Longform

Sean Flynn is a GQ correspondent and National Magazine Award winner. "I find it satisfying to be able to give a voice to people that sort of get lost…You know, when these big horrible things happen, and the spotlight is very briefly on them, and then it moves away, and it's not that I'm dragging them out and forcing them to 'Relive your horrible moments!' It's more a thing of, 'If you'd like to relive your horrible moment, if you want people to know what actually happened, talk to me. I will tell your story.'" Thanks to TinyLetter and the The Literary Reportage concentration at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: Flynn's GQ archive [00:30] "The Finish Line" (GQ • Jun 2013) [3:45] "Is he coming? Is he? Oh God, I think he is." (GQ • Aug 2012) [11:00] "BOOM" (GQ • Jul 2010) [11:00] "Way Down in the Hole" (GQ • Nov 2010) [19:00] "The End: Boston Phoenix publishes final issue today" (Stephen M. Mindich • The Boston Phoenix • Mar 2013) [22:00] "Barnicle's G

For the first time, Janet Reitman discusses her Rolling Stone cover story on accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. "My editors, myself, a lot of people who work for the magazine — we lived through an act of terrorism. We know what it feels like. There have been accusations to me personally of being insensitive, and I can tell you that I'm far from insensitive, not only to the political realities of terrorism but to the personal realities of terrorism. I breathed it in, literally. … The cover is great on a certain level, because terrorism is emotional, it's real, it affects us. It is not something that happens just overseas or just to people who are somehow "Other." If you talk to terrorism experts around the world, what they will all say is that the vast majority of people who are involved in these violent, extremist acts are what we would consider otherwise to be very normal people. One of us. Part of our community. That's a reality, and it's a very emotional thing and it makes people very uncom

Kelley Benham is a writer and editor at the Tampa Bay Times. "People connect with this story in a really visceral kind of way, usually because of some experience they've had or someone close to them has had. I've had 90-year-old women crying into my phone about babies they lost 70 years ago. I've had people kind of sneak up to me and tell me about babies that have died that they don't talk about, but that they carry with them all the time. I've had premies who are grown up—those are my favorite–you know, "I'm 20 now and I have a scar just like Juniper's scar, and thank you for helping me understand who I am." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @KelleyBFrench Benham's Tampa Bay Times archive [0:30] "Never Let Go" (Tampa Bay Times • Dec 2012) [4:00] "Rampaging Rooster Attacks Girl" (St. Petersburg Times • Oct 2002) [5:45] "From Ordinary Girl to International Icon" (St. Petersburg Times • Mar 2005) [12:30] "23 Weeks, 6 Days" (Radiolab • Apr 2013) [34:00] Learn more about your

Robert Kolker is the author of Lost Girls and a contributing editor at New York. "For better or for worse, my heart's not in the mystery. I want [the killer] to be caught—he's obviously a predator and he's unstable. But they all are. They're all messed up people who victimize other people and they all look normal. The art and science of catching serial killers has become more than slightly overblown in our society. And you know, I love Silence of the Lambs … but I'm not entirely sure that our obsession with who the serial killer is and why a serial killer does it is in proportion with how interesting they end up being." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @bobkolker robertkolker.com Kolker on Longform Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery (Harper 2013) [2:15] "A Serial Killer in Common" (New York • Jun 2011) [5:15] "Long Island Serial Killer Victims Bond in Support Group" (Christine Pelisek and Roja Heydarpour • The Daily Beast • Apr 2011) [10:30] "Kaboom" (New York • Ma

Edith Zimmerman is the founding editor of The Hairpin and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. "I never wrote anything myself or ran anything from other people that was needlessly negative. It wasn't some false grin plastered all over it — we addressed dark things too, and poked fun at things. But I didn't want there to ever be a tone of yeah, let's really just deflate this. Because ultimately you're just stabbing at a ghost among friends. And then at the end you've all just fallen on the floor and the ghost is gone. You're not really doing anything constructive." Show notes: @edithzimmerman edithzimmerman.com The Hairpin [9:00] Letters to the Editors of Women's Magazines (The Awl) [9:45] Longform Podcast #19: Choire Sicha [13:00] "Chris Evans: American Marvel" (GQ • Jul 2011) [18:30] "99 Ways to Be Naughty in Kazakhstan" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2012) [37:15] "Lively Woman Is in Trouble" (The Hairpin • Nov 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and the author of The Skies Belong to Us. "It was this big review in The New York Times and I was terrified that it was going to say something awful about the book or about me as a writer. And my son said to me — he's 5, I should say — "If it's bad, you won't die." That's a good point, you know? So I always think of that when I pick up a new review and take that risk of someone slamming something that I've genuinely poured my heart and soul into." Thanks to TinyLetter and the Literary Reportage Department at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @brendankoerner microkhan.com [3:30] The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (Crown • 2013) [5:15] Now The Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II (Penguin • 2009) [7:45] "Piano Demon" (The Atavist • Jan 2011) [37:45] Koerner's archive at Slate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcas

Evan Ratliff, a co-host of the Longform Podcast, discusses "The Oilman's Daughter," his new story in The Atavist. "This woman was given the opportunity to take on a new identity. And it was a mistake. She never should've done it. If there was a way for her to go back and say, 'No, I don't want to know this. I want to be who I am,' then I think she should've taken that. … I'm fascinated with people who want to radically shift their identity. It almost never works out well." Show notes: "The Oilman's Daughter" (The Atavist • June 2013) "Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened" (Wired • Nov 2009) "The Zombie Hunters" (New Yorker • Oct 2005) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Steve Kandell is the longfom editor at BuzzFeed. "What would be the sort of longer, narrative nonfiction, journalistic equivalent of something that would have the same effect on you as a bunch of cat GIFs? And not because it's cute, but it's the kind of thing that makes you go, 'OK, I need a lot of other people to see this.'" Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @SteveKandell "David Lee Roth Will Not Go Quietly" (BuzzFeed • Apr 2012) [7:30] "The Movie Set That Ate Itsef" (Michael Idov • GQ • November 2011) [7:45] "Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie" (Stephen Rodrick • New York Times Magazine • January 2013) [16:35] "How 'Golden Eagle Snatches Kid' Ruled the Internet" (Chris Stokel-Walker • BuzzFeed • February 2013) [17:35] "The Ghosts of Jonesboro: Fifteen Years After A School Shooting, a Small Town Is Still Recovering" (David Peisner • BuzzFeed • March 2013) [23:40] "Atari Teenage Riot: The Inside Story of Pong and the Video Game Industry's Big B

Nicholas Schmidle is a staff writer at The New Yorker. "I was in a taxi, leaving Karachi to go attend this festival, and we started getting these very disturbing phone calls from newspaper reporters that didn't exist, all of them asking me to meet them at various places in Karachi. I had read enough about the Daniel Pearl case to know what happened in the days leading up, and this was very similar. ... We kept driving towards the festival, and shortly after that, friends started calling. They were watching local television, and it was being reported that 'Nicholas Shamble,' editor of Smithsonian Magazine, had been kidnapped. And I was like, 'All right, I get the hint.'" Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @nickschmidle nicholasschmidle.com Schmidle on Longform [2:00] "In the Crosshairs" (New Yorker • June 2013) [9:40] "Three Trials for Murder" (New Yorker • November 2011) [25:15] "Next-Gen Taliban" (New York Times Magazine • January 2008) [37:30] "The Hostage Business" (New

Chris Heath, winner of the 2013 National Magazine Award for Reporting, is a staff writer at GQ. "I present myself as someone who is going to be rigorous and honest. And if you can engage in the way I'm asking you to engage, then I hope you will recognize yourself in a more truthful way in this story than you usually do. And maybe even, with a bit of luck, more than you ever have before. That's what I bring. That's my offer." Thanks to TinyLetter and the Literary Reportage Department at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: Heath's GQ archive [15:25] "The Crazy True Story of the Zanesville Zoo Escape" (GQ • March 2012) [27:40] "Graduation Day" (GQ • July 2011) [40:00] "Ricky Gervais's GQ Interview: The Comedy Issue" (GQ • May 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Abrams covers the NBA for Grantland. "Players know that with the stories I do I'm not trying to burn anybody. I'm trying to tell a story for what it's worth and be honest to that person… That's one of my main goals, that you know why this person is [a certain] way when they step on the court. You know why Monta Ellis is going to keep shooting the ball. You know why Zach Randolph is such a gritty player. What these guys have gone through growing up, it materializes in their game." Show notes: @Jpdabrams Abrams's Grantland archive [3:30] "Loose Cannons: Ricky Davis and Lance Stephenson" (Grantland • Apr 2013) [10:45] "The Devil and Stephen Jackson" (Grantland • June 2012) [13:00] "The Two Lives of Zach Randolph" (Grantland • Nov 2012) [14:45] "The Music in Royce White's Head" (Grantland • June 2012) [14:45] "The Professional: Chauncey Billups" (Grantland • Dec 2012) [15:00] "The Miseducation of J.R. Smith" (Grantland • Sep 2012) [23:30] Longform Podcast #35: Jay Caspian Kang [25:30] Grantland Quarterly [31:00

Margalit Fox is a senior obituary writer for The New York Times and the author of The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code. "You do get emotionally involved with people, even though as a journalist you're not supposed to. But as a human being, how can you not? Particularly people who had difficult, tragic, poignant lives. But there are also people that you just wish you had known. And, of course, the painful irony is that you're only getting to know them by virtue of the fact that it's too late." Show notes: @margalitfox The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code (HarperCollins • 2013) Fox's New York Times archive [4:15] "Lennart Meri, 76, of Estonia, Dies; President, Filmmaker, Writer" (New York Times • Mar 2006) [4:20] "Samuel Alderson, Crash-Test Dummy Inventor, Dies at 90" (New York Times • Feb 2005) [4:25] "Fred Morrison, Creator of a Popular Flying Plate, Dies at 90" (New York Times • Feb 2010) [4:25] "André Cassagnes, Etch A Sketch Inventor, Is Dead at 86"

Mat Honan is a senior writer at Wired. "[The tech] industry — especially as it relates to a lot the silly apps and the silly websites and the silly shit that we put up with — is ridiculous. It's just such a hype fest, people living off of jargon and nonsense. There are entire conferences devoted to nonsense! ... I like to skewer that stuff, because I don't want to feel responsible for it. I don't want to feel like I'm making someone go out and buy some piece of shit they don't need." Show notes: @mat honan.net [0:30] Pop-Up Magazine [2:00] "How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking" (Wired • Aug 2012) [6:00] "Yes, I Was Hacked. Hard." (Honan's Tumblr) [17:15] "Liveblog: Get the Latest Updates From Google I/O 2013" (Wired • May 2013) [17:30] "Welcome to Google Island" (Wired • May 2013) [18:30] "Fever Dream of a Guilt-Ridden Gadget Reporter" (Gizmodo • Jan 2012) [27:30] @RUSirius [29:15] "I Am Here: One Man's Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle" (Wired • Jan 2009) [31:30] "Stock and

Jonathan Shainin, senior editor at The Caravan.   "Working in an environment that's foreign, where you have to kind of think through a lot of things from the ground up...I find it to be really stimulating to have to interrogate the assumptions that you have as an editor about what's interesting and what's not interesting, what's a good story and what's a bad story, what's the story that's been done a million times already. When you get out of a place that is your place, you have to kind of think through some things in a fresh way. And that can be really productive."   Show notes: @jonathanshainin The Caravan The Caravan on Longform [8:00] The National [13:00] India: A Million Mutinies Now (V.S. Naipul • 1991) [pdf] [23:45] "Burger Queen" A profile of April Bloomfield.(Lauren Collins • New Yorker • Nov 2010) [29:00] "Falling Man"A profile of Manmohan Singh.(Vinod K Jose • The Caravan • Oct 2011) [29:00] "The Confidence Man" The crumbled cricket empire of Lalit Modi.(Samanth Subramanian • The Caravan • Mar

Vanessa Grigoriadis, contributing editor at New York and Vanity Fair. On the art of the celebrity interview: "People are smart. Particularly these people. They're sitting there thinking, "When is she going to drop that question?" They know what you're doing. So the way I think about it is: let's have an actual, genuine, human, interesting conversation. ... [Journalists] have all sorts of schemes of what they think works for them. My scheme is no scheme." Show notes: @thevanessag vanessagrigoriadis.com Grigoriadis on Longform [4:00] "Why Is Nancy Pelosi Always Smiling?" (New York • Nov 2009) [13:00] "Can Shakira Conquer the World?" (Rolling Stone • Oct 2009) [pdf] [16:30] "Travels in the New Psychedelic Bazaar" (New York • Apr 2013) [23:30] "New York's Power-Girl Publicists" (New York • Dec 1998) [38:00] "The Adventures of Super Boy" (Rolling Stone • Mar 2011) [40:45] "Everybody Sucks: Gawker and the Rage of the Creative Underclass" (New York • Oct 2007) [43:30] "The Tragedy of Britney Spears" (Rolling Stone

Natasha Vargas-Cooper, writer. Show notes: @natashavc natashavc.com Vargas-Cooper on Longform [2:30] "Jesse James Hollywood: On Trial" (The Awl • May-July 2009) [11:00] Mad Men Unbuttoned (2010) [18:30] "The Day-Care Threat" (Brad Schrade, Jeremy Olson and Glenn Howatt • Minneapolis Star Tribune) [19:30] "When A 10-Year-Old Kills His Nazi Father, Who's To Blame?" (BuzzFeed • Feb 2012) [34:00] "Hard Core" (The Atlantic • Jan 2011) [40:45] Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer • 1999) [41:30] "Bath Salts: Deep in the Heart of America's New Drug Nightmare" (Spin • July 2012) [42:30] "The Lyman Family’s Holy Siege of America" (David Felton • Rolling Stone • Dec 1971) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ted Conover, author of five books and the recent Harper's article "The Way of All Flesh." Show notes: tedconover.com Interview Transcript Personal Archive [1:00] "The Way of All Flesh" (Harper's • April 2013) [3:30] "Power Steer" (Michael Pollan • New York Times Magazine • March 2002) [15:00] Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Illegal Migrants (1987) [33:30] "Enter the Chicken" (Burkhard Bilger • Harper's • March 1999) [34:00] Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (2000) [36:15] The Routes of Man: Travels in the Paved World (2011) [42:30] "A Snitch's Dilemma" (New York Times Magazine • July 2012) [49:00] Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes (1984) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ann Friedman, writer, editor and co-founder of Tomorrow. Show notes: @annfriedman annfriedman.com Personal Archive [5:45] Pie Charts Archive (The Hairpin) [7:15] #realtalk Column (CJR) [15:00] "The Ann Friedman Weekly" [22:00] "Minimum Rage" (Nona Willis Aronowitz • GOOD • March 2012) [23:00] "What Women Want" A profile of James Deen (Amanda Hess • GOOD • Nov 2011) [34:45] Tomorrow [39:00] Tomorrow Budget Breakdown [43:00] 2013 National Magazine Awards Finalists Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patrick Symmes, foreign correspondent and contributor to Outside and Harper's.  Show notes: @patricksymmes patricksymmes.com Symmes's Outside archive Symmes's Harper's archive [2:30] Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend (2000) [7:00] The Boys from Dolores: Fidel Castro's Schoolmates from Revolution to Exile (2008) [21:45] "Taking the Measure of Castro, Ounce by Ounce" (Harper's • Jan 1996) (subscription required) [22:00] "Ten Thousand Revolutions" (Harper's • June 1997) (subscription required) [23:00] "The Generals in Their Labyrinth" (Outside • July 2008) [24:30] "Miraculous Fishing" (Harper's • Dec 2000) (subscription required) [35:00] "Sand Storm" (Outside • May 2011) [39:00] "The Beautiful Game" (Outside • Oct 2012) [42:00] Among the Thugs (Bill Buford • 1993) [49:30] "A Wild Country Grows in South Sudan" (Outside • May 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jay Caspian Kang, writer and editor at Grantland. Show notes: @jaycaspiankang [2:00] "Online Poker's Big Winner" (New York Times Magazine • 2011) [4:30] The Dead Do Not Improve (2012) [8:00] "The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High" (The Morning News • 2010) [11:30] "Immigrant Misappropriations: The Importance of Ichiro" (Grantland • 2011) [15:00] "The White Album" A profile of Royce White (Chuck Klosterman • Grantland • 2012) [21:00] Bill Simmons's Grantland archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices