The speaker reflects on their fascination with obscure things and failed revolutions, relating it to their own life and missed opportunities. They discuss their journey as a writer and their interest in exploring different types of work. They also mention their preference for writing that explores the present moment and societal shifts, using examples such as interviews with academics, poets, and actors.
Hua Hsu is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His book Stay True won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for memoir.
“I've worked as a journalist … for quite a while. … But this [book] was the thing that was always in the back of my mind. Like, this was the thing that a lot of that was in service of. Just becoming better at describing a song or describing the look of someone's face—these were all things that I implicitly understood as skills I needed to acquire. ... It is sort of an origin story for why I got so obsessive about writing.”
Show notes:
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