Admiration and Contemplation: Life, Writing, and Self-Publishing

Craig Mod is a writer and photographer who has two newsletters, Roden and Ridgeline. His new book is Things Become Other Things.

“There'll be days where … I’m doing a walk and I'll just be like, I don't know what is going to move me today. And then out of the blue, there'll be this small interaction that when you really pay attention to it, it contains kind of this universe of kindness and patience that you otherwise pass by or ignore. If you're in the general mode of looking at things and then being able to take that experience and try to transmute it into an essay for the evening and send it out, it just develops your eye. You just start being able to look more and more and more closely.”

Show notes:

• craigmod.com
• Things Become Other Things (Fine art edition • 2023 // Hardcover edition • Random House • 2025)
• Roden (Newsletter)
• Ridgeline (Newsletter)
• 1:00 Mod on Longform Podcast
• 6:30 Koya Bound: Eight Days on the Kumano Kodō (with Dan Rubin • PRE/POST • 2016)
• 16:00 Kiiiiiiiiiiiiii
• 16:00 Special Projects (Newsletter)
• 20:00 Kissa by Kissa (2020)
• 31:00 Pachinko Road (Pop Up Newsletter)
• 32:00 "I Walked 600 Miles Across Japan for Pizza Toast" (Eater • Dec 2019)
• 32:00 "The Glorious, Almost-Disconnected Boredom of My Walk in Japan" (Wired • May 2019)
• 45:00 Longform Podcast #533: Hua Hsu (May 2023)

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