Elle [16:40] "5 Reasons Why Hometown Tinder is The Worst Tinder" (GQ • Nov 2015) [18:05] "Gigi Hadid Is Now on the Cover of CR Fashion Book" (The Cut • Feb 2014) [20:50] Davis's archive at The Ringer [22:55] "Lainey Is Yours in Gossip" (The Ringer • Oct 2016) [28:10] "97 Minutes With John David Washington" (Vulture • Aug 2018) [28:15] "Tessa Thompson Knows People Can’t Stop Thinking About Her" (The Cut • Aug 2018) [35:45] "My Date with Noah Centineo" (The Cut • Sep 2018) [37:10] "Michael B. Jordan Will Be King" (GQ • Nov 2018) [57:45] "You Know He Got That Big Dick Energy" (The Cut • Jun 2018) [58:30] "Are We Ready for Robot Sex? " (The Cut • May 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan Taberski is the host of Missing Richard Simmons and Surviving Y2K. “Why would you walk into podcasting, where not a lot of rules have been written yet, why would walk into that space and be like, I'm just going to stick to the rules over here. It doesn't make any sense. ... Sourcing, respect for privacy — all these rules are here for a reason. And there's a line you shouldn't cross. But I don't see the point of not walking up to that line and looking over it. Because that is where interesting stuff is happening. ... To be able to earn that ability to cross the line a little bit and then jump back to where you belong, I think that's where beautiful storytelling happens.” Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this bonus episode. @dtaberski Missing Richard Simmons Surviving Y2K [21:30] “‘Missing Richard Simmons’ and the Queasiness of Deep-Dive Entertainment Journalism” (Sarah Larson • New Yorker • Mar 2017) [21:40] Richard Simmons’s Disappearing Act Inspires a Hit Podcast (Sopan Deb • New York Times • Mar 2017) [21:40] “‘Missing Richard Simmons,’ the Morally Suspect Podcast” (Amanda Hess • New York Times • Mar 2017) [34:00] S-Town [46:15] Longform Podcast #44: Gay Talese [46:15] Longform Podcast #226: Terry Gross Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maria Streshinsky is the executive editor at Wired. “Sometimes a story comes in and it’s really lovely and well done. And you think if you just got on the phone with this person and pointed out the structure is wrong here and the chronology is wrong here, ask them to change that and send them what is known at Wired as the ‘praise sandwich letter’: how wonderful something is, how much work it will need, how wonderful it will be. … It’s not the kiss of death, it’s ‘we have a lot of work to do.’ … There are lots of pieces that come in that you’ve assigned because it’s the person with the right information with the right access, and they’re a good reporter, but maybe not a terrific wordsmith. So, you do more rewriting. Then there’s the other person that’s a really lovely, lovely writer that doesn’t have the structure and the reporting so you push on that. It’s sort of a three or four-pronged thing—it depends on the piece. I will say, somewhat controversially, there aren’t that many pieces that come in pretty clean.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @mstreshinsky Streshinsky's archive at Wired [5:40] Streshinsky's archive at Mother Jones [7:45] Streshinsky's archive at The Atlantic [8:45] "Women Aren't Welcome Here" (Amanda Hess • Pacific Standard • Jan 2014) [12:00] "How One Woman's Digital Life Was Weaponized Against Her" (Brooke Jarvis • Wired • Nov 2017) [23:05] "Inside the Two Years That Shook Facebook—and the World" (Nick Thompson & Dave Vogelstein • Wired • Feb 2018) [25:15] "Saving Lives with Tech Amid Syria's Endless Civil War" (Danny Gold • Wired • Aug 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nicholas Schmidle is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His latest article is "Virgin Galactic's Rocket Man." “I think there’s a lot more pressure that I’ve put on myself to make sure that the next [article] is better than the last one. To make sure there are sourcing standards and expectations I have for myself now that I might not have had earlier. I’m putting even more priority on building long-term relationships in which I trust an individual. ... I feel like the pieces coming in are tighter in terms of sourcing, but story selection becomes a lot more difficult. You want to do a different story.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @nickschmidle Schmidle on Longform Longform Podcast #46: Nicholas Schmidle [2:00] "In the Crosshairs" (New Yorker • Jun 2013) [2:00] "Getting bin Laden" (New Yorker • Aug 2011) [2:20] "Virgin Galactic's Rocket Man" (New Yorker • Aug 2018) [20:45] "Michael Flynn, General Chaos" (New Yorker • Feb 2017) [24:30] A Man in Full (Tom Wolfe • Farrar, Straus & Giroux • 1998) [24:40] I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel (Tom Wolfe • Farrar, Straus & Giroux • 2004) [25:00] The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe • Farrar, Straus & Giroux • 1979) [31:45] "Freedom for Tyrone Hood" (New Yorker • Jan 2015) [33:45] "A Very Rare Book" (New Yorker • Dec 2013) [37:00] The Staircase (Jean-Xavier de Lestrade • Netflix • 2004) [39:45] "The Digital Dirt" (The New Yorker • Feb 2016) [40:10] "The Kings of the Desert" (New Yorker • Apr 2015) [48:00] "Ten Borders" (New Yorker • Oct 2015) [56:20] "The Digital Vigilantes Who Hack Back" (New Yorker • May 2008) [57:00] Scrivener software Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Irin Carmon is a senior correspondent at New York Magazine, a contributor at CNN, and the co-author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “The fact that we were part of this entire wave of reporting was actually exhilarating. Even when it was competitive. For me, my desire to do this comes out of a broader set of commitments to the world. I’m a feminist and I’m a journalist. The ability to do feminist investigative journalism felt like a gift. And it also felt like, wow, this thing I’d been working on for a long time is something that institutions—the most prestigious and well-resourced institutions—wanted to put resources to. … I think that that kind of commitment is significant in our culture because it is validating us as a point of inquiry.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, TBD with Tina Brown, Screen Dive, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @irin Carmon on Longform irincarmon.com [2:20] "Eight Women Say Charlie Rose Sexually Harassed Them — With Nudity, Groping and Lewd Calls" (Washington Post • Nov 2018) [33:05] Carmon's archive at Village Voice [34:20]Carmon's archive at Women's Wear Daily [34:40] Carmon's archive at Jezebel [44:25] "College Girl's PowerPoint 'Fuck List' Goes Viral" (Jezebel • Oct 2010) [53:00] "Heidi Heitkamp Doesn’t Care That You Think She’s Going to Lose" (The Cut • Oct 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Madeleine Baran is an investigative reporter for APM Reports and the host and lead reporter of the podcast In the Dark. “We’re always thinking about first not so much the narrative, but first what did we find out and how is it important? And how can we construct a story that’s going to take people along on that and they’re going to care about it and be able to follow it. That’s a challenge in any kind of serialized podcast or film where you have one narrative arc from start to finish in a season, but you also have all these individual episodes with narrative arcs. And because we’re not novelists, we don’t get to change the facts, sometimes there are these facts you do not like cause they’re really confusing and you wish they were not that way. We spend a lot of time in storyboarding and edits and group edits and sound edits. We bring in people who don’t know what we’re doing and have them listen for mostly for clarity and confusion.” Thanks to MailChimp, Screen Dive podcast, Skagen, Squarespace, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @madeleinebaran [1:15] In the Dark podcast [22:20] Jerry Mitchell at Clarion Ledger [58:55] Caliphate podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beth Macy is an author and former reporter at The Roanoke Times. Her latest book is Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America. “I learned how to interview by delivering papers. I didn’t know it was interviewing, but I would stop and talk to old people who were bored and lonely and have great conversations. I think I learned how to talk to people by delivering the papers. And there’s a certain thing you have to do when you have to collect the money and learn how to negotiate with people when you’re 11. That’s some reporting skills too.” Thanks to MailChimp, School of Art Institute of Chicago, Skagen, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @papergirlmacy [1:15] Headlong: Surviving Y2K [1:50] Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America (Little, Brown and Company • 2018) [2:00] Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town (Little, Brown and Company • 2015) [2:05] Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South (Little, Brown and Company • 2016) [3:50] Longform newsletter [22:20] Macy on Nieman Foundation [54:00] "After the Shouting" (Roanoke Times • Jun 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paige Williams is a New Yorker staff writer and the author of The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy. “I was just sitting in a coffee shop and saw this thing about a Montana dinosaur thief, and thought, oh that’s really interesting, I don’t know anything about that. And I knew nothing about natural history, nothing about natural history museums. I was born and raised in Mississippi. We didn’t talk about that kind of stuff. I grew up in the Baptist church. It certainly wasn’t mentioned there. … It just was a world completely alien to me, which I love. I love going into worlds that I know nothing about, and I like to take them apart and put them back together again.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, Squarespace, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @williams_paige Williams on Longform [3:30] "Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s Battering Ram" (New Yorker • Sep 2018) [9:30] "The Bizarre Tale of the ‘Dinosaur Artist’ Who Trafficked in Stolen Fossils" (Peter Brannen • New York Times • Oct 2018) [41:30] "Observer Wins Pulitzer Prize for Coverage of PTL, Bakkers" (Karen Garloch • Charlotte Observer • April 1988) [41:30] "Sketches of the New Pulitzer Winners, including 'Brown Lung: A Case of Deadly Neglect'" (New York Times • April 1981) [42:30] Nieman Fellowship [48:00] "How Waffle House Became a Cultural Icon" (Atlanta • Dec 2007) [48:45] "'You Have Thousands of Angels Around You'" (Atlanta • Oct 2007) [57:00] "Finding Dolly Freed" (Self-Published • Jan 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Hagan is a correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine. “It’s the story that begins with John Lennon on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1967 and ends with Donald Trump in the White House. In many ways the book takes you there, I wanted it to. It takes you through the culture as it metastasizes into what it is now. It had a lot to do with a sense of the age of narcissism. The worship of celebrity. Jann was very into celebrity, and worshipful of it and glorifying it and turning it into a thing and eventually celebrity displaces a lot of the ideas they originally started with in my estimation. That was a narrative thread that I began to pull in the book.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, Screen Dive, Stoner, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @joehagansays Hagan on Longform [09:45] "Blues Cruise" (New York • Dec 2012) [09:50] "Shipping Out" (David Foster Wallace • Harper's • Jan 1996) [11:10] Among the Thugs (Bill Buford • Vintage • 1993) [16:25] "An Incorrect Artifact With Aging Fans" (New York Times • Oct 2000) [22:10] "The Long, Lawless Ride of Sheriff Joe Arpaio" (Rolling Stone • Aug 2012) [25:45] "Tenacious G" (New York • Jul 2009) [33:35] Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña (David Hajdu • Picador • 2011) [42:20] Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (Hunter S. Thompson • Random House • 1972) [1:09:30] "The Trouble With Johnny Depp" (Stephen Rodrick • Rolling Stone • Jun 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change and The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, is a staff writer at The New Yorker. “I still nurse the idea in my heart of hearts that something you write, that there’s some key to this all. We’re all looking for the skeleton key that’s going to unlock it, and people will go, ‘Oh, that’s why we have to do something!’ I don’t want to say that I completely dispensed with that. I think that’s what motivates most journalists—this information is going to somehow make a difference. On the other hand, I have dispensed a lot of that. Now we’re so deep into all of this. The more you know about climate change and the numbers involved and the scale involved of what we need to do to really mitigate this problem, you know that we’re moving in absolutely the wrong direction. It’s not like we’re moving slowly, we’re moving in the wrong direction. It’s very hard to say anything I write is going to turn this battleship around.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, Squarespace, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @ElizKolbert Kolbert on Longform [0:10]The TED Interview [0:45]Underdog [2:20] The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Picador • 2014) [2:25] Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (Bloomsbury • 2006) [7:55] "The Fate of Earth" (New Yorker • Oct 2017) [22:30] "The Calculator" (New Yorker • Nov 2002) [28:45] The End of Nature (Bill McKibben • Random House • 2006) [40:05] "The Climate of Man" (New Yorker • Apr 2005) [40:20] "The Darkening Sea" (New Yorker • Nov 2006) [40:30] "Enter the Anthropocene—Age of Man" (National Geographic • Nov 2006) [40:30] No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies (William Vollman • Viking • 2018) [40:35] No Good Alternative: Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies (William Vollman • Viking • 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lisa Brennan-Jobs is a New York-based writer. Her new book Small Fry is about her childhood and her relationship with her father, Steve Jobs. "You find yourself in a whole net, in a constellation of stories, each one connecting to another. It was amazing how much I remembered. Sometimes I meet people and they say, goodness, I can’t even remember what I had for lunch. How can you remember so much? And I think, oh, sit down for a while writing badly and you will remember and remember and remember. Some things weren’t terribly pleasant to remember. And some things were incredibly wonderful." Thanks to MailChimp, Under My Skin, Skagen, Sleeping Beauty Dreams, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @LisaBrennanJobs Brennan-Jobs on Longform [1:35] Small Fry (Grove Press • 2018) [48:55] "Growing Up Jobs" (Vanity Fair • Sep 2018) [49:00] "In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?" (Nellie Bowles • The New York Times • Aug 2018) [56:15] Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson • Simon & Schuster • 2011) [56:20] Steve Jobs (Aaron Sorkin • Universal Pictures • 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Liana Finck writes for The New Yorker. Her new book is Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir. "I was drawing since I was 10 months old. My mom had left this vibrant community of architects and art people to live in this idyllic country setting with my dad, and she poured all of her art feelings into me. She really praised me for being this baby genius, which I may or may not have been. But I grew up thinking I was an amazing artist. There weren’t any other artists around besides my mom, so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. There were no art classes around. … I was so shy, so I was just always drawing and making things." Thanks to MailChimp, Lean In podcast, Under My Skin, Skagen, Squarespace, Sleeping Beauty Dreams, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @lianafinck [2:10]Finck's archive at The New Yorker [2:15]Finck on Instagram [2:25]Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir (Random House • 2018) [3:20] "The Silk Road's Dark-Web Dream Is Dead" (Andy Greenburg • Wired • Jan 2016) [3:25] "The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History" (Andy Greenburg • Wired • Aug 2018) [13:40] "What I Miss: A List" (Catapult • Apr 2018) [43:05] Very Semi-Serious (The New Yorker • 2015) [53:00] "Dear Pepper: Airport Pickups, Where to Live, and Departed Dogs" (The New Yorker • Aug 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rebecca Traister is a writer at New York. Her new book is Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger. “I don’t want my experience to be held up as so, ladies, your new health regimen is rage all day. Because the fact is we live in a world that does punish women for expressing their anger, that denies them jobs, that attaches to them bad reputations as difficult-to-work-with, crazy bitches. Because they’re reasonably angry about something they have every reason to be angry about. We live in a world in which black women’s anger is either caricatured and they get written off as cartoons, or regarded as threats and face steep, often physical penalties for expressing dissent or dissatisfaction. When I talk about this, I don’t mean it to be prescriptive, I mean it to be descriptive of a particular experience I had that was extraordinarily unusual but which made me question a premise that I think all of us internalize that the anger is bad for us. I no longer believe that that’s true.” Thanks to MailChimp, Skagen, Under My Skin, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @rtraister Traister on Longform [2:30] Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger (Rebecca Traister • 2018) [7:55] "What a Good Boy" (The Cut • Sep 2018) [26:50]Traister's archive at Observer [29:05]Traister's archive at Salon [32:50] "Hillary Clinton Didn’t Shatter the Glass Ceiling. This Is What Broke Instead." (The Cut • Nov 2016) [35:50] "Michelle Obama Gets Real" (Salon • Nov 2007) [38:55] Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women (Free Press • 2011) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jerry Saltz is a Pulitzer-winning art critic for New York. “To this day I wake up early and I have to get to my desk to write almost immediately. I mean fast. Before the demons get me. I got to get writing. And once I’ve written almost anything, I’ll pretty much write all day, I don’t leave my desk, I have no other life. I’m not part of the world except when I go to see shows.” Thanks to MailChimp, TapeACall, The Dream, Squarespace, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @jerrysaltz Saltz on Instagram Saltz on Longform [2:35] Saltz's archive at New York Magazine [12:50] Jerry Saltz YOUNG-HOFFMAN GALLERY AND N.A.M.E. GALLERY (Art Forum Magazine • Dec 1977) [1:01:35] Saltz's archive at The Village Voice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eli Saslow is a Pulitzer-winning feature writer for the Washington Post. His new book is Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist. “If I'm writing about somebody once for 5,000 words in the Washington Post — someone who's addicted to drugs, say — I am choosing in the public eye where their story ends. Like, that's it. People aren't going to know any more. That's where I'm going to leave them being written about. And of course, that is inherently artificial — nothing ends, their life is continuing. This is just where the narrative ends. I recognize the weight in ways that maybe I didn’t before.” Thanks to MailChimp, Outside the Box, Squarespace, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @elisaslow Saslow on Longform Longform Podcast #57: Eli Saslow Saslow's Washington Post archive [1:20] Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist (Doubleday • 2018) [18:00] ‘It Was My Job, and I Didn’t Find Him’: Stoneman Douglas Resource Officer Remains Haunted by Massacre (Washington Post • Jun 2018) [25:55] The White Flight of Derek Black (Washington Post • Oct 2016) [33:20] Gun Violence’s Distant Echo (Washington Post • May 2016) [48:15] ‘You’re One of Us Now' (Washington Post • Aug 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeanne Marie Laskas writes for GQ and the New York Times Magazine. Her new book is To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope. “I hate saying this out loud, but it’s true: I’m really shy. Fundamentally, I'm 100% scared most of the time. I’m scared and wondering how I can not be noticed because I don’t know what to say and I’m shy. If you say I’m a good listener, that's why … I become more invisible so I’m more comfortable.” Thanks to MailChimp, Techmeme Ride Home Podcast, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @jmlaskas Longform Podcast #9: Jeanne Marie Laskas Laskas on Longform jeannemarielaskas.com [2:10] Concussion (Random House • 2015) [2:20] To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope (Random House • 2018) [2:30] "To Obama With Love, and Hate, and Desperation" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2017) [23:20] "Have You Heard the One About President Joe Biden?" (GQ • Jul 2013) [43:20] "Guns 'R Us" (GQ • Aug 2012) [43:25] "Inside the Federal Bureau Of Way Too Many Guns" (GQ • Aug 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elif Batuman is a novelist and a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her latest article is “Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry.” “I hear novelists say things sometimes like the character does something they don’t expect. It’s like talking to people who have done ayahuasca or belong to some cult. That’s how I felt about it until extremely recently. All of these people have drunk some kind of Kool Aid where they’re like, ‘I’m in this trippy zone where characters are doing things.’ And I would think to myself, if they were men—Wow, this person has devised this really ingenious way to avoid self-knowledge. If they were women, I would think—Wow, this woman has found an ingenious way to become complicit in her own bullying and silencing. It’s only kind of recently—and with a lot of therapy actually—that I’ve come to see that there is a mode of fiction that I can imagine participating in where, once I’ve freed myself of a certain amount of stuff I feel like I have to write about, which has gotten quite large by this point, it would be fun to make things up and play around.” Thanks to MailChimp, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @BananaKarenina Batuman on Longform Batuman's archive at The New Yorker Batuman's archive at Harper's Batuman's archive at London Review of Books [1:00] “Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry” (The New Yorker • Apr 2018) [10:00] The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2010) [10:00] The Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky • The Russian Messenger • 1812) [11:00] The Idiot (Penguin Book • 2017) [14:00] Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel (Lennard Davis • Columbia University Press • 1983) [20:00] The Exception (Christian Jungersen • Anchor • 2008) [21:00] The End of the Story: A Novel (Lydia Davis • Picador • 2004) [27:00] Culture and Imperialism (Edward Said • Vintage • 1994) [28:00] Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (Soren Kierkegaard • Victor Eremita • 1843) [29:00] Scrivener Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jon Caramanica is a music writer at The New York Times. “I like to interview people very early in their careers or very late in their careers. I think vulnerability and willingness to be vulnerable is at a peak in those two parts. Young enough not to know better, old enough not to give a damn. … The story I want to tell is—how are you this person, and then you became this? Then at the end, let’s look back on these things and let’s paint the art together. But in the middle when your primary obsession is how do I protect my role? How do I keep my spot? How do I keep the throne? I’m not as interested in that personally as a journalist or as a critic. ” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @joncaramanica Caramanica on Longform [3:35] "The Education of Kanye West" (New York Times • Aug 2007) [4:00] Caramanica's archive at The New York Times [4:05] Popcast [13:30] "Pitched to Perfection: Pop Star's Silent Partner" (New York Times • Jun 2012) [25:45] "Two SoundCloud Rap Outlaws Push Boundaries From the Fringes" (New York Times • Mar 2018) [28:45] "Dick Cavett in the Digital Age" (Alex Williams • New York Times • Aug 2018) [28:55] "Hip-Hop’s Elders and Youth Go to Battle (Again)" (New York Times • Jan 2017) [34:10] "Into the Wild With Kanye West" (New York Times • Jun 2018) [57:10] "Post Malone and Rae Sremmurd, Hip-Hop Impressionists Shaping the Stream" (New York Times • May 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeff Maysh is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. His latest article is "How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions." “I’ve always looked for stories with the theme of identity and identity theft. I’m very interested in people leading double lives. All of my stories are the same in a sense. Whether that’s a spy or a fake cheerleader or a bank robber or even a wrestler, someone is pretending to be someone they’re not, leading a double life. I find that really exciting. I’m drawn to characters who put on a disguise.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, Pitt Writers, and Coin Talk for sponsoring this week's episode. @jeffmaysh Maysh on Longform jeffmaysh.com [1:15] "The Half-Time Hero" (Howler • Sep 2013) [1:45] "How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions" (The Daily Beast • Jul 2017) [6:20] "A Catfishing With a Happy Ending" (The Atlantic • Oct 2017) [19:55] "America Is Bull" (Jeanne Marie Laskas • Esquire • Jan 2007) [27:55] Epic Magazine [29:50] "Behind Hollywood’s A-List Bidding War for a McDonald’s Monopoly Article" (Chris Lee • Vulture • Aug 2018) [30:30] "Elizabeth Banks To Star In & Produce Paramount Players Pic On The Day A Wyoming Hotel Maid Won A Dream Date With Prince" (Mike Flemming Jr. • Deadline • Aug 2018) [38:25] "The Cop Who Became a Robber" (Los Angeles Magazine • Aug 2017) [39:35] The Spy With No Name (Kindle Singles • 2018) [40:30] "The Rise and Fall of the Bombshell Bandit" (BBC News • Apr 2015) [49:45] "The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy" (Michael Paterniti • Esquire • Jun 2009) [50:30] "Murder House" (Medium • Sep 2015) [53:35] "The Counterfeit Queen of Soul" (Smithsonian Magazine • Jul 2018) [57:55] "The Scarface of Sex: The Millionaire Playboy Who Murdered His Way to the Top of Porn" (Daily Beast • Jun 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Marchese is the interviewer for New York's "In Conversation" series. "The thing I like about doing long interviews with people is that each one feels like a totally unique experience to me. It’s not like I go into an interview and already know the arc of the story I’m going to tell, and I’m going to just fill that in the best I can. I have ideas of what to talk about and what the conversation might entail, but it does feel like I’m starting at zero and the conversation can go anywhere.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @david_marchese Marchese on Longform [2:40] Marchese on Vulture [3:30] Marchese on Salon [3:35] Marchese on Spin [6:40] "In Conversation: John Oliver" (Vulture • Feb 2016) [7:00] "In Conversation: Louis C.K." (Vulture • Jun 2016) [7:10] "In Conversation: David Letterman" (Vulture • Mar 2017) [8:10] "In Conversation: Julian Casablancas" (Vulture • Mar 2018) [12:10] "In Conversation: Jeff Goldblum" (Vulture • Jun 2018) [12:35] "In Conversation: Billy Joel" (Vulture • Jul 2018) [16:00] "The Billy Joel Essays: Essays from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" (Chuck Klosterman • Scribner • Jul 2018) [17:35] "In Conversation: Kathleen Turner" (Vulture • Aug 2018) [35:40] "In Conversation: Dave Matthews" (Vulture • May 2018) [45:15] "The SPIN Interview: Lou Reed" (Spin • Nov 2008) [50:30] "In Conversation: Quincey Jones" (Vulture • Feb 2018) [50:45] "In Conversation: John Cleese" (Vulture • Sep 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nathaniel Rich is a novelist and a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. His most recent article is "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change." “There’s a huge opportunity with climate change because we talk a lot about the political issue with it, the industry story and the scientific story, but we don’t talk about the human story. And I would say that not only is it a big human story, but it is the human story. ... With every step of the ladder that we’ve advanced, we’re borrowing from our future. I don’t think we’ve reckoned with that in a serious way.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @NathanielRich nathanielrich.com Rich on Longform Longform Podcast #96: Nathaniel Rich [00:30] King Zeno (MCD • 2018) [1:30] "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2018) [4:10] "Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart" (Scott Anderson • New York Times Magazine • Aug 2018) [45:30] "The Problem With The New York Times’ Big Story on Climate Change" (Robinson Meyer • The Atlantic • Aug 2018) [57:59] No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies (William Vollmann • Viking • 2018) [58:00] No Good Alternative: Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies (William Vollmann • Viking • 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Laura June is author of Now My Heart Is Full. “Parenting wasn’t considered literary fodder for a long time. I think women in particular are raised not to complain. Which is not what I was doing. If you have to boil it down, it’s base emotion. Then you’re complaining about how hard it is. Or, the opposite end, you’re bragging. There’s no in between. Most of my writing is in between.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @laura_june June on Longform [1:25] June on The Verge [1:25] "For Amusement Only" (The Verge • Jan 2013) [2:10] Now My Heart Is Full [2:40] Topolsky on Longform [3:15] June's archive at The Cut [11:00] June's archive at The Awl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rukmini Callimachi covers ISIS for The New York Times and is the host of Caliphate. “My major takeaway that I have come away with in this work is go to the enemy. Talk to the enemy. I think that the way that Al Qaeda and ISIS is typically covered is by reporters who just speak to officials in Washington. ... That’s only one side of the story. And I have learned so much by seeking out their documents, reading their propaganda ... speaking to them themselves.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Stitcher Premium for sponsoring this week's episode. @rcallimachi Callimachi on Longform [3:15] Longform Podcast #129: Rukmini Callimachi (February 2015) [3:30] Caliphate [8:30] The Daily [25:00] “Justice for Our Children, Killed by ISIS” (New York Times • February 2018) [27:45] Shoah (Claude Lanzmann • April 1985) [28:15] The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William Shirer • 1960) [31:00] “Thousands of Children Work in African Gold Mines”(New York Times • August 2008) [1:12:45] “The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” (Lawrence Wright • 2006) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Megan Greenwell is the editor-in-chief of Deadspin. “I’m the first external hire to be the EIC in Deadspin history, so not everybody knew me or knew anything about my work. I don’t think there was resistance to me being hired, but I do think when you’re coming in from outside, there’s a need to say, ‘Hey, no, I can do this.’ Somebody told me about a management adage at one point: everybody tries to prove that they’re competent when they first start, and what you actually have to prove is you’re trustworthy. That is something that I think about all the time.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Stitcher Premium for sponsoring this week's episode. @megreenwell Greenwell on Longform Deadspin [4:30] Press Release: "Univision to Explore Potential Sale of Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion" (July 2018) [23:00] "Welcome to Deadspin. We Come With a Pure Heart and Mirthful Disposition" (Will Leitch • Sep 2005) [33:00] "The Marathon of Their Lives" (David Fleming • ESPN • Oct 2013) [40:45] "How Things Went Bad at GOOD Magazine, What's Next for Fired Staff and the Company They Left" (Andrew Beaujon • Poynter • Jun 2012) [44:00] "Water's Edge (Taffy Brodesser-Akner • ESPN • Mar 2016) [44:00] "You Can Only Hope to Contain Them" (Amanda Hess • ESPN • Jul 2013) [46:00] "Me, My Father, and Russell Wilson" (Mina Kimes • Slate • Jan 2014) [49:45] "One Mission, Two Newsrooms" (Erik Wemple • Washington City Paper • Feb 2008) [56:30] "Fear Drives Baghdad's Housing Bust" (Washington Post • Sep 2007) [1:03:30] Greenwell's thread about leaving Esquire [1:04:30] "Extra! Extra!" (Alex Foege • People • Mar 2000) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bryan Fogel is the Oscar-winning director of Icarus. “There was a long period of time that none of us were really thinking so much about the film. It was really that we were in a real-world crisis. Gregory's life was essentially in my hands.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Stitcher Premium for sponsoring this week's episode. @bryanfogel icarus.film Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah is an essayist. Her 2017 GQ piece “A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof” won the National Magazine Award and the Pulitzer Prize. “I remember feeling like ‘you’re playing chess with evil, and you gotta win.’ Because this is the most terrible thing I’d ever seen. And I was so mad. I still get so mad. Words aren’t enough. I’m angry about it. I can’t do anything to Dylann Roof, physically, so this is what I could do.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, and Netflix for sponsoring this week's episode. the-rachelkaadzighansah.tumblr.com Kaadzi Ghansah on Longform Longform Podcast #101: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah "A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof" (GQ • Aug 2017) [21:30] "America’s Most Political Food" (Lauren Collins • New Yorker • Apr 2017) [23:15] Light in August (William Faulkner • Random House • 1990) [43:30] "The Rise of the Valkyries" (Seyward Darby • Harper’s • Sep 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

May Jeong is a magazine writer and investigative reporter. “I don’t have kids, I don’t have an expensive drug habit. Everything that I do right now at this moment in my life is to serve the story. That means that sometimes I’m not the best partner. I’m not the best friend. I’m a really terrible daughter probably. If my parents had a satisfaction survey, I don’t think I’d rank really high. I have friends who are buying houses and stuff. I’m very far away from that. What else have I sacrificed? I don’t know. Sometimes I let my body atrophy because I’m on the road all the time. I think I can do it for five more years. I’m 30, so thing will have to change.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Casper, and You Can't Make This Up for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: Longform Podcast t-shirts are still available! @mayjeong mayreports.com May Jeong on Longform May Jeong's archive at The Intercept [01:50] "The Final, Terrible Voyage of the Nautilus" (Wired • Feb 2015) [14:00] Nathan Thornburgh on Longform [17:45] May Jeong's archive at The New Yorker [24:30] "Death from the Sky" (The Intercept • Apr 2016) [36:15] "The Avenger" (Patrick Radden Keefe • The New Yorker • Sep 2015) [41:30] "Losing Sight" (The Intercept • Jan 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Helen Rosner is a food correspondent at The New Yorker. “I believe the things that are really important to me are structure over all and—forgive me, I’ve said this on other podcasts before—if I were going to get a tattoo this is what I would get a tattoo of is that it doesn’t matter what you say, it only matters what they hear. It’s my job to make sure the gulf between those two things is as narrow as possible and there’s as little ambiguity between what I say and what you hear. It’s never easy, but it’s certainly easier in the realm of arguable objectivity. To create emotion in a reader requires a huge amount of really thoughtful work on the part of the writer in a way that forces you as a writer to remove yourself from the emotion you’re creating in the reader. If I to set you up for sadness, I have to create emotional stakes. I have to create investment in whoever I’m talking about or whatever the story’s about. The craft of making stakes and setting up a potential downfall, a potential loss, whatever it may be I think is not something you can do well if you’re feeling the feeling you’re trying to create in the reader.” Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, and You Can't Make This Up for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: very rare, very exclusive Longform Podcast t-shirts are still available! @helsn Rosner on Longform Helen Rosner's official site Helen Rosner's archive at The New Yorker [06:15] Menu Pages [08:40] Helen Rosner's archive at New York Magazine [12:35] Helen Rosner's archive at Saveur [19:40] "The Exquisite Blankness (and Highly Suspect Guacamole) of Antoni Porowski from 'Queer Eye'" (The New Yorker • Mar 2018) [32:10] "The Best Time I Got a Bikini Wax" (The Hairpin • Mar 2011) [33:15] Helen Rosner's archive at Eater [38:30] "There’s nothing good in cooking, but there are no other options." (Sandra Zhao • Eater • Aug 2016) [40:20] "One Night at Kachka" (Erin DeJesus with Danielle Centoni and Jen Stevenson • Eater • Jun 2015) [49:55] "On Chicken Tenders" (Guernica Mag • Jun 2015) [51:00] The Boundaries of Taste [1:06:10] The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster • Random House • 1961) [1:16:20] "An MSG Convert Visits the High Church of Umami" (The New Yorker • Apr 2018) [1:16:30] "Christ in the Garden of Endless Breadsticks" (Eater • Oct 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reeves Wiedeman is a reporter at New York. “I think the main reason I love the job is reporting. And the fact that you get to go out into situations that you wouldn’t otherwise as your job. I’m someone who gets antsy if I’m just on a vacation sitting around. I’d much rather go somewhere weird and kind of have a purpose. So, just feeling like you can kind of go anywhere and see anything and talk to anyone is a pretty cool way to live your day.” Thanks to MailChimp, Pitt Writers, Thermacell, and Best Self for sponsoring this week's episode. @reeveswiedeman Wiedeman on Longform Wiedeman's archive at New York Magazine Wiedeman's archive at The New Yorker [01:10] “The Sand Hook Hoax” (New York Magazine • Sep 2017) [04:00] “The Dirtbag Left’s Man in Syria” (New York Magazine • Apr 2017) [04:05] “Gray Hat” (New York Magazine • Mar 2018) [09:25] Brian Krebs on Security [09:30] Motherboard [16:35] “The Rockefellers vs. the Company That Made Them Rockefellers” (New York Magazine • Jan 2018) [19:20] Kansas City Star [30:05] “The Great Whiskey Heist” (Men's Journal • Jan 2016) [31:10] “A Full Revolution” (The New Yorker • May 2016) [31:45] “Meet the Prom Queen of Instagram” (New York Magazine • Sep 2015) [34:10] Chronicle of Higher Education [37:35] “The Dime Store Floor” (David Owen • The New Yorker • Jan 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elif Batuman is a novelist and a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her latest article is “Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry.” “I hear novelists say things sometimes like the character does something they don’t expect. It’s like talking to people who have done ayahuasca or belong to some cult. That’s how I felt about it until extremely recently. All of these people have drunk some kind of Kool Aid where they’re like, ‘I’m in this trippy zone where characters are doing things.’ And I would think to myself, if they were men—Wow, this person has devised this really ingenious way to avoid self-knowledge. If they were women, I would think—Wow, this woman has found an ingenious way to become complicit in her own bullying and silencing. It’s only kind of recently—and with a lot of therapy actually—that I’ve come to see that there is a mode of fiction that I can imagine participating in where, once I’ve freed myself of a certain amount of stuff I feel like I have to write about, which has gotten quite large by this point, it would be fun to make things up and play around.” Thanks to MailChimp, , and Skillshare for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: Longform Podcast t-shirts are available for just a few more days! @BananaKarenina Batuman on Longform Batuman's archive at The New Yorker Batuman's archive at Harper's Batuman's archive at London Review of Books Longform Podcast t-shirts [2:30] “Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry” (The New Yorker • Apr 2018) [12:10] The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2010) [12:15] The Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky • The Russian Messenger • 1812) [13:25] The Idiot (Penguin Book • 2017) [16:20] Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel (Lennard Davis • Columbia University Press • 1983) [22:20] The Exception (Christian Jungersen • Anchor • 2008) [23:30] The End of the Story: A Novel (Lydia Davis • Picador • 2004) [29:15] Culture and Imperialism (Edward Said • Vintage • 1994) [29:55] Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (Soren Kierkegaard • Victor Eremita • 1843) [30:35] Nadja (Andre Breton • Grove Press • 1960) [40:50] Scrivener Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Leon Neyfakh is a writer and the host of Slow Burn. “We didn’t want to be coy about why we were doing the show. We wanted to be up front. We’re interested in this era because it seems like the last time in our nation’s history where things were this wild and the news was this rapid fire and the outcome was this uncertain. That was the main parallel we were thinking about when we started. It was only when we started learning the story and identified the turning points we kept running into these obvious parallels. We mostly didn’t lean into them. We didn’t chase them. There wasn’t a quota of parallels per episode.” Thanks to MailChimp, MUBI, and Thermacell for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: Longform Podcast t-shirts are now available for a limited time only! @leoncrawl Leon Neyfakh on Longform Longform Podcast t-shirts [02:05] Slow Burn [03:00] The Next Next Level (Melville House • 2015) [20:55] All the President's Men (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein • Simon & Schuster • 1974) [22:05] Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (J. Anthony Lukas • Viking • 1976) [22:05] Wars of Watergate (Stanley Kutler • Norton • 1992) [22:15] The Dick Cavett Show [30:25] Leon Neyfakh's archive at New York Observer [31:40] “Three HarperCollins Imprints Face Off For $2.5 Million Sarah Silverman Book” (Observer • Nov 2008) [38:40] “The Sadness of T-Pain” (The New Yorker • Mar 2004) [38:45] “Peak Drake” (The Fader • Sep 2015) [38:50] “Rae of Light” (Maxim • Apr 2015) [38:55] “Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire's Music Biz Misadventures” (Rolling Stone • Jun 2014) [47:15] “Who Will Survive When Migos Meets Big Data?” (The Fader • Nov 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, and Deborah Fallows, a linguist and writer, are the co-authors of Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America. “The credo of reporting—you know, what you don’t know till you show it—that’s my 'this-I-believe.' That’s the reason I’ve stayed in this line of work for this many decades because there’s nothing more fascinating that you can do but to serially satisfy your curiosity about things. What’s it like on an aircraft carrier? What’s it like in a Chinese coalmine? What’s it like in a giant data center in Wyoming? What is it like in all of these things? And journalism gives you a structural excuse to go do those.” Thanks to MailChimp, MUBI, Best Self Journal, and Thermacell for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: Longform Podcast t-shirts are now available! @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb James Fallows on Longform Longform Podcast t-shirts [02:15] Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America (Pantheon • 2018) [09:25] The Reinvention of America (New Yorker • May 2018) [19:40] James Fallows's archive at The Atlantic [27:20] Tears of Autum (Charles McCarry • E.P. Dutton • 1974) [34:35] James Fallows's archive at Washington Monthly [38:20] "Lloyd Bentsen: Can Another Texan Apply?" (The Atlantic • Dec 1974) [44:05] “The Passionless Presidency” (The Atlantic • May 1979) [58:25] Redlands Daily Facts [58:45] The Morning Call [59:05] Seven Days [59:15] Erie Reader Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sheila Heti is the author of seven books. Her latest is Motherhood: A Novel. “[My parents] were afraid for me. As anybody who has a kid who wants to be a writer. I think they understood it was a hard life. It was a life in which you wouldn’t necessarily make enough money. It was a life in which you might be setting yourself up for a great amount of disappointment. My dad’s father was a painter, so there was in him this idea that it wasn’t so crazy to him. It wasn’t so outside his understanding. And, yeah, my mom thought it was a bad idea. And it probably is a bad idea in a lot of ways, but my dad was supportive but also cautioning. I think the book really moved [my mom] and really had an effect on her, so maybe you understand that it’s not necessarily a frivolous thing to be doing. Maybe it’s not just playing. I think my mom always had this idea that writing is playing, and it is playing, but it’s a serious kind of playing.” Thanks to MailChimp, MUBI, and Tripping.com for sponsoring this week's episode. @sheilaheti Heti on Longform [01:40] How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life (Henry Holt and Co. • 2012) [01:45] Motherhood: A Novel (Henry Holt and Co. • 2018) [2:50] Sheila Heti’s archive at The Believer [07:30] The Middle Stories (McSweeny’s • 2012) [07:35] Ticknor (House of Anansi Press • 2005) [09:10] Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (Jennifer Baichwal • Zeitgeist Films • 2003) [36:50] Emergency Contact (Mary H. K. Choi • Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers • 2018) [42:35] Da Ali G Show (Sacha Baron Cohen • Channel 4 • 2000) [46:00] "Finding Raffi" (New York Magazine • Dec 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adam Davidson is a staff writer at The New Yorker. “I am as shocked this moment that Trump was elected as I was the moment he was elected. That fundamental state of shock. It’s like there’s a pile of putrid, rotting human feces on a table and like six of the people around the table are like, ‘That is disgusting.’ And four are like ‘Oh it’s so delicious. Oh, I love it. It’s delicious.’ And I keep saying, ‘Well, why do you like it?’ ... Trump is not a very interesting person in my mind. He’s a very simple, one of the most simple public figures ever. And his business is complex that in that it’s lots of people doing lots of things, but the fundamental nature of it is not that mysterious. So, it is a challenge to keep me engaged, but I’m engaged. And then as a citizen, I’ve never been more engaged.” Thanks to MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @adamdavidson [0:21] Adam Davidson's archive at The New Yorker [00:35] The Big Short (Paramount• 2015) [00:43] Surprisingly Awesome podcast archive at Gimlet Media [00:47] Planet Money [00:51] WBEZ Chicago [00:53] This American Life [0:55] Adam Davidson’s archive at Harper’s [01:35] "Donald Trump’s Worst Deal" (The New Yorker • Mar 2017) [04:15] "Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency" (The New Yorker • Apr 2018) [26:17] Adam Davidson’s archive at NPR [31:48] Marketplace [34:44] Ben Taub on Longform [39:48] "Making It In America" (The Atlantic• Jan 2012) [41:42] Ira Glass’s Archive at This American Life [42:37] Thriveal Podcast [45:19] Zoe Chace on Longform [45:35] Losers: The Road to Everyplace but the White House (Michael Lewis • Vintage • 1998) [51:13] We The Economy (Cinelan• 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lauren Hilgers is a journalist and the author of Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown. “You just need to spend a lot of time with people. And it’s awkward. I read something when I was first starting out as a journalist in China, ‘Make a discipline out of being uncomfortable.’ I think that’s very helpful. You’re going to feel uncomfortable a lot of the time, and just decide to be okay with it and just keep going with it.” Thanks to MailChimp, Substack, and Skillshare for sponsoring this week's episode. @lehilgers Hilgers on Longform [01:10] "The Kitchen Network" (The New Yorker • Oct 2014) [02:00] Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown (Crown • 2018) [39:55] "The Unraveling of Bo Xilai" (Harper’s Magazine • March 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charlie Warzel is a senior tech writer for BuzzFeed. “Part of the big tech reckoning that we’re seeing since the election isn’t really about the election, it isn’t really about Trump or politics. It’s more about this idea that: Wow, these services have incredibly real consequences in our everyday lives. I think that realization is really profound and is going to shape how we try to figure out what it means to be online from here on out. To keep stories relevant, we have to keep that in mind and try to figure out how to speak to that audience and guide them through that reckoning.” Thanks to MailChimp and Tripping.com for sponsoring this week's episode. @cwarzel Warzel on Longform [01:45] Stoner [01:45] Coin Talk [06:25] Warzel’s BuzzFeed Archive [10:20] "Pornhub Banned Deepfake Celebrity Sex Videos, But The Site Is Still Full Of Them" (BuzzFeed • April 2018) [11:50] "The Disturbing Misogynist History Of GamerGate's Goodwill Ambassadors" (Joseph Berstein • BuzzFeed • Oct 2014) [13:05] "Here's How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream" (Joseph Berstein • BuzzFeed • Oct 2017) [19:00] "YouTube Is Addressing Its Massive Child Exploitation Problem" (BuzzFeed • Nov 2017) [25:30] "Trump's Antagonistic Tweet Tests The Limits of Twitter's Rules" (BuzzFeed • Dec 2016) [26:35] "Inside The Chaotic Battle To Be The Top Reply To A Trump Tweet" (BuzzFeed • June 2017) [27:45] "Alex Jones Just Can't Help Himself" (BuzzFeed • May 2017) [27:55] Longform Podcast #129: Rukmini Callimachi (Part 1) [32:45] "The Case For Interviewing Alex Jones" (BuzzFeed • June 2017) [38:55] "Scammers Are Impersonating Elon Musk And Donald Trump To Take Your Bitcoin" (Ryan Mac, Charlie Warzel • BuzzFeed • Feb 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michelle Dean is a journalist and critic. Her new book is Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion. “There isn’t one answer. I wish there was one answer. The answer is: You just have to wing it. And I’m learning that — I’m learning to be okay with the winging it. ... I guess the lesson to me of what went on with a lot of women in the book is: You have to be comfortable with the fact that some days are going to be good, and some days are going to not be good.” Thanks to MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @michelledean michelledean.tumblr.com Dean on Longform [00:45] Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion (Grove Press • 2018) [01:35] "Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered" (Buzzfeed • Aug 2016) [08:10] annefriedman.com [08:50] "The Daily Show's Woman Problem" (Irin Carmon • Jezebel • June 2010) [09:20] "Someone Got 'The Daily Show' in My Jezebel and Together They Taste A Little Weird" (The Awl • July 2010) [15:20] "Waterworld Review" (KillerMovies • July 1995) [20:25] Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (D. T. Max • Penguin Books • 2013) [20:35] "A Supposedly True Thing Jonathan Franzen Said About David Foster Wallace" (The Awl • Oct 2011) [26:25] "The Perils of Pauline" (Renata Adler • The New York Review of Books • Aug 1980) [28:30] "How Unauthorized Is the New Book About Harper Lee?" (Gawker • July 2014) [31:05] Dean’s Archive on The Guardian [30:20] How Should A Person Be (Sheila Heti • Picador • 2013) [35:30] "True Lives" (James Wood • The New Yorker • June 2012) [35:40] "Listening to Women" (Slate • June 2012) [40:30] Longform Podcast #156: Renatta Adler [51:05] Mommy Dead and Dearest (Erin Lee Carr • 2017) [51:15] Longform Podcast #248: Erin Lee Carr [64:00] Gerard Manley Hopkins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Craig Mod is a writer and photographer. His podcast is On Margins. “You pick up an iPad, you pick up an iPhone—what are you picking up? You’re picking up a chemical-driven casino that just plays on your most base desires for vanity and ego and our obsession with watching train wrecks happen. That’s what we’re picking up and it’s counted in pageviews, because—not to be reductive and say that it’s a capitalist issue, but when you take hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital, and you’re building models predicated on advertising, you are gonna create fucked-up algorithms and shitty loops that take away your attention. And guess what? You need to engage with longform texts. You need control of your attention. And so I think part of what subverted our ability to find this utopian reading space is the fact that so much of what’s on these devices is actively working to destroy all of the qualities needed to create that space.” Thanks to MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @craigmod craigmod.com Criag Mod on Longform [01:15] Flipboard [01:26] On Margins [02:40] "Roden Explorer's Club," Craig Mod's Newsletter [09:30] McSweeney’s [20:30] "Embracing the Digital Book" (PRE/POST • April 2010) [22:25] Books in the Age of the iPad (PRE/POST • 2012) [25:30] Post Artifact Books & Publishing (PRE/POST • 2011) [43:10] Primitive Technology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom Bissell is a journalist, critic, video game writer, and author of The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made. His latest book is Magic Hours. “I kind of have come around to maybe not as monkish or fanatical devotion to sentence idolatry as I was when I was a younger writer, earlier in my career. I think I’m coming around to a place where a lot of middle-aged writers get to, which is: I tried to rewire and change the world with the beauty of language alone—it didn’t work. Now how about I try to write stuff that’s true, or that’s not determined to show people I am a Great Writer. Like a lot of young writers, you’re driven by that. Then at a certain point you realize A) you’re not going to be the Great Writer you wanted to be, and B) the determination of that is completely beyond your power to control, so best that you just write as best you can and as honestly as you can, and everything else just sort of becomes gravy.” Thanks to MailChimp and Tripping.com for sponsoring this week's episode. Bissell on Longform [00:50] The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam (Pantheon • 2007) [01:25] "Cinema Crudité" (Harper’s Magazine • Aug 2010) [01:40] The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made (Simon & Schuster • 2013) [02:40] "Loch Ness Memoir" (VQR • March 2007) [03:15] " Video Games: The Addiction " (The Guardian • March 2010) [04:25] Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (Pantheon • 2016) [05:25] Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Vintage • 2011) [21:55] "Escanaba’s Magic Hour" (Harper’s Magazine • Sep 2000) [22:50] Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (Pantheon • 2003) [23:45] "Euphorias of Perrier: The Case Against Robert D. Kaplan" (VQR • June 2006) [42:40] "How to Get Rich Playing Video Games Online" (Taylor Clark • The New Yorker • Nov 2017) [52:15] Magic Hours (Vintage • 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Will Mackin is a U.S. Navy veteran who served with a SEAL team in Iraq and Afghanistan. His debut book is Bring Out the Dog. “I wanted to write nonfiction and I started writing nonfiction. And the reason I did that was — first of all, I felt all the people did all the hard work, and who was I to take liberties? And the second reason was, I just felt an obligation to the men and women who I served with not to misrepresent them, or what they’d been through, or what it had meant to them, or how they felt about it. I kept piling these requirements on to myself: Well, if I present this particular event in this light, this guy’s going to get his feelings hurt. Or, I don’t know how this guy’s family will feel about me talking about this. And it became debilitating, all those restrictions, I kind of kept layering on myself. I was talking to George Saunders at one point about this, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if this book is going to happen. I’m just stuck’ And he pointed out, ‘You’re putting all these restrictions on yourself because it puts this perfect book off in the never-to-reach future. If you remove those and start fictionalizing things and getting at it a different way, maybe it’ll work for you.’” Thanks to MailChimp and Breach for sponsoring this week's episode. @mohammedsradio willmackin.com [01:35] Bring Out the Dog (Random House • 2018) [47:10] "Crossing the River No Name" (The New Yorker • June 2017) [47:40] Red Cavalry (Isaac Babel • Pushkin Collection • 2015) [47:45] "Crossing the River Zbrucz" (Isaac Babel • Pushkin Collection • 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices