Longform

Anne Helen Petersen writes for BuzzFeed. Her book Scandals of Classic Hollywood is out this week. "I was obsessed with Entertainment Weekly from the very first issue and I obsessively catalogued it. I made a database on my Apple IIe where I put in the title of the magazine and the number and whether it was a little 'e' or a big 'E' on the cover and the different topics and then I gave it a grade. You know how in Entertainment Weekly they give everything a grade, so I’d be like 'Oscar’s Issue: A minus.' But I learned how to obsessively track Hollywood industry even though I grew up in a very small town in northern Idaho." Thanks to TinyLetter, Bonobos, and EA SPORTS FIFA 15 for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @annehelen annehelenpetersen.com Petersen on Longform [1:00] "The Down and Dirty History of TMZ" (BuzzFeed • Jul 2014) [1:00] Scandals of Classic Hollywood (Plume • Sep 2014) [3:00] EA SPORTS FIFA 15 Readers' Poll Results [5:00] "The Gossip Industry" (Petersen's Dissertation • 2011) [pdf] [

Chris Hayes hosts All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC and is an editor-at-large for The Nation. "The instability was so intense and the anguish and frustration were so intense that there wasn’t a ton of time to think through, 'Well, what is my role in this?' Mostly it was: wake up in the morning after two or three hours of sleep and start going to stuff, talking to people, and keep doing that until the show happens." Thanks to GoDaddy for sponsoring this week's episode. Apply for the TinyLetter Writers Residency by September 26. And nominate your favorite soccer article for a chance to win a free Xbox One and EA SPORTS FIFA 15. Show Notes: @chrislhayes [1:55] Evan on The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC • Apr 2014) [7:30] "Al-Jazeera runs from teargas in Ferguson" (YouTube) [10:30] "St Louis police officer shoots Kajieme Powell [Graphic]" (YouTube) [26:00] Hayes's archive in The Chicago Reader [28:00] "Trapped" (The Chicago Reader • Dec 2002) [34:00] Hayes's archive in The Nation [39:30] "The NAFTA Superhighway" (Th

Buzz Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has written for Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, GQ and more. He is the author of several books, including Friday Night Lights. "It’s quiet. And I really felt I needed that quiet. People say, 'Well anger was your edge, and agitation was your edge, and that’s going to hurt your writing.' I don’t know, maybe. It may be that in order to live a happier life you become a shittier writer. I don't know. But I just couldn't live in that fashion anymore, I just couldn't. It would've destroyed my marriage. It was destroying me." Thanks to this week's sponsors. The Longform App is now available. Apply for the TinyLetter Writers Residency by September 26. And nominate your favorite soccer article for a chance to win a free Xbox One and EA SPORTS FIFA 15. Show Notes: buzzbissinger.com Bissinger on Longform [7:00] Friday Night Lights (Da Capo Press • 1990) [7:30] "Pursuit Of A Big Blue Chipper" (Sports Illustrated • Sep 1968) [12:00] "Disorder in the Court" series (The P

Sean Wilsey has written for The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The New York Times, and McSweeney’s Quarterly, where he is an editor-at-large. His latest book is More Curious. "I’m actually apparently a fairly competent person at getting things done, making deadlines and all these things. But the Wilsey you might get in the piece about NASA is the guy who eats a ton of oysters and drinks a lot of beer before getting on the vomit comet." Thanks to TinyLetter and GoDaddy for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @seanwilsey [1:20] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and the author of Sticks and Stones. "There’s nothing purely, or maybe even at all, altruistic about this exchange. It’s transactional in the Janet Malcolm classical sense, but also in the emotional sense. There is a way in which I’m super open. I take in these experiences. They keep me up at night. They really get inside me. But then, I'm also using them to craft whatever I’m working on." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @emilybazelon emilybazelon.com Bazelon on Longform [17:30] "What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?" (Slate • July 2010) [25:45] Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy (2013 • Random House) [27:15] "The Price of a Stolen Childhood" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2013) [37:45] Double X [41:00] Political Gabfest [45:00] Bazelon on Colbert Report (Mar 2012) [46:00] Bazelon’s television appearances [47:45] "The Dawn of the Post-Cl

Zach Baron is a staff writer for GQ. "People love to put celebrity stuff or culture stuff lower on the hierarchy than, say, a serial killer story. I think they're all the same story. If you crack the human, you crack the human." Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes:   @xzachbaronx Baron's personal site Baron on Longform [7:00] "Kanye West: A Brand-New Ye" (GQ • Jul 2014) [17:30] "Steve McQueen: Auteur of the Year 2013" (GQ • Dec 2013) [22:50] "The Secret Double Life of Mister Cee" (GQ • Feb 2014) [39:10] Baron's archive on Grantland [45:00] "Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas" (The Daily • Oct 2011) [45:40] "50 Cent Is My Life Coach" (GQ • Jun 2014) [52:00] "Cliven Bundy's War" (GQ • Jul 2014) [52:20] "Why Are They (Armed) 'Patriots' in Nevada But (Unarmed) Rioters in Ferguson?" (GQ • Aug 2014)   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ben Anderson is a war journalist and documentary filmmaker. His latest book, The Interpreters, is available free from Vice. "You're surrounded by people who are so poor. Maybe their family members have already been killed. And they still can't leave. So compared to that, I can't really take the idea that I've suffered and that I need stop and go to a spa for a few days. I can't take that idea that seriously. Compared to them, it feels like I am leading an almost privileged existence." Thanks to TinyLetter and GoDaddy for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @BenJohnAnderson Ben Anderson on Vice [12:00] The Slaves of Dubai (Vice • Apr 2009) [15:30] "My Holidays in the Axis of Evil" (BBC • Feb 2003) [20:43] No Worse Enemy (Oneworld Publications • Oct 2012) [21:15] This is What Winning Looks Like (Vice • May 2013) [23:20] The Battle for Marjah (HBO • Feb 2010) [33:16] Vice on HBO [40:00] James Wood's New Yorker archive [42:40] Afghan Interpreters (Vice • Jul 2014) [42:40] The Interpreters (Vice • Aug 2

Lewis Lapham, formerly the editor of Harper's, is the founder of Lapham's Quarterly. "The best part of my job was to come across a manuscript. You never knew what would show up. ... I always had the sense of opening a present, hoping to be both delighted and surprised. Often I was disappointed. But when I wasn't, it was a lot of fun. And word got around that I was that kind of an editor, that I was willing to try anything if you could make it interesting." Thanks to TinyLetter and GoDaddy for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: Lapham's Quarterly Lapham on Longform [2:30] With the Beatles (Melville House • Oct 2005) [17:00] "Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?" (The Saturday Evening Post • Sep 1965) [unavailable online] [21:00] "Monk: High Priest of Jazz" (The Saturday Evening Post • Apr 1964) [unavailable online] [29:00] "Alaksa: Politicians and Natives, Money and Oil" (Harper's • May 1970) [paywall] [31:00] "The Coming Wounds of Wall Street" (Harper's • May 1971) [paywall] [43:30] "Harper's Lapham: Good-by

Adam Higginbotham has written for Businessweek, Wired and The New Yorker. His latest story is A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite, for The Atavist. "There's always a narrative in a crime story. Something has always gone wrong. These guys are always in prison, because they all fucked something up or trusted the wrong person. They always get caught in the end. Because if they hadn't, you wouldn't be reading about it." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @HigginbothamA adamhigginbotham.com Higginbotham on Longform [2:13] A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite (The Atavist • Jul 2014) [26:16] The Face [28:14] Richard Branson Turns 50 (Independent on Sunday Review • Jul 2000) [32:51] The Inkjet Counterfeiter (Wired (UK) • Oct 2009) [40:48] The Gangster Prince of Liberia (Details • Nov 2007) [41:30] The Last Days of the Lipstick Killer (GQ • May 2008) [41:39] The Green River Killer (Sunday Telegraph • May 2004) [pdf] [46:18] Life at the Top (The New Yorker • Feb 2013) Learn more about your ad c

Brin-Jonathan Butler has written for SB Nation, ESPN, and The New York Times. His new book is A Cuban Boxer’s Journey. "He smiled at me and just to make small talk, I said, 'You know, you’ve got this gold grill on your teeth. Where did you get that from?' And he said, 'Oh, I just melted my gold medals into my mouth.' And I thought, 'I think I’ve got a story here.'" Thanks to TinyLetter, WW Norton & Company and Open Road Integrated Media for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @brincio [4:45] Pitching Around Fidel (S.L. Price • 1998) [7:45] Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway • 1952) [12:00] "Mike Tyson Jail Interview" (YouTube) [19:30] Granma [29:30] "Héroes for Sale" (SB Nation • June 2014) [35:45] Split Decision: The Story of Guillermo Rigondeaux (Documentary directed by Butler) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah has written for The Believer, The LA Review of Books, Transition and The Paris Review. "If He Hollers Let Him Go," her essay on Dave Chappelle, was a 2014 National Magazine Award finalist. "So the stakes are high. I’m not just writing this to write. I’m writing because I think there’s something I need to say. And there’s something that needs to be said. ... What I hope is that a young kid or an older person will see that you have choices, that you don't have to accept what people hand to you. That you have control." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: the-rachelkaadzighansah.tumblr.com [:30] "If He Hollers Let Him Go" (The Believer • Oct 2013) [15:15] Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (Charles R. Cross • Hyperion • 2005) [17:10] "What Lured Hemingway to Ketchum?" (Hunter S. Thompson • The National Observer • May 1964) [Google Books] [19:45] "Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You: The Roots Are One of the Most Respected Hip-Hop Acts in the

A look back at some of our favorite moments from the first 99. Thanks to our sponsors, TinyLetter and Squarespace. Show Notes: [4:45] #3: David Grann [7:00] #4: Jon Mooallem [10:10] #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates [14:15] #9: Jeanne Marie Laskas [12:32] #10: Chris Jones [18:00] #22: Charles Duhigg [20:00] #29: Matthew Power [23:45] #37: Ann Friedman [26:30] #39: Natasha Vargas-Cooper [28:00] #43: Margalit Fox [31:20] #57: Eli Saslow [34:50] #62: Malcolm Gladwell [39:00] #64: Gay Talese [43:35] #65: Elizabeth Wurtzel [46:10] #67: Evan Wright [49:30] #75: George Saunders [52:10] #77: Dan P. Lee [57:00] #78: Ariel Levy [102:30] #84: Sabrina Rubin Erdely [104:20] #88: Sam Biddle [106:30] #91: Michael Lewis [110:30] #95: Wesley Morris Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Heilemann is the managing editor of Bloomberg Politics and the co-author of Game Change and Double Down. "If you're a writer, and you're not an asshole, you want the maximum number of people to read your stuff. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no great glory in cultivating some niche audience. I do this work because I believe in what I'm doing. I'm not trying to compromise my principles or my standards to get a larger audience. But once I've written the thing of which I feel confident and proud, which I feel is ethically and journalistically sound, I then want the maximum number of people to read it." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @jheil [9:15] "Congress's Watch Dog: The General Accounting Office" (Washington Monthly • Nov 1989) [23:15] "Can the BBC Be Saved?" (Wired • Mar 1994) [24:00] Heilemann's New Yorker archive [33:00] "The Networker" (New Yorker • July 1997) (sub req'd) [34:30] The Valley [35:00] The Reckoning (David Halberstam • 1986) [37:00] "The

George Saunders has written for The New Yorker and GQ. His latest collection of short stories is Tenth of December. "Maybe you would understand your artistry to be: put me anywhere. I'll find human beings, I'll find human interest, I'll find literature. And I guess you could argue the weirder, or maybe the less explored the place, the better." Thanks to TinyLetter and Audible for sponsoring this episode.  Show notes: georgesaundersbooks.com Saunders on Longform [5:00] Tenth of December (Random House • 2013) [8:45] "George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You'll Read This Year" (Joel Lovell • New York Times Magazine • Jan 2013) [22:45] CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (Random House • 1996) [29:30] "The Great Divider" (GQ • Dec 2006) [30:45] "The New Mecca" (GQ • Nov 2005) [33:00] "The Incredible Buddha Boy" (GQ • Jun 2006) [38:45] George Saunders's Advice to Graduates (May 2013) [47:00] "Tent City, U.S.A." (GQ • Sep 2009) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah Nicole Prickett is the founding editor of Adult. "I'll admit to being resistant to the 'by women for women' label that Adult had before because I saw it as being just 'by women,' period. That’s way more feminist than making something for women, which is very prescriptive and often comes in various shades of pink." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: Pre-order: Adult #2 Prickett's TinyLetter @snpsnpsnp snpsnpsnp.com [8:40] Fashion [2:30] "How to Make Love in America" (Hazlitt • Jul 2013) [11:20] "The Ultimate Humiliation" (n+1 • May 2014) [17:15] The Cut [17:15] Bon [22:30] "Like Every Time My Pelvis Touches A Sink Brim" (Fiona Duncan • Adule • June 2014) [24:30] "Florida” (Joe Coscarelli • Adult • March 2014) [34:12] "House On Fire” (Larissa Pham • Adult • May 2014) [35:10] "Ass Man” (Brad Phillips • Adult • March 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic. His latest cover story is "The Case for Reparations." "The writer hopes for change, but writers can't assume that their work is going to cause change." Thanks to TinyLetter andI Am Zlatan, the international bestseller published by Random House, for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @tanehisicoates Coates's blog for The Atlantic Coates on Longform "The Case for Reparations" (The Atlantic • May 2014) [4:20] "Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates" [4:35] "Fear of a Black President" (The Atlantic • Aug 2012) [7:05] "The Case for Reparations: An Intellectual Autopsy" (The Atlantic • May 2014) [8:05] "For Asians, School Tests Are Vital Steppingstones" (Kyle Spencer • New York Times • Oct 2012) [10:08] Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Kenneth Jacks • Oxford University Press • 1985) [16:10] "The Story of the Contract Buyers League" (James Alan McPherson • The Atlantic • Apr 1972) [pdf] [18:53] "Zlatan’s Revenge!" An excerpt

Nathaniel Rich writes for Rolling Stone, Harper's and the New York Times Magazine. His latest novel is Odds Against Tomorrow. "I'm drawn to obsession. I think I'm an obsessive in a way, probably most writers are. It's an obsessive act to sit at a desk by yourself." Thanks to TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA WORLD CUP for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @NathanielRich nathanielrich.com Rich on Longform [15:45] "Diving Deep Into Danger" (New York Review of Books • Feb 2013) [21:45] Odds Against Tomorrow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux • Feb 2013) [23:30] Longform Podcast #64: Gay Talese [23:45] The Bridge (Gay Talese • Harper & Row • 1964) [26:15] "The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox" (Rolling Stone • Jun 2011) [26:30] "Tyler Hadley's Killer Party" (Rolling Stone • Dec 2013) [35:30] "How to Spend 47 Hours on a Train and Not Go Crazy" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2013) [40:00] "For Whom the Cell Tolls" (Harper's • May 2010) [43:45] "The Man Who Saves You From Yourself" (Harper's • Nov 2013) [44:30] S

Wesley Morris, a Pulitzer Prize winner, covers film at Grantland. "That's what writing about race and popular culture is for me: it's crime reporting. It's not me looking for an agenda when I go to the movies ... but I feel a moral responsibility to report a crime being committed. That's what I'm forced to do over and over again." Thanks to this week's sponsors, Warby Parker and TinyLetter. Show notes: @wesley_morris Morris's Grantland archive [1:15] Reba modeling Warby Parker [37:15] "The Cultural Crater of 12 Years a Slave" (Grantland • Oct 2013) [39:15] "Strange Fruitvale" (Grantland • Jul 2013) [39:15] Longform Podcast #89: Alice Gregory [40:00] Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates [40:00] "The Case for Reparations" (Ta-Nehisi Coates • The Atlantic • May 2014) [55:30] "The Unstoppable Scarlett Johansson" (Anthony Lane • New Yorker • Mar 2014) [47:30] Molly Lambert's Grantland archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gary Smith retired last month after more than 30 years of writing for Sports Illustrated. "We were on the Santa Monica Freeway, Ali's driving 70 miles an hour and his eyes are drifting asleep—the medication for Parkinson's would do that to him. I'm thinking, 'Oh, crap.' We're weaving between lanes, cars are honking, and I'm wondering in the passenger seat, 'Should I grab the wheel from the greatest champ of all-time?' The writer in me wants to let it go, let the crash happen just so I get a scene for the story. But the human in me was just getting scared as hell." Thanks to TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA WORLD CUP for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: Smith on Longform [18:30] "Crime and Punishment" (Sports Illustrated • Jun 1996) [39:00] "The Secret Life of Mia Hamm" (Sports Illustrated • Sep 2003) [40:00] "Someone to Lean On" (Sports Illustrated • Dec 1996) [41:00] "As Time Runs Out" (Sports Illustrated • Jan 1993) [42:15] "Tyson the Timid, Tyson the Terrible" (Sports Illustrated • Mar 1988) [47

Michael Paterniti, a correspondent for GQ, has also written for Esquire, Rolling Stone and Outside. His latest book is The Telling Room. "I want to see it, whatever it is. If it's war, if it's suffering, if it's complete, unbridled elation, I just want to see what that looks like—I want to smell it, I want to taste it, I want to think about it, I want to be caught up in it." Thanks to this week's sponsors: TinyLetter and Hari Kunzru'sTwice Upon a Time, the new title from and Atavist Books. Show notes: @MikePaterniti Paterniti on Longform [4:30] Driving Mr. Albert (Dial Press • Jun 2001) [5:00] The Telling Room (Dial Press • Jul 2013) [9:30] "He Might Be A Prophet. That, Or the Greatest Chef in the World." (Esquire • Jul 2001) [13:00] "XXXXL" (GQ • Mar 2005) [42:45] "The Man Who Sailed His House" (GQ • Oct 2011) [46:00] Paterniti's Outside archive [47:30] "Driving Mr. Albert" (Harper's • Oct 1997) [sub. req'd] [48:15] "The 15 Year Layover" (GQ • Sep 2003) [48:15] "The Suicide Catcher" (GQ • May 2010) [50:00