Longform

Sarah Ellison is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of War at the Wall Street Journal. “There’s no lack of stories. ... There’s always an element where you’re going to be parachuting into something that someone has likely written about, to some degree. You can’t shy away from going into something that’s a crowded field.” Thanks to MailChimp, Quip, and BarkBox for sponsoring this week's episode. @Sarahlellison sarahlellison.com Ellison on Longform [00:15] 11/15: Longform Podcast, Live in Chicago with Kara Swisher [00:45] 11/12: Longform Podcast, Live in Chicago with Zoe Chace [03:00] Longform Podcast #111: Anne Helen Petersen [03:00] Longform Podcast #224: Hua Hsu [04:15] The Hive [04:20] Ellison's Vanity Fair archive [05:00] "Exiles on Pennsylvania Avenue: How Jared and Ivanka Were Repelled by Washington’s Elite" (Vanity Fair • Oct 2017) [05:45] "The Inside Story of the Kushner-Bannon Civil War" (Vanity Fair • May 2017) [07:30] Longform Podcast #254 Maggie Haberman [12:30] "The Man Who S

Patricia Bosworth is a journalist and biographer. Her latest book is The Men in My Life. “The [acting] rejections are hellish and ghastly. At least they were to me. And I got tired of being rejected so much and also tired of not being able to control my life. And as soon as I became a writer, I had this control, I felt more active, more energized. But it was a decision that took a long time coming.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and Heaven's Gate for sponsoring this week's episode. @p_bosworth pbosworth.com Bosworth on Longform [00:05] Heaven's Gate [00:25] Snap Judgement [01:25] The Fest Presents: The Longform Podcast with special guest Zoe Chace [02:30] "Some Mother's Boy" (Atavist • Oct 2017) [3:10] Diane Arbus: A Biography (Afred A. Knopf • 1984) [03:10] Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (River Road Entertainment • 2006) [3:20] The Men in My Life (Harper • 2017) [5:55] Strumpet Wind (Gertrude Bosworth Crum • Covici Friede Publishers • 1938) [6:20] The Tempest (William Shakespeare • Simon &

Michael Barbaro is the host of The Daily. “I don’t think The Daily should ever be my therapy session. That’s not what it’s meant to be, but I’m a human being. I arrive at work on a random Tuesday, and I do an interview with a guy like that, and it just punched me right in the stomach.” Thanks to MailChimp, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Blinkist for sponsoring this week's episode. @mikiebarb Barbaro on Longform [00:55] The Daily [01:20] Barbaro’s Archive at The New York Times [03:15] samanthahenig.com [05:40] New Haven Register [10:50] Robert G. Kaiser's The Washington Post archive [15:10] David Leonhardt’s New York Times archive [17:30] "Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs" (Steven Greenhouse, Michael Barbaro • New York Times • Oct 2005) [19:25] "$1.1 Billion in Thanks From Bloomberg to Johns Hopkins" (New York Times • Jan 2013) [22:20] The Run-Up [19:55] “Trump: New York Times Reporter Should Resign" (Mark Hensch • The Hill • May 2016) [21:10] "Crossing the Line: How Do

Vanessa Grigoriadis writes for Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Magazine. Her new book is Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. “I’m a controversial writer. I’ve never shied away from controversy. I’ve only really courted it because I realized a lot earlier than a lot of other people who are involved in this whole depressing business that clicks are the way to go, right? Or eyeballs, as we used to call them, or readership. I come out of a Tom Wolfe-like, Hunter S. Thompson kind of tradition. You don’t mince any words, you just go for the jugular and you say as many things that can stir people up as possible.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and Casper for sponsoring this week's episode. @vanessagrigor www.vanessagrigoriadis.com Grigoriadis on Longform [01:20] Longform Podcast #40: Vanessa Grigoriadis [01:35] Grigoriadis’ Archive at Vanity Fair [01:40] Grigoriadis’ Archive at Rolling Stone [01:45] Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus (Eamon D

Dr. Jelani Cobb is a New Yorker staff writer and the author of three books, including The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress. He teaches journalism at Columbia University. “Ralph Wiley — the sports writer, late Ralph Wiley — told me something when I was 25 or so, and he was so right. He said I should never fall in love with anything I’ve written. … The second thing he told me was, ‘You won’t get there overnight, and believe me, you don’t want to.’ I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t get it when he told me that. I was like — why would I not want to get there overnight? Now I’m like: Thank God I didn’t get there overnight. Because there’s so much writing I would have to explain.” Thanks to MailChimp, Quip, and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode. @jelani9 Cobb on Longform [00:00] Stoner [01:30] Cobb’s Archive at The New Yorker [03:30] "The Life and Death of Jamaica High School" (New Yorker • Aug 2015) [07:45] Cobb’s Archive at Washington City Paper [09:40] Longform Podcast #7

PJ Vogt is the co-host of Reply All. “Every radio story is broken. Everything is missing some piece it’s supposed to have. Everything has some weird interview that didn’t go the way you thought it was going to go, or you thought you had an answer but you were wrong.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and Blinkist for sponsoring this week's episode. @PJVogt [01:00] "Black Box" (This American Life • Oct 1988) [1:45] On The Media [1:50] TLDR [03:10] David Sedaris’s Archive at This American Life [9:25] Transom.org [9:35] Alex Blumberg’s Archive at Transom [9:50] Nancy Updike’s Archive at Transom [21:00] "Shine On You Crazy Goldman" (Reply All • Nov 2015) [24:45] Vogt’s Archive at On The Media [29:15] "The Time Traveler and the Hitman" (Reply All • Mar 2015) [32:30] Serial [33:55] "Man of the People" (Reply All • Jan 2017) [34:55] "Hello?" (Reply All • Nov 2016) [35:45] Libsyn.com [35:50] Megaphone.fm [37:05] Gimlet [41:45] Ear Hustle [43:00] S-Town [44:05] "What It Looks Like" (Reply All • Oct 2015) [44:30] "D

Alex Goldman is the co-host of Reply All. “I am not the authority on the internet. I’m not an expert on particularly anything, except stuff that I like.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and Blinkist for sponsoring this week's episode. @AGoldmund Goldman on Longform [01:30] "Long Distance" (Reply All • Jul 2017) [01:30] "Long Distance, Part II" (Reply All • Jul 2017) [02:00] "This Website is For Sale" (Reply All • Dec 2014) [02:45] TLDR [05:15] metafilter.com [05:15] Matt Haughey on Stoner [06:00] ”How Do I Get a Job at NPR?” (Metafilter • 2009) [08:15] On the Media [11:45] "Stories Pitched by Our Parents" (This American Life • Feb 2010) [13:30] Radiolab [15:30] "Quit Already!" (Reply All • Dec 2015) [17:45] "What Kind of Idiot Gets Phished?" (Reply All • May 2017) [18:00] "Black Hole, New Jersey" (Reply All • Jun 2017) [21:00] "Storming the Castle" (Reply All • Feb 2017) [21:15] "Shine on You Crazy Goldman " (Reply All • Nov 2015) [29:45] Death, Sex & Money [31:30] StartUp [33:45] Serial, Season 1 [35:00

Hillary Clinton is the former Democratic nominee for president. Her new book is What Happened. “I hugged a lot of people after [my concession speech] was over. A lot of people cried … and then it was done. So Bill and I went out and got in the back of the van that we drive around in, and I just felt like all of the adrenaline was drained. I mean there was nothing left. It was like somebody had pulled the plug on a bathtub and everything just drained out. I just slumped over. Sat there. … And then we got home, and it was just us as it has been for so many years—in our little house, with our dogs. It was a really painful, exhausting time.” Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, and Casper for sponsoring this week's episode. @HillaryClinton hillaryclinton.com [00:15] What Happened (Simon & Schuster • 2017) [03:45] Global Warming For Dummies (Elizabeth May & Zoe Caron • For Dummies • 2008) [26:00] "The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton the Election" (Nate Silver • FiveThirtyEight • May 2017) [31:00] "Rosenstein’s Case

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah is an essayist. Her latest piece is “A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof.” “I remember feeling like ‘you’re playing chess with evil, and you gotta win.’ Because this is the most terrible thing I’d ever seen. And I was so mad. I still get so mad. Words aren’t enough. I’m angry about it. I can’t do anything to Dylann Roof, physically, so this is what I could do.” Thanks to MailChimp, HelloFresh, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. the-rachelkaadzighansah.tumblr.com Kaadzi Ghansah on Longform [00:45] Kaadzi Ghansah on the Longform Podcast [00:45] "A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof" (GQ • Aug 2017) [22:45] "America’s Most Political Food" (Lauren Collins • New Yorker • Apr 2017) [24:30] Light in August (William Faulkner • Random House • 1990) [44:45] "The Rise of the Valkyries" (Seyward Darby • Harper’s • Sep 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ellen Barry is the former New York Times bureau chief for South Asia. “Every time you leave a beat—and this is something that I think as foreign correspondents we rarely communicate to our readers—you’re walking away from a story which has really been your whole life for four or five years. And it’s hard to walk away…The majority of us live a story for a certain number of years, and then we just turn our backs on it.” Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, and Of a Kind for sponsoring this week's episode. @EllenBarryNYT Barry on Longform [01:15] Barry’s New York Times archive [01:30] "How to Get Away With Murder in Small-Town India" (New York Times • Aug 2017) [03:00] readthissummer.com [06:45] "A Newspaper for Its Time" (Moscow Times • Oct 2012) [07:30] "Lost Exile" (James Verini • Vanity Fair • Feb 2010) [09:15] "The Russia Left Behind" (New York Times • Oct 2013) [11:15] "A Specter’s Shadow Returns to Haunt Moscow" (New York Times • Oct 2008) [16:00] Alice Gregory on the Longform Podcast [17:30] The Name of the

Kate Fagan is a columnist and feature writer for ESPN. Her latest book is What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen. “When I was professionally closeted, I was kind of bitter. I didn’t have a ton of empathy. And I don’t think I always asked the right question, because I wouldn’t ask people questions that I wouldn’t want to be asked…I had walls up. I wouldn’t even allow myself to be vulnerable in my writing. Because the whole point of my existence at that time was to circumvent any moment that could create vulnerability in a way that would frighten me. And I think you could that see in my writing.” Thanks to MailChimp and HelloFresh for sponsoring this week's episode. @katefagan3 bykatefagan.com [00:00] Stoner [00:45] Fagan’s Archive at ESPN [00:45] Around the Horn [01:00] What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen (Little, Brown and Company • 2017) [01:15] "Split Image" (ESPN • May 2015) [06:30] The Reappearing Act: Coming Out

Jay Caspian Kang is a writer at large at The New York Times Magazine and a correspondent for Vice News Tonight. “I make a pretty provocative argument about how Asian American identity doesn’t really exist—how it’s basically just an academic idea, and it’s not lived within the lives of anybody who’s Asian. Like you grow up, you’re Korean, you’re a minority. You don’t have any sort of kinship with, like, Indian kids. You know? And there’s no cultural sharedness where you’re just like, ‘oh yeah…Asia!’” Thanks to MailChimp, "Mussolini’s Arctic Airship", Blinkist and for sponsoring this week's episode. @jaycaspiankang Kang’s Blog Kang on Longform [00:00] Mussolini’s Arctic Airship (Eva Holland • Kindle Single • Aug 2017) [00:45] "What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2017) [00:45] Kang on the Longform Podcast [01:15] Kang’s Archive at The New Yorker [02:30] readthissummer.com [02:45] Havrilesky on the Longform Podcast [05:

David Gessner is the author of ten books. His latest is Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth. “The ambition got in my way at first. Because I wanted my stuff to be great, and it froze me up. But later on it was really helpful. I’m startled by the way people don’t, you know, admit [they care] … it seems unlikely people wouldn’t want to be immortal.” Thanks to Casper, Squarespace, and MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @BDsCocktailHour davidgessner.com Gessner on Longform "Not Fuzz" (David Mark Simpson • Atavist • Jul 2017) [01:00] Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth (Riverhead Books • 2017) [02:00] readthissummer.com [04:45] "No Disc-Respect" (Outside • Jun 2017) [08:15] A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod (University Press of New England • 1997) [08:30] Under the Devil’s Thumb (University of Arizona Press • 1999) [11:00] Sick of Nature (University Press of New England • 2004) [11:00] "Ultimate Glory" (Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour • Jan 2012) [11:15] Bill

Matthew Klam is a journalist and fiction writer. His new novel is Who Is Rich?. “The New Yorker had hyped me with this “20 Under 40” thing…and when the tenth anniversary of that list [came], somebody wrote an article about it. And they found everybody in it, and I was the only one who hadn’t done anything since then, according to them. And the article, it was a little paragraph or two, it ended with ‘poor Matthew Klam.’” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. @MatthewKlam matthewklam.com [01:00] Sam the Cat: and Other Stories (Vintage • 2001) [01:00] Who Is Rich?: A Novel (Random House • 2017) [01:45] Doree Shafrir on Longform [01:45] Elif Batuman on Longform [02:00] readthissummer.com [03:00] "Matthew Klam’s New Book Is Only 17 Years Overdue" (Taffy Brodesser-Akner • Vulture • Jul 2017) [03:15] "Experiencing Ecstasy" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2001) [04:15] "Sam the Cat" (New Yorker • May 1993) [sub req’d] [05:30] "What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?" (Rich

Maggie Haberman covers the White House for The New York Times. “If I start thinking about it, then I’m not going to be able to just keep doing my job. I'm being as honest as I can — I try not to think about it. If you’re flying a plane and you think about the fact that if the plane blows up in midair you’re gonna die, do you feel like you can really focus as well? So, I’m not thinking about [the stakes]. This is just my job. This is what we do. Ask me another question.” Thanks to MailChimp, Bombfell, Babbel, and HelloFresh for sponsoring this week's episode. @maggieNYT Haberman on Longform [01:45] "Manafort Talks With Senate Investigators About Meeting With Russians" (with Eileen Sullivan and Adam Goldman • New York Times • Jul 2017) [02:15] Haberman’s New York Times archive [02:30] Haberman’s New York Post archive [02:30] Haberman’s New York Daily News archive [03:15] readthissummer.com [03:45] "Paladino assails Cuomo’s parenting" (Politico • Oct 2010) [09:00] Harold and the Purple Crayon (Crockett Johnso

Steven Levy writes for Wired, where he is the editor of Backchannel. “It’s about people. Travis Kalanick’s foibles aren’t because he’s a technology executive. It’s because he’s Travis Kalanick. That’s the way he is. There is a certain strain in Silicon Valley, which rewards totally driven people, but that is humanity. And advanced technology is no guarantee—and as a matter of fact I don’t think it’ll do anything—from stopping ill-intentioned people from doing ill-intentioned things.” Thanks to MailChimp, Audm, Rover, and Babbel for sponsoring this week's episode. @StevenLevy stevenlevy.com Levy on Longform [03:00] readthissummer.com [04:00] "Hackers in Paradise" (Rolling Stone • Apr 1982) [05:45] Whole Earth Catalog [06:15] Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (O’Reilly Media • 2010) [11:00] "The Birth of the Mac: Rolling Stone’s 1984 Feature on Steve Jobs and his Whiz Kids" (Rolling Stone • Oct 2011) [19:00] "Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s Future, From Virtual Reality to Anonymity" (Wired • Apr 2014)

Mark Bowden is a journalist and the author of 13 books, including Black Hawk Down and his latest, Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam. “My goal is never to condemn someone that I’m writing about. It’s always to understand them. And that, to me, is far more interesting than passing judgment on them. I want you to read about Che Thi Mung, an 18-year-old village girl, who was selling hats on corners in Hue in the daytime and going home and sharpening spikes to go into booby traps to try and kill American soldiers and ARVN soldiers in the evening. I want to understand why she would do that, why she would be so motivated to do that. And I think I did.” Thanks to MailChimp, LeVar Burton Reads, Babbel, and HelloFresh for sponsoring this week's episode. @markbowdenwrite markbowdenbooks.com Bowden on Longform [01:00] Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (Grove Press • 2010) [01:00] Bowden’s Black Hawk Down Series at The Inquirer [01:15] Bowden’s Archive at The Atlantic [01:15] Hue 1968: A Tur

Brian Reed, a senior producer at This American Life, is the host of S-Town. “It’s a story about the remarkableness of what could be called an unremarkable life.” Thanks to MailChimp, Babbel, and Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. @brihreed Reed's This American Life archive [28:45] Cops See It Differently, Part One (This American Life • Feb 2015) [28:45] Wake Up Now (This American Life • Dec 2014) [44:30] Stoner (John Wiliams • Viking • 1965) [45:15] Photo of the S-Town planning room [46:00] The Known World: A Novel (Edward P. Jones • HarperCollins • 2003) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ginger Thompson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior reporter at ProPublica. Her most recent article is "How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico." “How many times have I written the phrase ‘a town that was controlled by drug traffickers?' I had no idea what that really meant. What does it mean to live in a town that’s controlled by drug traffickers? And how does it get that way? One of the things I was hoping that we could do by having the people who actually lived through that explain it to us was that—to bring you close to that and say, ‘No, here’s what that means.’” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, and Outside the Box for sponsoring this week's episode. @gingerthomp1 Thompson on Longform [01:30] "How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" (ProPublica / National Geographic • Jun 2017) [01:45] Thompson’s Archive at The New York Times [01:45] "Trafficking In Terror" (New Yorker • Dec 2015) [02:30] readthissummer.com [02:45] Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets (Luke Dittrich • Rando

Patricia Lockwood is a poet and essayist. Her new book is Priestdaddy: A Memoir. “[Prose writing is] strange to me as a poet. I’m like, ‘Well I guess I’ll tell you just what happened then.’ But the humor has to be there as well. Because in my family household…the absurdity or the surrealism that we have is in reaction to the craziness of the household. So something like your underwear-clad father with his hand in a vat of pickles, sitting in a room full of $10,000 guitars and telling you that he can’t afford to send you to college—that’s bad. That’s a sad scene. But it’s also totally a lunatic scene. It’s, just the very fact of it, all these accoutrements, all the elements of the scene—they are funny.” Thanks to Audible and MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @TriciaLockwood Lockwood on Longform [00:00] Stoner [01:00] Priestdaddy: A Memoir (Riverhead Books • 2017) [02:00] readthissummer.com [02:30] How To Be a Person in the World (Heather Havrilesky • Doubleday • 2016) [02:30] Heather Havrilesky