Longform

Jon Mooallem, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, is the author of Wild Ones and American Hippopotamus, the latest story from The Atavist. "I'm terrible at writing nut graphs. I never know why people should keep reading. That’s the menace of my professional existence, trying to figure that out. Because often you have to explain that to an editor before you even start, and I may not even know while I'm writing what the bigger point is." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @jmooallem jonmooallem.com Mooallem on Longform [2:00] Longform Podcast #4: Jon Mooallem [3:00] American Hippopotamus (The Atavist • Dec 2013) [5:45] Wild Ones (Penguin • 2013) [11:00] Pop-Up Magazine [20:30] "Structure" (John McPhee • New Yorker • Jan 2013) [27:15] Burnham: King of Scouts (Peter van Wyk • Trafford Publishing • 2003) [32:15] Episode 91: Wild Ones Live (99% Invisible • Oct 2013) [40:00] "Who Would Kill a Monk Seal?" (New York Times Magazine • May 2013) [40:00] "There’s a Reason They Call Them 'Crazy Ants'" (New York Times Magazine • Dec 2013) [42:45] "Pigeon Wars" (New York Times Magazine • Oct 2006) [46:15] "What's a Monkey to Do in Tampa?" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Sexton is a senior editor at ProPublica and a former reporter and editor at the New York Times, where he led the team that produced "Snow Fall." "My experience in a newspaper newsroom over the years has been: The word you hear least often, the word that's hardest for people to say in that environment, is the word yes. It's safer to say no. You get second-guessed less often if you say no. Your job's not on the line if you say no. But if you're willing to say yes and you're willing to face the consequences of having said yes, then quite amazing things can happen." Thanks to Random House andTinyLetterfor sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: [6:00] "Snow Fall" (John Branch • New York Times • Dec 2012) [20:30] Longform Podcast #28: Joel Lovell [32:45] "Spitzer is Linked to Prostitution Ring" (Danny Hakim and William K. Rashbaum • New York Times • Mar 2008) [41:30] Jim Dwyer's Pulitzer Prize-winning columns [57:45] "Use Only as Directed" (Jeff Gerth and T. Christian Miller • ProPublica • Sep 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andrew Leland is an editor at The Believer and hosts The Organist. "I think a good editor has a strong stomach for crazy assholes. Because often crazy assholes are really brilliant great writers." Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: Leland's archive at the Oakland Standard Leland's blog, "Good Jobbbbbbbbb" [4:00] "Web Dreams" (Josh Quittner • Wired • Nov 1996) [5:15] 826 Valencia [5:45] A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (David Eggers • 2001) [6:45] "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" (The Review of Contemporary Fiction • Jun 1993) [15:30] Interview with Laura Owens (Rachel Kushner • The Believer • May 2003) [17:45] "Rejoice! Believe! Be Strong and Read Hard!" (Heidi Julavits • The Believer • Mar 2003) [48:00] Wholphin archive [50:00] Please Vote for Me [56:00] Joe Frank Show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Fagone, a contributing editor at Wired and a writer-at-large for Philadelphia, is the author of Ingenious. "It seemed like all the big guys in American society had let us down, all the elites. And here was a contest that was explicitly looking to the little guy and saying, 'We don't care what you've done before or how much money you have in your pocket. If you solve this problem, you win the money.' There was something so optimistic and hopeful and cool about that to me." Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @jfagone jasonfagone.com Fagone on Longform [2:15] "The Dirtiest Player" (GQ • Feb 2010) [11:45] Ingenious: A True Story of Invention, Automotive Daring, and the Race to Revive America (2013) [24:00] "High Times May Be the Most Influential Publication of Our Era" (The New Republic • Nov 2013) [24:45] "The Willy Wonka of Pot" (Grantland • Nov 2013) [25:30] Cultivating Exceptional Cannabis: An Expert Breeder Shares His Secrets (DJ Short • 2004) [48:30] "The Death (and Life) of the Philadelphia Weekly and Philadelphia City Paper" (Philadelphia • May 2012) [49:00] Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (James Fallows • 1996) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amy Wallace is an editor-at-large for Los Angeles and a correspondent for GQ . "I've written about the anti-vaccine movement. I love true crime. I've written a lot of murder stories. The thing that unites all of them—whether it's a celebrity profile or a biologist who murdered a bunch of people or Justin Timberlake—it's almost trite to say, but there's a humanity to each of these people. And figuring out what's making them tick in the moment, or in general, is interesting to me. In a way, that's my sweet spot." Thanks to TinyLetter and Warby Parker for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @msamywallace amy-wallace.com Wallace on Longform [7:00] "Justin Timberlake: #Hashtag of the Year" (GQ • Dec 2013) [12:15] "The Comedian's Comedian's Comedian" (GQ • Aug 2010) [20:30] "A Very Dangerous Boy" (GQ • Nov 2013) [35:15] "Mrs. Hughes Takes Her Leave" (Ron Suskind • Esquire • Jul 2002) [37:00] "Valley Girl Interrupted" (Los Angeles • Oct 2001) [44:30] "What Made This University Researcher Snap?" (Wired • Feb 2011) [44:30] "A Loaded Gun" (Patrick Radden Keefe • New Yorker • Feb 2013) [48:15] "Amen! (D'Angelo's Back!)" (GQ • Jun 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Aviv is a staff writer at The New Yorker. "If I'm writing about the criminal justice system, I wish I were a lawyer. If I'm writing about psychiatry, I wish I were a psychiatrist. I have often filled out half my application to get a Ph.D in clinical psychology. That is one area where I am constantly on the verge of jumping the fence. But even when I wrote about religion, I thought I wanted to be a priest." Thanks to TinyLetter and HostGator for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @RachelAviv rachelaviv.com Aviv on Longform Aviv's New Yorker archive [2:00] "Netherland" (The New Yorker • Dec 2012) [paywall] [14:15] "Hobson's Choice" (The Believer • Oct 2007) [16:00] Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought (Louis A. Sass • 1992) [16:00] The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Elyn R. Saks • 2007) [19:30] Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc • Nov 2003) [21:15] "The Imperial President" (The New Yorker • Sep 2013) [paywall] [22:30] "The Science of Sex Abuse" (The New Yorker • Jan 2013) [27:00] "Like I Was Jesus" (Harper's • Aug 2009) [27:45] "Local Story" (The New Yorker • Mar 2013) [paywall] [36:45] "Fat Fiction" (The Believer • Mar 2006) [paywall] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery are the co-editors of Mother Jones. "We probably pay more attention to our fact-checking and our research than almost everybody in our industry. By the time we publish stuff, we make sure it's unimpeachable because people would like to impeach it." Thanks to TinyLetter and HostGator for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @MonikaBauerlein @ClaraJeffery motherjones.com Mother Jones on Longform [16:45] Mac McClelland's Mother Jones archive [18:00] "Follow the Dark Money" (Andy Kroll • Mother Jones • Jul/Aug 2012) [19:00] "School of Shock" (Jennifer Gonnerman • Mother Jones • Aug 2007) [21:45] "Secrets of the Tax-Prep Business" (Gary Rivlin • Mother Jones • Mar/Apr 2011) [26:45] "WATCH: Full Secret Video of Private Romney Fundraiser" (David Corn • Mother Jones • Sep 2012) [43:00] "Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons." (Shane Bauer • Mother Jones • Nov/Dec 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Evan Wright, a two-time National Magazine Award winner, is the author of Generation Kill. "When people were killed, civilians especially, I realized I was the only person there who would write it down. I was frantic about getting names, and in the book there are a few Arabic names, some of the victims. Not that anyone cares. But I thought, 'At least somewhere there's a record of this.'" Thanks to this week’s sponsors: TinyLetter and HostGator. Show notes: @evanscribe Wright on Longform [3:45] Generation Kill (2004) [10:00] "Scenes From My Life in Porn" (L.A. Weekly • Mar 2000) [12:15] A.J. Liebling’s New Yorker archive [14:15] "Big Red Son" (David Foster Wallace • Consider the Lobster • 1998) [pdf] [16:30] Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (D.T. Max • 2012) [18:15] Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe,Wingnut's War Against the Gap, and Other Adventures with the Totally Lost Tribes of America (2009) [28:00] "The Killer Elite" (Rolling Stone • Jul 2003) [30:30] Longform Podcast #64: Gay Talese [33:30] Wikipedia: Christopher Isherwhood [39:30] Karl Taro Greenfield on Longform [48:30] "Pat Dollard's War on Hollywood" (Vanity Fair • Mar 2007) [57:00] American Desperado: My Life—From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset (with Jon Roberts • 2011) [1:00:00] How to Get Away with Murder in America: Drug Lords, Dirty Pols, Obsessed Cops, and the Quiet Man Who Became the CIA's Master Killer (Kindle Single • 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andy Ward, a former editor at Esquire and GQ, is the editorial director of nonfiction at Random House. "How you gain that trust is a hard thing to quantify. The way I try do it is by caring. If you don't care about every word and every sentence in the piece, writers pick up on that. ... Ultimately, it's their book or their magazine article. Their name is on it, not mine. I always try to keep that in mind." Thanks to this week's sponsors: TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA 14. Show notes: @AndyWard15 Andy Ward Picks His Favorite Articles [31:00] "The Perfect Fire" (Sean Flynn • Esquire • Jul 2000) [33:00] "He Came from Outer Space" (Chris Jones • Esquire • Oct 2002) [40:45] Jim Nelson's Memo to GQ staffers when Ward left [42:30] "The Book of Me" (Richard Powers • GQ • Oct 2008) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elizabeth Wurtzel is the author of four books, including Prozac Nation. "It's not that hard to be a lawyer. Any fool can be a lawyer. It's really hard to be a writer. You have to be born with incredible amounts of talent. Then you have to work hard. Then you have to be able to handle tons of rejection and not mind it and just keep pushing away at it. You have to show up at people's doors. You can't just e-mail and text message people. You have to bang their doors down. You have to be interesting. You have to be fucking phenomenal to get a book published and then sell the book. When people think their writing career is not working out, it's not working out because it's so damn hard. It's not harder now than it was 20 years ago. It's just as hard. It was always hard." Thanks to TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA 14 for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @LizzieWurtzel [16:00] Prozac Nation (1994) [21:00] "The Return of the Replacements: Here Comes a Regular" (The Daily Beast • Sep 2013) [31:00] "Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts Her One-Night Stand of a Life" (New York • Jan 2013) [45:30] "From Led Zeppelin to Breaking Bad: The Lamest Generation" (The Daily Beast • Sep 2013) [46:15] "Fight the Power" (The New Yorker • Sep 1992) [50:30] "Mitt Romney Is Likable Enough" (The Atlantic • Jan 2012) [52:30] Thursday, Oct. 24: Wurtzel will be reading at No. 8 in New York. Details [53:00] More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction (2002) [53:15] Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1998) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices