Longform Podcast

Episode 19: Choire Sicha Choire Sicha, co-founder of The Awl,...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:16:00 -0500

Episode 19: Choire Sicha

Choire Sicha, co-founder of The Awl, interviewed by Aaron Lammer.

“People come to me pretty much every week…and say ‘I’m starting a website about… say… Canadian… candy makers’ and they’re like ‘What’s the secret?’ And I say, the secret is when we launched there were three of us. Two of us were doing editorial. And one of was doing business. And guess what? We had a new product and he had nothing to do all day so he had to make himself a job that was about revenue. So, who is this dedicated person at your company? And they’re like ‘we’re both editorial’ and I’m like ‘you’re hosed, you’re done, forget about it.’”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

The Awl
The Awl on Longform
@choire
choiresicha.com
Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (c. 2009 A.D.) in a Large City (Amazon pre-order)

Episode 18: Mike Sager Mike Sager, writer-at-large for Esquire...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:16:00 -0500

Episode 18: Mike Sager

Mike Sager, writer-at-large for Esquire and founder of The Sager Group, interviewed by Max Linsky.

“I was instilled with this thing by my parents who loved me — they fucked me up plenty but they loved the shit out of me — where I can go with people who are different and I don’t feel bad about myself. I’ve had 13-year-old pit-bull fighting kids shame me horribly…throw pebbles at my head, and it doesn’t bother me. Because when I’m a reporter, I’m not me. I’m just there to get the job done and learn stuff. I don’t take it personally. Plus, I know I’m going to get the last word.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

Sager’s latest collection: The Someone You’re Not
The Sager Group’s first anthology: Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists (Featuring Justin Heckert, Pamela Colloff, Chris Jones and more)
“The Devil and John Holmes” (Rolling Stone • May 1989)
“The Man Who Never Was” (Esquire • May 2009)
National Magazine Award-winning profile of Todd Marinovich.
“Last Tango in Tahiti” (Washington Post • July 1987)
Searching for Marlon Brando.
“A Day at Gore Vidal’s Place” (Esquire • May 2008)
thesagergroup.net
@therealsager
Sager on Longform

Episode 17: Joshua Davis Joshua Davis, contributing editor at...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 11:57:00 -0500

Episode 17: Joshua Davis

Joshua Davis, contributing editor at Wired and author of the new ebook John McAfee’s Last Stand, interviewed by Aaron Lammer.

“This is a pretty unique situation [for me]. Never has a multimillionaire tech pioneer gone on the lam for a murder and called me from hiding. Yeah, this is a first.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

John McAfee’s Last Stand (Kindle Single)
Read an excerpt from John McAfee’s Last Stand
@joshuadavisnow: On Twitter, Davis continues to report the McAfee story as it unfolds
“The Hinterland”: McAfee’s blog, which he is updating while on the run
“The World’s Biggest Diamond Heist” (Wired • Mar 2009)
“High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas” (Wired • Feb 2008)
joshuadavis.net
Davis on Longform

Episode 16: Pamela Colloff Pamela Colloff, executive editor and...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:42:00 -0500

Episode 16: Pamela Colloff

Pamela Colloff, executive editor and staff writer at Texas Monthly.

“There are many, many people who write and they have tragic stories, but they’re not necessarily compelling magazine articles. Figuring out what is a compelling magazine article and what isn’t is one of the more painful things about this. You can’t look into every case. But your job is to be a storyteller.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

“The Innocent Man” (Texas Monthly • Nov-Dec 2012)
“Innocence Lost” (Texas Monthly • Oct 2010)
“Innocence Found” (Texas Monthly • Jan 2011)
“Lip Shtick” (Texas Monthly • Sep 2003)
“Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch (Texas Monthly • Nov 2002)
@pamelacolloff
Colloff on Longform

Episode 15: Jonah Weiner Jonah Weiner, contributing editor at...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:50:00 -0500

Episode 15: Jonah Weiner

Jonah Weiner, contributing editor at Rolling Stone, pop critic at Slate, and contributor to The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, interviewed by Aaron Lammer.

“The thing that I’ve found useful is really actually to delete everything that I’ve written and go at it fresh, and re-envision it again: this is going to be my new lede now. That’s really the best way to do it, because if there are these vestigial sentences, and vestigial sequences or paragraphs that are in the draft, for me, that’s just going to snap me back to where my head was at, in an unproductive way… Often, I’ll find that that is just this great cure-all. Just delete it all, go for a walk or whatever, and then sit down and start writing an entirely different feature about the exact same subject.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

“Prying Eyes” (New Yorker • Oct 2012)
“Kanye West Has a Goblet” (Slate • Aug 2010)
“The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress” (New York Times Magazine • Dec 2008)
Interview: Vanessa Grigoriadis (The Writearound • Sep 2011)
jonahweiner.com
The Writearound
@jonahweiner
Weiner on Longform

Episode 14: David Samuels David Samuels, contributing editor at...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:57:29 -0400

Episode 14: David Samuels

David Samuels, contributing editor at Harper’s and contributor to The New Yorker and The Atlantic, interviewed by Evan Ratliff.

“You start by doing the thing you want to do, at whatever level you can. There’s this idea that you work your way up by writing captions, and then capsule film reviews or whatever, and I don’t think it works that way. I think you learn to master a form, and you start by doing the thing you want to do. At first you’re not going to do it as well as you wish you could, and then you learn. At the same time, I think, there’s so much dreck, and there’s so many people who don’t care about doing the thing well, that when that kid walks in your door and they want to do the thing, you say ‘Sure,’ because it doesn’t cost you anything, you look at it, and there’s actually some energy on the page, like, yeah, it’s bad, but it’s bad in a different way. It’s bad in the way of someone who might eventually be good.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Anthology)
“Wild Things” (Harper’s • June 2012)
“Atomic John” (The New Yorker • Dec 2008)
“Let’s Die Together” (The Atlantic • May 2007)
“Dr. Kush” (The New Yorker • Jul 2008)
“Barack and Hamid’s Excellent Adventure” (Harper’s • Jul 2010)
Samuels on Longform

Episode 13: Adrian Chen Adrian Chen, staff writer at Gawker and...

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:39:19 -0400

Episode 13: Adrian Chen

Adrian Chen, staff writer at Gawker and editor at The New Inquiry, interviewed by Max Linsky.

“I’ve never written a magazine feature. [My writing is] similar, in that I try to bring in the bigger issues, and not just, you know, be funny or tell a sensational story. But I think it’s also kind of rough and sketchy in the way that blog posts are. Longform blog writing is like, I don’t spend a long time editing or looking it over. It’s like, just type as fast as you can and try to cram all of your research in, and then it goes up.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

“Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, the Biggest Troll on the Web” (Gawker • Oct 2012)
“The Long, Fake Life of J.S. Dirr” (Gawker • Jun 2012)
“Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man Behind the Most Disturbing Internet Meme in History” (Gawker • Apr 2012)
“The Mercenary Techie Who Troubleshoots for Drug Dealers and Jealous Lovers” (Gawker • Jan 2012)
@adrianchen
The New Inquiry

Episode 12: Mina Kimes Mina Kimes, writer for Fortune,...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 16:21:00 -0400

Episode 12: Mina Kimes

Mina Kimes, writer for Fortune, interviewed by Aaron Lammer.

“A lot of people have asked me about my attitudes towards capitalism, or Wall Street in general. You know, there are companies on Wall Street that are doing good things, and there are companies on Wall Street that are doing bad things. At Fortune, our job is to look at both, and to explain why. I think in many cases, when it comes to the ones that are doing bad things, it takes people like us and other financial journalists to expose and question them.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

“Bad to the Bone: A Medical Horror Story” (Fortune • Sep 2012)
“America’s Hottest Export: Weapons” (Fortune • Feb 2011)
“Why J&J’s Headache Won’t Go Away” (Fortune • Mar 2008)
“Railroads: Cartel or Free Market Success Story?” (Fortune • Sep 2011)
Kimes on Longform
@minakimes

Episode 11: Joshuah Bearman Joshuah Bearman discusses “The...

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:19:00 -0400

Episode 11: Joshuah Bearman

Joshuah Bearman discusses “The Great Escape,” his article about a CIA operation in Iran that became the basis for the new film Argo.

“We were sitting there and we were like, ‘This would be perfect for George Clooney.’ And it very quickly in fact turned out that George Clooney wanted it. So not long after David and I had been having our daydream, we had this project that Clooney had taken quickly into the empyrean heights of Hollywood.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

“The Great Escape” (Wired • Apr 2007)
Official Argo site
“An Investigation Into Xinjiang’s Growing Swarm of Great Gerbils” (McSweeney’s • Jan 2005)
“Art of the Steal” (Wired • Mar 2010)
@joshbearman

Episode 10: Chris Jones (Live in Romania) Before a live audience...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:23:00 -0400

Episode 10: Chris Jones (Live in Romania)

Before a live audience in Bucharest hosted by the Romanian magazine Decât o Revistă, Evan Ratliff interviews Chris Jones.

“It just feels good to fucking win… If you want to say ‘Let’s get rid of [journalism awards],’ no problem. But if they exist, I want to win them. Just because I won two—I know Gary Smith has won four. I want five. Unless Gary Smith wins five, and then I want six. That’s just how I work. And maybe that’s a terrible, competitive, creepy thing. But journalism is competitive.”

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week’s episode!

Show notes and links:

“The Honor System” (Esquire • Sep 2012)
“Animals” (Esquire • Mar 2012)
“The Things That Carried Him” (Esquire • Mar 2008)
“TV’s Crowning Moment of Awesome” (Esquire • Jul 2010)
“Roger Ebert: The Essential Man” (Esquire • Mar 2010)
Jones on Longform
@mysecondempire
Decât o Revistă magazine

Episode 9: Jeanne Marie Laskas Jeanne Marie Laskas, author of...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:24:00 -0400

Episode 9: Jeanne Marie Laskas

Jeanne Marie Laskas, author of the new book Hidden America and correspondent for GQ, interviewed by Max Linsky.

“I’m just a writer going into [people’s lives], you know? What do you do with that kind of intensity of a relationship when you’re job is to invoke it on the page? It’s a huge…not just privilege but responsibility. Because, you know, it’s just for a story. And I tell them that: ‘I’m asking you trust me, but at the same time don’t trust me. I’m kind of like a vulture in this relationship—we’re not friends.’”

Show notes and links:

Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work
“Guns ‘R Us” (GQ • Sep 2012)
“Underworld” (GQ • Apr 2007)
“Traffic” (GQ • Apr 2009)
“Empire of Ice” (GQ • Sep 2008)
Laskas on Longform
jeannemarielaskas.com • @jmlaskas

Episode 8: Gideon Lewis-Kraus Gideon Lewis Kraus, author of A...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:36:00 -0400

Episode 8: Gideon Lewis-Kraus

Gideon Lewis Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction, interviewed by Aaron Lammer.

“My best friend, who is a fiction writer, she once said to me that she saw a lot of the things I was doing as ‘wring tenderness from absurdity.’ That wouldn’t have occurred to me to put it that way, but that does seem to me [what] I like to do…. I am someone who can very easily be dismissive, or even contemptuous. And one of the things I like about reporting a story, particularly reporting a story that is ultimately, counterintuitively, positive, is that it gives me a chance to work through that, and be the more tender, sympathetic person that I would like to be in real life.”

Show notes and links:

A Sense of Direction on Amazon
“In Search of the Living, Purring, Singing Heart of the Online Cat-Industrial Complex” (Wired • Aug 2012)
“Tokeville: On the Frontiers of Federalism and Dope” (Harper’s • Dec 2009)
“The Last Book Party” (Harper’s • Mar 2009)
Lewis-Kraus on Longform

Episode 7: Ta-Nehisi Coates Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor at...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:09:00 -0400

Episode 7: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of The Beautiful Struggle, interviewed by Evan Ratliff.

“I was 24 when my son was born. People always say that kids get in the way, right? But actually it had the opposite effect on me. I feel like I could have spent my twenties doing all sorts of self-destructive things - that was my natural inclination - but having a kid suddenly makes that not OK…. The stakes of everything just went up. I think I’m the type of person where, for any reason, I only respond to pressure. That kid just so raised the pressure, for everything. … So I started writing for the Washington Monthly, and the Monthly pays shit, everybody knows that, right? They were paying ten cents a word at this point. But because they have these big-shots writing for them, nobody ever calls for the check! But I would say, ‘no, I need you to send me that check. Yeah, I know it’s only $150, but I actually need that check, you really need to send that check.’”

Show notes and links:

Coates’s blog for The Atlantic
“Fear of a Black President” (The Atlantic • Aug 2012)
“‘This Is How We Lost to the White Man’” (The Atlantic • May 2008)
“Confessions of a Black Mr. Mom” (Washington Monthly • March 2002)
Coates on Longform

Episode 6: Mac McClelland Max Linsky talks with Mac McClelland,...

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:10:00 -0400

Episode 6: Mac McClelland

Max Linsky talks with Mac McClelland, human rights reporter for Mother Jones.

“There’s a lot of strength and resiliance even in the worst stories ever. I mean, you do get bogged down by how much evil so many people are willing to perpetrate in the world. But I guess the little beam of sunshine that you’re looking for, that hits me in the face in the morning, is just the character and intergrity of the people who are involved. “

Show notes and links:

“For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question” (Mother Jones • Mar 2010)
“I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave” (Mother Jones • Feb 2012)
“The Love That Dares” (Mother Jones • Jan 2012)
“I’m Gonna Need You to Fight Me on This” (GOOD • Jun 2011)
Welcome to Haiti’s Reconstruction Hell (Mother Jones • Jan 2011)
@MacMcClelland
McClelland on Longform

Episode 5: Paul Ford Aaron Lammer talks with writer and...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:53:00 -0400

Episode 5: Paul Ford

Aaron Lammer talks with writer and programmer Paul Ford.

“You don’t really read a newspaper to preserve journalism, or save great journalism, or to keep the newspaper going. You read it because it gives you a sense of power or control over the environment that you’re in, and actually sort of helps you define what your personal territory is, and what the things are that matter for you. As long as products serve that need—as long as books allow you to explore spaces that it’s otherwise really hard for you to explore and so on—I think people will continue to read them.”

Show notes and links:

“The Web Is Customer Service Medium” (Ftrain.com • Jan 2011)
“The Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (The Morning News • July 2011)
“10 Timeframes” (Contents • June 2012)
“Rotary Dial” (Ftrain.com • Aug 2012)
ftrain.com
@ftrain
Ford on Longform

Episode 4: Jon Mooallem Evan Ratliff talks with Jon Mooallem,...

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:04:00 -0400

Episode 4: Jon Mooallem

Evan Ratliff talks with Jon Mooallem, contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and author of an upcoming book on people and wild animals.

“If I just kind of assume it’s going to work out one way or another, it can be a real fun adventure to find the path from here to there. You know, hopefully just as you do more, that excitement starts to outweigh the horror of messing up.”

Show notes and links:

“Twelve Easy Pieces” (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2006)
“What’s a Monkey to Do in Tampa?” (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2012)
“Who Invented the High Five?” (ESPN the Magazine • July 2011)
“Rescue Flight” (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2009)
“Can Animals Be Gay?” (New York Times Magazine • Mar 2010)
“The BP-Spill Baby-Turtle Brigade” (New York Times Magazine • Oct 2010)
jonmooallem.com
@jmooallem
Mooallem on Longform

Episode 3: David Grann David Grann, staff writer at The New...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:00:00 -0400

Episode 3: David Grann

David Grann, staff writer at The New Yorker, talks with Max Linsky.

“You don’t always know all the answers. I think that’s what kinda makes life interesting. The thing that makes these stories real, while they are in some ways unfathomable, [is that] there’s an uneasiness of certitude. Because there are things that are not always known, there are elements of doubt, and that can be very haunting…In some of the stories, you get as close as you can to all you know—and then there are parts that elude you.”

Show notes and links:

“The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon” (Amazon)
“Crimetown, U.S.A.” (The New Republic • July 2000)
“The Yankee Comandante” (New Yorker • May 2012)
“The Squid Hunter” (New Yorker • May 2004)
“Trial By Fire” (New Yorker • Sep 2009)
“The Chameleon” (New Yorker • Aug 2008)
davidgrann.com
@davidgrann
Grann on Longform

Episode 2: Janet Reitman Rolling Stone contributing editor...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:49:23 -0400

Episode 2: Janet Reitman

Rolling Stone contributing editor and Inside Scientology author Janet Reitman talks with Aaron Lammer.

“I’m very open about the fact that I know nothing…. Every reporter should admit you know nothing, and when you do, there will be people that will take pity on you, and try to teach you. And then you have to be shrewd enough to know who’s spinning you, and who is being genuine.”

Show notes and links:

“Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion” (Amazon)
“Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dartmouth’s Hazing Abuses” (Rolling Stone • Mar 2012)
“Sex and Scandal at Duke” (Rolling Stone • June 2006)
“Baghdad Follies” (Rolling Stone • July 2004)
janetreitman.com
@janetreitman
Reitman on Longform

Episode 1: Matthieu Aikins On the eve a move to Kabul, Aikins...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:00:00 -0400

Episode 1: Matthieu Aikins

On the eve a move to Kabul, Aikins talks with Evan Ratliff about reporting from war zones:

“There’s no real objective framework for deciding what the value of your life is, versus the value of a story…. Especially when you go to places where people are getting killed for the silliest reasons, and a life is worth so little, you realize you don’t necessarily have to value yourself as this, like, precious commodity that can’t be risked in any way. And that’s just a personal choice, and it’s actually a very selfish one, because obviously, if you have loved ones, you’re affecting them by making that choice. In any case, it’s just a different headspace that you inhabit.”

Show notes and links:

“The Master of Spin Boldak” (Harper’s • Dec 2009)
“The Siege of September 13” (GQ • Mar 2012)
“Our Man in Kandahar” (The Atlantic • Nov 2011)
maikins.com
@mattaikins
Matthieu Aikins on Longform