Longform

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author and journalist. He served as guest editor for the September issue of Vanity Fair, titled "The Great Fire."“There’s this pressure to say something. Say something. The world’s burning, say something. But I try to stay where I’ve been or where I’ve tried to be in my career. ... Good things take time. You gotta let things cook. You can’t insta-bake something like this.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes:   ta-nehisicoates.com Coates on Longform Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates Longform Podcast #97: Ta-Nehisi Coates Longform Podcast #168: Ta-Nehisi Coates Longform Podcast #225: Ta-Nehisi Coates Longform Podcast #360: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Chris Jackson 1:00 "The Great Fire: A Special Issue, Edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates" (Vanity Fair • September 2020) 1:15 "On Witnessing and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic" (Jesmyn Ward • Vanity Fair • September 2020) 1:15 "Blue Bloods: America's Brotherhood of Police Officers" (Eve L. Ewing • Vani

Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg are the co-authors of the new book I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.“We really wanted to create some kind of leftist, anti-racist true crime story that we really haven’t seen. The conventions of the thriller often smuggle in all of this really right-wing, pro-police propaganda that all of our cops were raised on—the story of cops having to crash cars and break rules in order to get the bad guys. We wanted to take that and subvert it, using its methods to blow it up from the inside while also being rigorously reported.” Thanks to Mailchimp and The Jordan Harbinger Show for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @baynardwoods @notrivia 5:30 "Even After the Remaining Charges Were Dropped in Freddie Gray's Death, Mosby Received a Hero's Welcome in Sandtown While the FOP Countered SAO's Arguments" (Baynard Woods • Baltimore City Paper • August 2016) 7:00 "Freddie Gray: Judge Declares Mistrial in Case Against Baltimore Police Office

Andrea Valdez is the editor-in-chief of The 19th*.“You know how sometimes you hear a song and you think, Gosh, it feels like that song has always existed and an artist just plucked it out of the air and played it and now it’s a part of our musical canon? I really hope that The 19th* is a news organization where it feels like it has always been, should have always been, and will always be there.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes @andreamvaldez 00:30 The 19th* 1:30 Valdez's archive at Texas Monthly 17:50 Valdez's archive at Wired 25:15 Valdez's archive at The Texas Observer 32:00 "America’s First Female Recession" (Chabeli Carrazana • The 19th* • July 2020) 32:00 "Black Female Voters Say They Want What They’re Owed: Power" (Errin Haines • The 19th* • July 2020) 33:00 "Kamala Harris Applauds Biden’s “Audacity to Choose a Black Woman to Be His Running Mate”" (Shefali Luthra • The 19th* • August 2020) 37:45 "Breonna Taylor’s Death Looms Over Kentucky’s Primary Election (Errin Ha

Jason Parham is a senior writer at Wired.“I think of myself some days as a critic. Some days I think of myself as a journalist. But I essentially mostly think of myself as an essayist, somebody who is trying to bridge those two traditions. My approach to writing now is kind of simple…I’m always writing about things I like and want to hear about.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes:   @nonlinearnotes jasonparham.com 00:45 "TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface" (Wired • Aug 2020) 1:00 Spook 1:45 Evan (@henrylittleboots) on TikTok 18:30  "The Reality of Dating White Women When You're Black" (Ernest Baker • Gawker • Jun 2014) 21:30 "Gawker Media's Responsibility to Diversity" (Jan 2015) 24:00 Gawker Cuts Seven Staffers as It Goes All Politics (Peter Sterne • Politico • Nov 2015) 29:15 Longform Podcast #335: Kiese Laymon (Peter Sterne • Politico • Nov 2015) 30:00 "And Lo, With Russell Westbrook, Humanity Outpaced Science" (Wired • June 2017) 30:00 "How Oprah’s Network Fi

Jenny Kleeman is a journalist, broadcaster and the author of the new book Sex Robots and Vegan Meat: Adventures at the Frontier of Birth, Food, Sex, and Death.“It’s better to cover one thing in a really illuminating way than to try and explore every single aspect of a topic in a really superficial way. So if there’s one thing that particularly interests you or fascinates you, if there’s just one question you want to ask, do as much research as you can on that one question and you’ll end up with a much more illuminating interview than something that is a precis of their entire field. Because anyone can do that.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes:   Mailchimp's By the Books @jennykleeman jennykleeman.com 13:15 "The Race to Build the World's First Sex Robot" (The Guardian • April 2017) 15:00 "The Murderers Next Door" (The Guardian • October 2014) 21:00 "The YouTube Star Who Fought Back Against Revenge Porn—and Won" (The Guardian • January 2018) 32:15 The Immaculate Deception P

Seyward Darby is the editor-in-chief of The Atavist Magazine and the author of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism.“The most enlightening thing I learned in working on this book ultimately was that when we think of hate we think of animosity. Hate means I do not like someone or I do not like something. I deplore it. I despise it. But hate as a movement is actually a lot more like any social movement where it’s providing something to its supporters, members, acolytes that they were seeking but didn’t necessarily know where they were going to find it. So it could be camaraderie, it could be power, it could be purpose, in some cases it could be money. There’s something terrifyingly mundane about that.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes:   The Mastermind Chronicles of Now @seywarddarby seywarddarby.com 3:15 "White Supremacy Was Her World. And Then She Left." (New York Times • 2020) 8:00 A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland (New York Times •

Raquel Willis, the former executive editor of Out, is an activist, journalist, and writer. Guest host Patrice Peck is a freelance journalist and writes the Coronavirus News for Black Folks newsletter.“To my peers, I would just say that we have to rethink our idea of leadership. Rethink our idea of storytelling. As the media, we shouldn’t be seeing ourselves as the owners and the gatekeepers of people’s stories. We actually need to be democratizing this experience—sharing the tools of storytelling with other folks. Folks are hungry to tell their own stories and may not always have the tools.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @RaquelWillis_ raquelwillis.com 00:30 "Self-Care for Black Journalists" (Patrice Peck • New York Times • Jul 2020) 00:45 Transgender Law Center 00:45 Out 01:00 Ms. Foundation for Women 13:00 National Association of Black Journalists 16:45 "Trans Women Are Women. This Isn’t a Debate." (The Root • Mar 2017) 19:00 "I Was Born a Boy" (Janet Mock • The Root

An episode featuring Ashley C. Ford from "The Books That Changed Us," a new, short-run podcast hosted by Aaron and Max where authors discuss the books that made them who they are. The 10-episode series is part of Mailchimp's By The Books, a summer-long virtual literary festival curated by last week's Longform guests, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman are co-hosts of the podcast Call Your Girlfriend and co-authors of the new book Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close.“People telling you about their lives is a real privilege and honor. No one owes you to tell you their story. Sometimes in the world of people who write or people who make media there is just this expectation that everything is on the table, especially if you’re two women who make media, that we’re supposed to just share our pain and everything that’s going on in our lives but that’s not fair and it’s not true and I think the larger project of this book is really sharing these stories in service of having an honest dialogue about how other people are doing friendship.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @aminatou @annfriedman bigfriendship.com annfriedman.com Longform Podcast #37: Ann Friedman 2:00 Mailchimp Presents: By The Books 19:00 Shine Theory 1:08:15 Carrie Frye Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices

Maria Konnikova is a journalist, professional poker player, and author of the new book The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win. “I do think that writing and psychology are so closely interlinked. The connections between the human mind and writing are in some ways the same thing. If you’re a good writer, you have to be a good, intuitive psychologist. You have to understand people, observe them, and really figure out what makes them tick.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. [13:30] Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013) [14:15] Longform Podcast #324: Malcolm Gladwell [16:30] "When Authors Disown Their Work, Should Readers Care?" (The Atlantic • August 2012) [16:30] "Is Huckleberry Finn's ending really lacking? Not if you're talking psychology." (Scientific American • October 2012) [19:45] The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time (2017) [23:15] The Grift Podcast [34:45] Rounders (1998) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

Tessie Castillo, a journalist covering criminal justice reform, and George Wilkerson, a prisoner on death row in North Carolina, are two of the co-authors of Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row. “I want other people to see what I see, which is that the men on death row are human beings. They’re incredibly intelligent and insightful and they have so many redemptive qualities...I don’t think I could really convey that as well as if they get their own voice out there. So I wanted this book to be a platform for them and for their voices.” –Tessie Castillo “For me, writing was like a form of conversation with myself or with my past, like therapy. So I just chose these periods in my life that I didn’t really understand and that were really powerful and impactful to me, and I just sat down and started writing to understand them and make peace with them.” –George Wilkerson Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @TessietheWriter Castillo's archive [06:15] "A Second Chance" (Slate • May 2014) L

Dean Baquet is executive editor of The New York Times. "I always tried to question what is the difference between what is truly tradition and core, and what is merely habit. A lot of stuff we think are core, are just habits. The way we write newspaper stories, that’s not core, that’s habit. I think that’s the most important part about leading a place that’s going through dramatic change and even generational change. You’ve got to say, here’s what’s not going to change. This is core. This is who we are. Everything else is sort of up for grabs." Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Baquet’s archive at The New York Times [03:15] "Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops" (The New York Times • June 2020) [03:30] "A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists" (The New York Times • June 2020) [10:00] The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times (Jones, Tifft • Little, Brown • 1999) [29:45] Dean Baquet’s 1988 Pulitzer Prize [55:15] “Still Processing: The Day After” (Th

Jacqueline Charles is the Caribbean correspondent at the .Miami Herald Guest host Patrice Peck is a freelance journalist and writes the newsletterCoronavirus News for Black Folks. "There are things that you see that if you start taking it in, you’re never going to stop and you’re not going to be able to do your job…I have family in all of these countries and when disaster strikes, you can’t help everyone. But what you hope is that with your pen, with your voice, with your recording of history…somebody somewhere will feel compelled to do something. So that’s what keeps me going." MailchimpApple BooksThanks to and for sponsoring this week's episode. @Jacquiecharles Charles’s archive at Miami Herald [58:45] "Flowers and Calls for Unity Mark Haiti’s 10th Anniversary Quake Commemoration" (Miami Herald • January 2020) [1:03:30] "Journalist Jacqueline Charles, Child of the Caribbean" (South Florida Times • July 2011) [1:03:30] “NABJ Names Miami Herald’s Jacqueline Charles Journalist of the Year” (National

Kierna Mayo is the showrunner and head writer for the Lena Horne Prize for Artists Creating Social Impact. She is the former editor-in-chief of Ebony and Honey Magazine, which she co-founded at age 27. Guest host Patrice Peck is a freelance journalist and writes the Coronavirus News for Black Folks newsletter. Her most recent article is "Black Journalists Are Exhausted," an op-ed published in The New York Times. “Advocacy is not a bad word. Telling the truth about a particular slice of life is what my career has been. That slice of life started about young people who were partaking in hip hop culture. Most of them were of color, most of them were poor. So that was a perspective. If you begin to tell the stories of those people at that time, that begins to have an advocacy feel and taste and touch. Not even with a consciousness to it. Because this is a lost voice. This is a lost point of view. It is not in the mainstream. It is not being centered. No one is telling it. So the mere act of shedding light journ

Wesley Lowery is a correspondent for “60 in 6” from 60 Minutes. He is the author of They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement and won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for "Fatal Force," a Washington Post project covering fatal shootings by police officers. “The police are not, in and of themselves, objective observers of things. They are political and government entities who are the literal characters in the story. They are describing the actions of people who are protesting them. They have incentives.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @WesleyLowery Longform Podcast #222: Wesley Lowery In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest" (Washington Post • Aug 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Philip Montgomery is a photojournalist. “The photographers that I grew up on all sort of had their moment… I sort of had, in this weird way, this feeling of envy that they had their moment with this story that was all-encompassing. Looking at it now, this is the story of my time, and it’s a little more than I perhaps bargained for.” Thanks to Mailchimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @philip_nyc philipmontgomery.com [04:23] "The Epicenter: A Week Inside New York’s Public Hospitals." (New York Times Magazine • April 2020) [24:55] "How Do You Maintain Dignity for the Dead in a Pandemic?" (New York Times Magazine • May 2020) [34:05] War Photographer (2001) [24:55] "Is Stop and Frisk Worth It?" (The Atlantic • April 2014) [48:28] "The Longest Night" (2014) [24:55] "Flash Points" (New Yorker • Aug 2015) [53:24] "‘We’ve Upped the Ante.’ Why Nancy Pelosi Is Going All in Against Trump" (Time • Jan 2020) [53:28] "Jeff Sessions Is Winning for Donald Trump. If Only He Can Keep His Job" (Time • Mar

Isaac Chotiner conducts interviews for The New Yorker. “People like to talk. They like to be asked questions, generally. In the space that I’m doing most interviews, which is politics or politics-adjacent, people have strong views and like to express them. It may be just as simple as that.” Thanks to Mailchimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @IChotiner Chotiner on Longform Chotiner's New Yorker archive [08:03] "V.S. Naipaul on the Arab Spring, Authors He Loathes, and the Books He will Never Write" (The New Republic • Dec 2012) [25:16] Talk (New York Times Magazine) [28:30] He Was a Science Star. Then He Promoted a Questionable Cure for Covid-19." (New York Times Magazine • May 2020) [29:24] "What We Know About Masks and the New Coronavirus" (New Yorker • April 2020) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Haskell is the editor-in-chief of New York Magazine. “Fingers crossed, knock on wood, we've got time here. You can't ever take that for granted, but I think it's fair to indulge a long-term perspective. More than fair, actually — I think it's part of the job, for me at least, to be plotting and dreaming years out. And to be fashioning the magazine toward that long-term vision as gingerly as I can without it breaking.” Thanks to Mailchimp, Pitt Writers, Squarespace, and Literati for sponsoring this week's episode. @DavidGHaskell davidhaskell.us Kings County Distillery [13:29] "Rich Corona, Poor Corona: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Thrives" (New York Magazine • April 2020) [15:00] I Was Caroline Calloway (Natalie Beach • The Cut) [30:10] "What is College Without the Campus?" (New York Magazine • May 2020) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cheryl Strayed is the author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. Her new podcast is Sugar Calling. “I think that we have this limited idea of what ambition is. All through my twenties, you wouldn’t necessarily have looked at me and been like, ‘she’s ambitious.’ I mean, I was working as a waitress. I was goofing around and doing all kinds of things. But I was always writing. And I was always really sure and clear and serious about my writing. My ambition was this secret thing within me that I dedicated myself to.” Thanks to Mailchimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @CherylStrayed cherylstrayed.com Longform Podcast #144: Cheryl Strayed Strayed on Longform [07:12] Sugar Calling [23:21] Transparent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonnie Tsui is a journalist and author of the new book Why We Swim. “I am a self-motivated person. I really don’t like being told what to do. I’ve thought about this many times over the last 16 years that I’ve been a full-time freelancer... even though I thought my dream was to always and forever be living in New York, working in publishing, working at a magazine, being an editor, writing. When I was an editor, I kind of hated it. I just didn’t like being chained to a desk.” Thanks to Mailchimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode. @bonnietsui bonnietsui.com [02:34] Why We Swim (Algonquin • 2020) [03:50] American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods (Tsui • Free Press • 2009) [11:02] The Deep (2012) [28:25] "With His Absence, My Artist Father Taught Me the Art of Vanishing" (Catapult • Feb 2019) [42:11] "After Fires, Napa and Sonoma Tourism Industry Is Getting Back on Its Feet" (New York Times • Oct 2017) [45:04] "Child Care: What — and Who — It Takes to Raise a Family" (Calif