Longform

Leslie Jamison has written for The Believer, Harper's and The New York Times. Her latest book is The Empathy Exams. "I sort of love imagining a small army of 22-year-old men who are just like, 'Fuck that book, I wish it was never published.'" Thanks to TinyLetter and Harry's for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @lsjamison lesliejamison.com Jamison on Longform [9:00] The Empathy Exams (Graywolf Press • Apr 2014) [12:15] "La Plata Perdida" (A Public Space • Nov 2009) [sub. req'd] [13:15] "Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain" (Virginia Quarterly Review • Apr 2014) [17:00] "Is It Harder to Write About Happiness Than Its Opposite?" (New York Times • Mar 2014) [18:15] The Gin Closet: A Novel (Free Press • Feb 2010) [27:30] Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy • Harper Perennial • Mar 2003) [43:00] "The Devil's Bait" (Harper's • Sep 2013) [49:00] "The Empathy Exams" (The Believer • Feb 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Lewis has written for The New Republic, Vanity Fair and The New York Times Magazine. His latest book is Flash Boys. "When you're telling a story, you're essentially playing the cards you're dealt. ... Sometimes the hand is very easy to play. Sometimes the hand is difficult to play. At the end, I just try to think, 'Is there anything I would have done differently?' 'Is there any trick I missed?' If I don't have the feeling that I missed something big, I feel happy about the book." Thanks to TinyLetter and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: michaellewiswrites.com Lewis on Longform [2:30] Lewis's speech at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital (2011) [2:45] Flash Boys (W.W. Norton & Co. • Mar 2014) [3:45] "Did Goldman Sachs Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?" (Vanity Fair • Aug 2013) [6:45] The Big Short (W.W. Norton & Co. • Mar 2010) [7:15] Moneyball (W.W. Norton & Co. • May 2003) [7:45] Liar's Poker (W.W. Norton & Co. • Oct 1989) [25:15] Lewis's New Republic archive [

Susan Dominus is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine. "A lot of reporting is really just hanging around and not going home until something interesting happens." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @susandominus Dominus on Longform [7:00] Longform Podcast #31: Emily Nussbaum [9:45] "Santa's Little Helper" (New York Times • Dec 1999) [10:00] "The Allergy Prison" (New York Times Magazine • Jun 2001) [11:00] "Shabana is Late for School" (New York Times Magazine • Sep 2002) [16:00] "Everybody Has a Mother" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2003) [17:30] "What Happened to the Girls in Le Roy?" (New York Times Magazine • Mar 2012) [25:15] "Eve Ensler Wants to Save the World" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2002) [30:15] "He Could Be Cranky, But He Was Her Neighbor" (New York Times • Mar 2008) [32:00] "Susan Dominus is the Best" (Hamilton Nolan • Gawker • Jul 2009) [33:15] Longform Podcast #87: Amanda Hess [33:46] "It's All Sweetness and Light, Until the Snowballs Fly" (New Y

Alice Gregory has written for n+1, GQ, The New York Times and Harper's. "If you don't have a real story with a beginning, middle and an end, you owe it to the reader to kind of serve as their chaperone." Thanks to TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA WORLD CUP for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @alicegregory Gregory on Longform alicegregory.tumblr.com [4:30] "Sad as Hell" (n+1 • Nov 2010) [9:45] "On the Market" (n+1 • Mar 2012) [11:45] "Mavericks" (n+1 • Oct 2013) [21:30] "Ryan McGinley: Naked and Famous" (GQ • Apr 2014) [32:30] "Professional Doppelgänger (Dealmaker)" (Mark Singer • New Yorker • Jan 1982) [33:30] "Found Money" (Harper's • May 2014) [sub. req'd] [40:30] "Interview: Renata Adler" (The Believer • Dec 2012) [44:00] "Obscurity is the Lure" (New York Times • Mar 2014) [49:30] Longform Podcast #34: Molly Young Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sam Biddle writes for Valleywag. "It's a lot of overgrown, entitled manchildren pulling price tags out of the ether and passing them around. Considering Silicon Valley worthy of contempt is the first premise that we work from." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @samfbiddle [6:15] Valleywag's coverage of Sean Parker [6:45] "'The Uber of Private Jets' is a Real Thing" (Valleywag • Apr 2013) [6:55] "What is Auto-Tune, and Why Does Jay-Z Want It Dead?" (PSFK • Jun 2009) [18:15] "Look Who’s Gawking: Inside Nick Denton’s Phony, Hypocritical Class War Against Tech Workers" (Paul Carr • Pando Daily • Dec 2013) [19:45] "Meet the Google Founder's Mistress" (Valleywag • Aug 2013) [34:15] "Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Money: The Crazy Secrets of Internet Cam Girls [NSFW]" (Gizmodo • Sep 2012) [41:45] "Google Employee: 'You Can't Afford It? You Can Leave!' (Update: Hoax) (Valleywag • Dec 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amanda Hess, a staff writer at Slate, has also written for Pacific Standard, GOOD, and ESPN the Magazine. "I ended up not loving the fact that I was getting a bunch of calls from MSNBC and CNN, who mostly wanted to talk about people threatening to rape and kill me and only a tiny bit about the story I'd written. ... It was tiring, and it seemed dismissive of me as a person. It's a strange thing to become somebody else's story, especially when the story is: You're a victim of an insane online harasser. That's who you are." Thanks to this week's sponsors, TinyLetter and Oyster Books. Show notes: @amandahess Hess on Longform sexwithamandahess.com [3:15] "Point Taken" (Washington City Paper • Mar 2008) [9:30] The Sexist blog [18:30] "What Women Want: Porn and the Frontier of Female Sexuality" (Good • Nov 2011) [31:30] "Why Women Aren't Welcome on the Internet" (Pacific Standard • Jan 2014) [46:45] "Just Cheer, Baby" (ESPN The Magazine • Apr 2014) [47:00] "You Can Only Hope to Contain Them" (ESPN The Magazine •

Mattathias Schwartz has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Harper's. "I figure it's like digging through a wall with a spoon: if you spend enough time at it eventually you get to the other side." Thanks to TinyLetter and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: mattathiasschwartz.com Schwartz on Longform [4:00] "A Massacre in Jamaica" (New Yorker • Dec 2011) [20:15] The Philadelphia Independent [25:00] "The Hold-'Em Holdup" (New York Times Magazine • Jun 2006) [26:45] "The Trolls Among Us" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2008) [26:45] "The Church of Warren Buffett" (Harper's • Jan 2010) [35:00] "The Golden Touch" (Harper's • Dec 2008) [36:00] The Big Con (David Maurer • Bobbs-Merrill Company • 1940) [36:30] "The Still Lives of Wells Tower" (Paul Maliszewski • The Brooklyn Rail • Feb 2011) [37:00] "Petroleum, Louisiana" [37:00] "How Fast Can He Cook a Chicken?" (London Review of Books • Oct 2011) [49:00] "Camp Justice" (Kindle Single • Nov 2012) [50:45] "A Mission Gone

Tavi Gevinson is the founder and editor-in-chief of Rookie. "I just want our readers to know that they are already smart enough and cool enough." Thanks to this week's sponsors, TinyLetter and Atavist Books. Show notes: @tavitulle Rookie thestylerookie.com [4:15] "Tavi Says" (Lizze Widdicombe • New Yorker • Sep 2010) [30:30] "A Teen Just Trying to Figure It Out" (TED • Mar 2012) [33:30] Rookie Yearbook Two (Drawn and Quarterly • Oct 2013) [39:45] Longform Podcast #75: George Saunders [43:15] "Super Heroine: An Interview with Lorde" (Rookie • Jan 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, has also written for GQ, Philadelphia and SELF.  "I think that people are, by their nature, good and want to act rightly. So I'm very interested in why people do these things that result in really bad actions. My lack of outrage actually is one of the things that probably helps me in my reporting because I really am propelled by this pure curiosity. ... I just want to know, 'Where did that come from?'" Thanks to TinyLetter and PillPack for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @SabrinaRErdely sabrinaerdely.com Erdely on Longform [3:00] Longform Podcast #77: Dan P. Lee [3:00] Longform Podcast #24: Stephen Rodrick [12:45] "The Entrapment of Jesse Snodgrass" (Rolling Stone • Feb 2014) [17:15] "Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire" (Rolling Stone • Apr 2011) [22:45] "The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer" (Rolling Stone • Feb 2013) [27:45] "One Town's War on Gay Teens" (Rolling Stone • Feb 2012) [34:45] "The Poorest Rich Kids in the World"

"The kind of stories I've gotten to do have involved fulfilling my childhood fantasies of having an adventurous life. Even though I don't make a ton of money doing it, I've never felt like I was missing out on something." Our friend Matt Power, a freelance journalist, died this week while on assignment in Uganda. Matt recorded this episode of the Longform Podcast with Evan Ratliff in February 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower and Going Clear, is a staff writer for The New Yorker. "If I had the chance to interview Osama Bin Laden, should I kill him? It’s a fair question. Suppose we’re having dinner — should I stab him with the bread knife? Do I have a moral obligation to kill him? Or do I have a moral obligation as a reporter to simply hear him? … It’s sometimes difficult to take away the judgements that you naturally have. But when you do that, when you strip yourself and you’re morally naked, it’s sometimes surprising how infectious the relationship can become." Thanks to TinyLetter and Pillpack.com for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: lawrencewright.com @lawrence_wright Wright on Longform [6:00] Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Knopf • Jan 2013) [6:00] The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf • Aug 2006) [7:45] The Siege (Twentieth Century Fox • 1998) [14:45] "The Apostate" (The New Yorker • Feb 2011) [30:15] My Trip to Al-Qae

Pamela Colloff and Mimi Swartz are executive editors of Texas Monthly. Colloff: "That sense of loss, that sense of normal life turning on a dime is something that, in a very different way, I’ve experienced. And I carry that with me into some of the more difficult stories." Swartz: "Here’s this great [public interest] story that nobody’s ever told. Now how can I write it so the maximum number of people want to read it? I try to make the homework part as interesting and compelling as possible." Thanks to TinyLetter and PillPack for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @pamelacolloff Colloff on Longform [2:15] Longform Podcast #16: Pamela Colloff [10:00] "A Bend in the River" (Texas Monthly • Jul 2002) [10:00] "A Question of Mercy" (Texas Monthly • Mar 2014) [10:30] "The Innocent Man, Part One" (Texas Monthly • Nov 2012) [10:30] "The Innocent Man, Part Two" (Texas Monthly • Dec 2012) [14:45] "Innocence Found" (Texas Monthly • Jan 2011) Show notes: @mimiswartz Swartz on Longform [25:30] "Mothers, Sist

Jennifer Senior is a contributing editor at New York and the author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood. "I've had moments in motherhood that have been close to something like religious. But I don't think social scientists say things like, "How many numinous moments have you had?" They don't do that, so you have to figure out what to do. I was suddenly turning to other texts to try and explain all of this." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @JenSeniorNY Senior on Longform [3:15] All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood (Ecco • Jan 2014) [6:30] "All Joy and No Fun" (New York • Jul 2010) [8:30] "Alone Together" (New York • Nov 2008) [39:00] "Hollywood on the Potomac" (New York Times • Dec 1993) [39:30] "The Language of the Deaf Evolves to Reflect New Sensibilities" (New York Times • Jan 1994) [44:15] "Hill Climbing" (New York • Apr 2001) [44:45] "Sorry, Your Time is Not Up" (New York • Aug 2001) [45:00] "Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness" (New

Kevin Roose, a writer at New York, has contributed to The New York Times, GQ and Esquire. His latest book is Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits. "Google will give you away. I feel like one undercover book is all you get these days before the jig is up. ... Unless, like Barbara Ehrenreich, you legally change your name. I was not quite prepared to go that far." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @kevinroose kevinroose.com Roose on Longform [3:15] The Unlikely Disciple (Grand Central Publishing • 2010) [4:30] The Year of Living Biblically (A.J. Jacobs • Simon & Schuster • 2007) [16:45] Young Money (Grand Central Publishing • 2014) [30:15] Roose's New York Times archive [44:45] "Pursuing Self-Interest in Harmony with the Laws of the Universe and Contributing to Evolution is Universally Rewarded" (New York • Apr 2011) [54:00] "Go West, Young Bank Bro" (San Francisco • Feb 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adc

Wil S. Hylton, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of Vanished. "I despise the fucking nut graf. I think it's a joke, a cop out. The story probably should be about something larger than itself but if you have to tell people what that is, you've failed form the beginning. If they can't find it, you didn't put it there and you shouldn't be beating them over the head with it." Thanks to TinyLetter and The Fog Horn for sponsoring this week's episode, and to the Writing Department at the University of Pittsburgh for hosting. Show notes: @wilshylton wilshylton.com Hylton on Longform [1:45] Longform Podcast #28: Joel Lovell (live) [2:15] Vanished (Riverhead Books• 2013) [7:45] "The Search for the Lost Marines of Tarawa" (New York Times Magazine • Nov 2013) [11:30] "The Return of the Trolls" (Baltimore Sun • Apr 1992) [24:15] Longform Podcast #66: Andy Ward [25:00] "There Goes the Neighborhood, Up in Flames" (Esquire • Aug 1999) [31:15] "Hot Enough For Ya?" (Esquire • Aug 2000) [35

David Kushner, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired and The Atavist. "The minute you see an incredible character, you know. The only thing I can compare it to is bowling, not that I'm much of a bowler. On the few times I've thrown a strike, you know it before it hits the pins." Thanks to TinyLetter and ProFlowers for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @davidkushner davidkushner.com Kushner on Longform [1:00] "The Bones of Marianna" (The Atavist • Dec 2013) [8:15] "The Hacker is Watching" (GQ • Jan 2012) [8:45] Masters of Doom (Random House • 2003) [8:45] Jacked (Wiley • 2012) [28:45] "Prepare to Meet Thy Doom" (Wired • May 2003) [30:45] "Cormac McCarthy's Apocalypse" (Rolling Stone • Dec 2007) [31:00] "Time Tunnels Meet Warped Passages" (IEEE Spectrum • Apr 2006) [37:45] "The WikiLeaks Mole" (Rolling Stone • Jan 2014) [41:45] Levittown (Walker & Company • 2009) [43:30] "I Was a Teenage Freak" (Rolling Stone • Sep 2003) [48:00] "Anonymous vs. St

Ariel Levy is a staff writer at The New Yorker. "I like an older awesome lady, I don't think enough is written about older awesome ladies and I don't think there are enough role models for younger awesome ladies. It’s great fun hanging out with an older awesome lady. It’s inspiring. And it makes you think 'Jesus, I might be rocking it when I’m 80!'" Thanks to ProFlowers and TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @avlskies Levy on Longform [3:00] "My First Time, Twice" (Guernica • June 2011) [7:15] Female Chauvinist Pigs (Free Press • 2006) [12:00] "The Perfect Wife" (New Yorker • Sep 2013) [12:30] "Breaking the Waves" (New Yorker • Feb 2014) [sub req'd] [12:45] "Nora Knows What To Do" (New Yorker • Jul 2009) [24:00] "Reservations" (New Yorker • Dec 2010) [sub req'd] [25:00] "I, Mack" (New York • May 2001) [25:00] "The Pretty-Boy Syndrome" (New York • Oct 2004) [27:00] "The Last Gentleman" (New York • Oct 2007) [27:00] "The Prisoner of Sex" (New York • Jun 2005) [30:45] "Enchanted" (New

Dan P. Lee is a contributing writer at New York. "I don't believe in answers. That's what compels me to write all of these stories. None of them ends nicely, none of them ends neatly." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @Dan_P_Lee Lee on Longform Lee's New York archive [13:30] "Who Killed Ellen Andros?" (Philadelphia Magazine • Oct 2006) [22:45] "Travis the Menace" (New York • Jan 2011) [45:00] "Paw Paw & Lady Love" (New York • Jun 2011) [48:45] "4:52 on Christmas Morning" (New York • Dec 2012) [49:15] "The Camera's Cusp" (New York • Sep 2013) [49:15] "Where It Hurts" (New York • Dec 2013) [51:30] "The Good Seed" (GQ • Jun 2011) [55:30] "'I Just Want to Feel Everything'" (New York • Jun 2012) [1:04:00] "Welcome to the Real Space Age" (New York • May 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roger D. Hodge is the editor of Oxford American. "My career isn't all that interesting insofar as I've been an editor. I'm much more interested in talking about writers and stories. That's the main thing: telling these stories, creating this platform, this context for the best possible storytelling." Thanks to TinyLetter and Random House for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @RogerDHodge oxfordamerican.org [5:15] "Long Way Home" (Rosanne Cash • Oxford American • Nov 2013) [5:45] The River and The Thread (Rosanne Cash • Blue Note Records • 2014) [10:00] Sewanee Review [18:45] "Mean Season" (Adrian McKinty • Harper's • Sep 1997) [sub req'd] [26:00] "The Net Giveth, and the Net Taketh Away" (Suck • Dec 1995) [31:30] Longform Podcast #5: Paul Ford [37:00] "The Guantánamo 'Suicides'" (Scott Horton • Harper's • Mar 2010) [43:45] "Dear Charlie" (Joe Hagan • Oxford American • Nov 2013) [49:15] Southword Radio Series (Oxford American & National Public Radio) [53:45] "Carl the Raping Goat Saves Christmas"

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 week's 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