Longform

Ben Smith is the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed. “I do think as a reporter in general, most of what we deal in is ephemera. And I love that. I mean that’s the business, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that’s a plus and something that shapes how you succeed at the job because you realize that this thing you’re writing is about this moment and right now, and about its place in the conversation. It’s not some piece of art to hang on the wall.” Thanks to MailChimp, Harry's, and Reveal, and Home Chef for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @buzzfeedben Smith on Longform [11:00] "Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists" (BuzzFeed • Nov 2014) [11:00] "Donald Trump Secretly Told the New York Times What He Really Thinks About Immigration" (BuzzFeed • Feb 2016) [11:00] "Why BuzzFeed Doesn’t Do Clickbait" (BuzzFeed • Nov 2014) [11:00] "What the Longform Backlash Is All About" (Medium • Jan 2014) [12:00] "What the Hell Happened To Mickey Kaus?" (BuzzFeed • Dec 2

Daniel Alarcón, a novelist and the co-founder of Radio Ambulante, has written for Harper's, California Sunday, and the New York Times Magazine. “I’m a writer. I’ve written a bunch of books, and I care a lot about my sentences and my prose and all that. But would I be willing to defend my book in a Peruvian prison? That’s a litmus test I think a lot of writers I know would fail.” Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, and Home Chef for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @DanielGAlarcon danielalarcon.org Alarcón on Longform [3:00] Pop-Up Magazine [3:00] "Rigoberto" (Harper’s • Jan 2012) [7:00] War by Candlelight: Stories (Harper Perennial • 2006) [9:00] "All Politics Is Local" (Harper’s • Feb 2012) [15:00] At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel (Riverhead Books • 2013) [17:00] "Let’s Go, Country" (Harper’s • Sep 2006) [18:00] Etiqueta Negra [19:-0] "City of Clowns" (New Yorker • Jun 2003) [19:00] "Grand Mall Seizure" (Alternet • Dec 2004) [26:00] Lost City Radio (Harper Perennial • 2008) [28:00] Radio Ambulant

Jia Tolentino is the deputy editor of Jezebel. “Insult itself is an opportunity. I’m glad to be a woman, and I’m glad not to be white. I think it’s made me tougher. I’ve never been able to assume comfort or power. I’m just glad. I’m glad, especially as you watch the great white male woke freak-out meltdown that’s happening right now, I’m glad that it’s good to come from below.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and Home Chef for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @jiatolentino jiatolentino.tumblr.com Tolentino on Longform [08:00] "A Chat with Malcolm Brenner, Man Famous for Having Sex with a Dolphin" (Jezebel • Feb 2015) [08:00] Wet Goddess (Malcolm J. Brenner • Eyes Open Media • 2009) [11:00] Tolentino’s Interview With a Virgin Archive (The Hairpin) [15:00] "Rush After ‘A Rape On Campus’: A UVA Alum Goes Back to Rugby Road" (Jezebel • Jan 2015) [16:00] "No Offense" (Jezebel • Dec 2015) [18:00] "How Should Asian-Americans Feel About the Peter Liang Protests?" (Jay Caspian Kang • New York Times Mag

Heather Havrilesky writes the Ask Polly advice column for New York and is the author of the upcoming How to Be a Person in the World. “I don’t give a shit if I succeed or fail or what I do next, I just want to do things that are strange and not sound bitey. I don’t want to be polished. I want to be such a wreck that no one will ever say ‘let’s put her on her own talk show.’” Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @hhavrilesky rabbitblog.com Havrilesky on Longform [01:00] "What Romance Really Means After 10 Years of Marriage" (New York • Feb 2016) [19:00] "’Mad Men’ Finale Recap: ‘The Moon Belongs to Everyone’" (Salon • May 2014) [20:00] "‘Mad Men’ Cartoon Countdown: The Seventh- and Sixth-to-Last Episodes" (New Yorker • Apr 2015) [26:00] "Chicks ‘n’ Shit" (Suck • Dec 1995) [30:00] Havrilesky’s Filler Archive (Suck • 2001) [36:00] Havrilesky’s Ask Polly Archive at The Awl [36:00] Ask Polly archive at New York [44:00] "Katy Perry and the Fear of a Female

Wesley Yang writes for New York and other publications. “If a person remains true to some part of their experience, no matter what it is, and they present it in full candor, there’s value to that. People will recognize it. Once I knew that was true, I knew I could do this.” Thanks to MailChimp, Home Chef, and Trunk Club for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @wesyang Yang on Longform [02:00] "Paper Tigers" (New York • May 2011) [10:00] "The Snakehead" (Patrick Radden Keefe • New Yorker • Apr 2006) [24:00] "Eddie Huang Against the World" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2015) [24:00] "The Face of Seung-Hui Cho" (n+1 • Jun 2011) [27:00] "The Life and Afterlife of Aaron Swartz" (New York • Feb 2013) [32:00] "The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro (For Peppe, Who Will Ultimately Judge Our Efforts)" (Nikki Giovanni) [42:00] "Longform Podcast #168: Ta-Nehisi Coates" (Nov 2015) [47:00] "We Out Here" (Harper’s Magazine • Mar 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch

Mishka Shubaly is the author of I Swear I’ll Make It Up to You and several best-selling Kindle Singles. “I remember thinking when I was shipwrecked in the Bahamas, ‘I’m going to fucking die here. I’m 24 years old, I’m going to die, and no one will miss me. I’m never going to see my mother again.’ And then the guy with the boat came around the corner and my first thought was ‘Man, this is going to be one hell of a story.’” Thanks to MailChimp and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @MishkaShubaly mishkashubaly.com [2:00] I Swear I’ll Make It Up to You: A Life on the Low Road (PublicAffairs • 2016) [3:00] "Questions Outweigh Answers In Shooting Spree at College" (Anthony DePalma • The New York Times • Dec 1992) [13:00] Beat the Devil [18:00] "Bad Dreams" (New York Press • Mar 2008) [29:00] "Shipwrecked" (Kindle Single • Apr 2011) [31:00] "The Long Run" (Kindle Single • Oct 2011) [46:00] Coward’s Path (Invisible Hands Music Limited • 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastcho

Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton host Another Round. “I’m just trying to follow my curiosities. You know how kids always ask the best questions because they haven’t lost the will to live? I’m just desperately trying to keep that childish curiosity about the world. Is that horribly depressing?” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Igloo, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @heavenrants @brokeymcpoverty Another Round [8:00] "1128: Free the McGriddle" (The Black Guy Who Tips • Feb 2016) [9:00] "Episode 1: Unlearning (with Durga Chew-Bose)" (Another Round • Mar 2015) [15:00] "Episode 28: Madam Secretary, What’s Good? (with Hillary Clinton)" (Another Round • Oct 2015) [33:00] "Chatterati" (The Root) [36:00] "The 45 Most Hilarious Tweets From #BlackBuzzFeed" (BuzzFeed • Jul 2013) [44:00] "When Taking Anxiety Medication Is a Revolutionary Act" (BuzzFeed • Feb 2015) [54:00] Forbes 30 Under 30: Heben Nigatu (Forbes • Jan 2016) [57:00] "The Tennis Racket" (BuzzFeed • Jan 2016) [1:01:00] "13 Top Edi

Michael J. Mooney is a staff writer at D Magazine and the author of The Life and Legend of Chris Kyle. “There are some elements of crime stories that are so absurd that it’s funny, and so working on the “How Not to Get Away With Murder” story, it was actually really funny thinking about it for a long time. Until I met Nancy Howard, the woman who was shot in the face and has one eye now. This is her entire life, and it was destroyed. This is not a crime story to her, it’s her life.” Thanks to MailChimp, Feverborn, Audible, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @MooneyMichaelJ michaeljmooney.com Mooney on Longform [5:00] "The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever" (D Magazine • Jul 2012) [10:00] "The Real Girlfriend Experience" (New Times • Sep 2008) [17:00] "The New Glenn Beck" (D Magazine • Nov 2014) [23:00] "The Day Kennedy Died" (D Magazine • Nov 2008) [32:00] "How Not to Get Away With Murder" (D Magazine • Dec 2014) [33:00] "When Lois Pearson Started Fighting Back" (D Magazine • Jun

Alex Perry, based in England, has covered Africa and Asia for Newsweek and Time. His most recent book is The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free. “I got a call from one of my editors in 2003 or 2004, and he said something like, ‘You realize someone has died in the first line of every story you’ve filed for the last eight months?’ And my response was, ‘Of course. Isn’t that how we know it’s important?’ It took me a long time to work out that the importance of a story isn’t established only by death.” Thanks to MailChimp,Feverborn, and AlarmGrid for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @PerryAlexJ alex-perry.com Perry on Longform [2:00] The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free (Weidenfeld & Nicolson • 2015) [3:00] The Hunt for Boko Haram (Newsweek Insights • 2014) [4:00] "Inside the World of Louis Sarno, the Pygmy Chief from New Jersey" (Howard Swains • Newsweek • Apr 2015) [4:00] "Behind the Scenes in Putin’s Court: The Private Habits of a Latter-Day Dictator" (Ben Judah • Newsweek • Jul 2014) [27:20] "The Coll

Grant Wahl is senior writer at Sports Illustrated and the author of The Beckham Experiment. “I said to Balotelli, ‘I know you’re into President Obama. There’s a decent chance that he might read this story.’ He kind of perked up. I don’t think I was deliberately misleading him. There was a chance!” Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, Feverborn, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @GrantWahl Wahl's Sports Illustrated archive Wahl on Longform [4:00] "Hidden Damages" (M.R. O'Conner • The Atavist Magazine • Jan 2015) [19:00] "Home at Last" (William Mack • Sports Illustrated • Mar 1997) [20:00] "Men on a Mission" (Sports Illustrated • Feb 1997) [22:00] "The Odd Coupling" (Sports Illustrated • Oct 1997) [24:00] "Paternity Ward" (Sports Illustrated • May 1998) [27:00] The Beckham Experiment: How the World’s Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America (Three Rivers Press • 2009) [28:00] "The Americanization of David Beckham" (Sports Illustrated • Jul 2007) [34:00] "Mario Balotelli Has a Talen

Brooke Gladstone is the co-host of On the Media and the author of The Influencing Machine. “I'm not going to get any richer or more famous than I am right now. This is it, this is fine — it's better than I ever expected. I don't have anything to risk anymore. As far as I’m concerned, I want to just spend this last decade, decade and a half, twenty years, doing what I think is valuable. I don’t have any career path anymore. I’m totally off the career path. The beautiful thing is that I just don’t have any more fucks to give.” Thanks to Audible, Open Source, MailChimp, Igloo, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @OTMBrooke On the Media [10:00] "The Case Against the MX" (Inquiry • Aug 1979) [pdf] [12:00] Fred Kaplan's Slate archive [22:00] "Vanity Plates" (Bob Garfield • On the Media • Feb 2003) [24:00] "Reporting Around DHS Opacity" (On the Media • Oct 2013) [33:00] "The Anatomy of Six Shootings" (On The Media • Aug 2014) [35:00] The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Med

Venkatesh Rao is the founder of Ribbonfarm and the author of Breaking Smart. “I would say I was blind and deaf and did not know anything about how the world worked until I was about 25. It took until almost 35 before I actually cut loose from the script. The script is a very, very powerful thing. The script wasn’t working for me.” Thanks to MailChimp and CreativeLive for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @vgr Ribbonfarm Rao on Longform [3:00] "Seeking Density in the Gonzo Theater" (Ribbonfarm • Jan 2012) [5:00] "You Are Not an Artisan" (Ribbonfarm • July 2013) [6:00] Breaking Smart: Season 1 [11:00] "Why Software Is Eating the World" (Marc Andreessen • Wall Street Journal • Aug 2011) [19:00] Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (Philip E. Tetlock • Crown • 2015) [31:00] "The End of History?" (Francis Fukuyama • The National Interest • 1989) [pdf] [39:00] Quora [48:00] "Deep Play" (Aeon • Nov 2013) [48:00] "The American Cloud" (Aeon • July 2013) [48:00] "Why Solving Climate Change W

Doug McGray is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of California Sunday and Pop-Up. “Your life ends up being made up of the things you remember. You forget most of it, but the things that you remember become your life. And if you can make something that someone remembers, then you’re participating in their life. There’s something really meaningful about that. It feels like something worth trying to do.” Thanks to MailChimp, Smart People Podcast, Howl, and CreativeLive for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @dougmcgray douglasmcgray.com Pop-Up Magazine McGray on Longform California Sunday on Longform [11:00] "The Invisibles" (West • Apr 2006) [14:00] "Episode 329: Nice Work If You Can Get It" (This American Life • Apr 2007) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kliph Nesteroff writes for WFMU's Beware of the Blog. His book, The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy, was released in November. “Well, comedy always becomes stale. Whether it’s offensive or not offensive, it has an expiry date, unfortunately. A lot of people don’t want to hear this because that means a lot of their favorite comedians suddenly become irrelevant. But that’s the history of comedy: the hippest, coolest guy today—whoever that is to you in comedy—50 years from now, the new generation is going to say, ‘That guy’s not funny, and he’s square.’ And they’re going to say, ‘This new young guy is funny.’ But in another 50 years that guy becomes the square who isn’t funny. And it’s not that they weren’t funny and everybody was wrong; it was that that person was relating to their time.” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Squarespace , and CreativeLive for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to pitch in, please become a Longform Supporter. Show Notes: @Clas

Adrian Chen is a freelance journalist who has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Wired. His latest article is "Unfollow," about a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church. “Twitter and social media get such a bad rep for being full of hate and trolls. And, you know, a lot of the stories I’ve written have probably bolstered that stereotype. I think a lot of people have a lot of anxiety and ambivalence about social media even though they love it—they’re on it all the time—and they’re kind of thinking of it as a vice, as something they should be ashamed of, as bad. But this is a very clear win. It's not some abstract thing you could never measure. No, it’s like, [social media] really did cause her to leave the church.” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Squarespace, Mack Weldon, and Howl.fm for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @AdrianChen Longform Podcast #13: Adrian Chen Chen on Longform [5:00] "Unfollow" (The New Yorker • Nov 2015) [24:00] "The Agency" (The New York Times

Aleksandar Hemon is a writer from Bosnia whose fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Granta. His books include The Lazarus Project, The Question of Bruno, and The Book of My Lives. “For me and for everyone I know, that's the central fact of our lives. It's the trauma that we carry, that we cannot be cured of. The way things are in Bosnia, it's far from over. It's not peace, it's the absence of war. It's always there as a possibility. There's no way to imagine anything beyond a society defined by war.” Thanks to The Standard Hotels, MailChimp, and Howl.FM for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: aleksandarhemon.com Hemon on Longform [1:00] "The Aquarium" (The New Yorker • Oct 2014) [1:00] The Book of My Lives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2013) [5:00] The Question of Bruno (Vintage • 2001) [23:00] Submission (Michel Houellebecq • Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chip Kidd is a book designer and author. His most recent book is Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts. “The curious thing about doing a book cover is that you're creating a piece of art, but it is in service to a greater piece of art that is dictating what you're going to do. I may think I've come up with the greatest design in the world, but if the author doesn't like it, they win. And I have to start over.” Thanks to The Standard Hotels, MailChimp, Mack Weldon, Prudential, The Great Courses Plus, and "The Message" for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @chipkidd chipkidd.com [4:00] Kidd's Amazon page [5:00] Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts (Harry N. Abrams • 2015) [5:00] "Judge This" (TED Books • 2015) [11:00] The Cheese Monkeys (Scribner • 2001) [11:00] The Learners (Workman Publishing Company • 2008) [11:00] Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design (Scribner • 2008) [15:00] Lawrence Wright on the Longform Podcast [16:00] The Looming Tower (

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. His latest book, Between the World and Me, just won the National Book Award. “When I first came to New York, I couldn't see any of this. I felt like a complete washout. I was in my little apartment, eating donuts and playing video games. The only thing I was doing good with my life was being a father and a husband. That was it. David [Carr] was a big shot. And he would call me in, just out of the blue, to have lunch. I was so low at that point. ... He said, ​I think you're a great bet. ... He was remembering people who had invested in him when he was low. That more than anything is why I'm sad he's not here for all of this. Because it's for him. It's to say to him, ​you were right​.” Please become a Longform Supporter. Make your contribution here. Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Squarespace, MasterClass, and "The Message" for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @tanehisicoates Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates Longform Podcast #97: Ta

Kurt Andersen is the co-founder of Spy Magazine, the author of several books, and the host of Studio 360. “As a young person, I never thought of myself as a risk-taker. Then I did this risky thing that shouldn't have succeeded, I started this magazine. And it did encourage me to think, ‘Eh, how bad can it be if it fails? Sometimes these long shots work. So fuck it, try it.’” Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, The Message, RealtyShares, and Prudential for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @KBAndersen kurtandersen.com Andersen on Longform [2:00] The Spy Magazine archive on Google Books [12:00] Private Eye [19:00] "Felkerism" (New York • Jul 2008) [25:00] "When a Magazine Is Too Brash for the Bottom Line" (Robin Pogrebin • New York Times • Sep 1996) [28:00] Turn of the Century (Random House • 1999) [28:00] Heyday (Random House • 2007) [31:00] "The Digital Bubble " (New Yorker • Jan 1998) [33:00] "Inside Out" (Ken Auletta • New Yorker • May 2006) [40:00] Studio 360 [42:00] "Lily Tomlin's Audacious Lif

Ed Caesar is a freelance writer based in England whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, British GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine. He is the author of Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon. “That was a really horrific situation. People were being killed in the street in front of us. People were firing weapons in all directions. It was really chaotic and quite scary. It freaked me out. And I thought, 'Actually, there's not a huge amount more of this I want to do in my life.'” Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, The Message, RealtyShares, and Prudential for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @edcaesar edcaesar.co.uk Caesar on Longform [2:00] "House of Secrets" (New Yorker • Jun 2015) [sub req'd] [3:00] "Congo: The Horror" (GQ (UK) • Jan 2010) [3:00] "Tehran Nights" (GQ (UK) • Jun 2009) [4:00] We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Philip Gourevitch • Picador 1999) [5:00] "Blood Oil" (Sebastian Junger • Vanity Fair • Jun 2009) [7: