Always Take Notes

Simon and Eleanor speak to Jon Lee Anderson, a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine and veteran war correspondent. Jon Lee began his career in the early 1980s, reporting on Central America. As a New Yorker staff writer since 1998, he has reported from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Liberia and many other countries. Jon Lee spoke about about the myths and realities of conflict journalism, the time he discovered the hidden grave of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the experience of profiling Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/19/the-dictator-2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Che-Guevara-Revolutionary-Jon-Anderson/dp/0553406647 You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Simon speaks with Anna Codrea-Rado, a freelance journalist who has written for titles including the New York Times and Wired, and who now advocates for better conditions for freelancers, through her #FairPayForFreelancers campaign, her popular newsletter The Professional Freelancer, and FJ&Co, a platform that provides tools and resources and organises events. Alongside discussing her campaigning, Anna, who studied journalism at Columbia in New York, talks about the potential pitfalls of journalism degrees, including the way they can contribute to elitism within the industry. She also discusses the pressure she felt to become a "real journalist" while working on an alumni magazine, before she became staff at the Guardian and then VICE, and her own later moves to establish herself as a freelancer. https://twitter.com/annacod?lang=en https://twitter.com/fjandco https://theprofessionalfreelancer.substack.com/ You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Simon and Eleanor speak to British magazine writer Ed Caesar, who was recently made a contributing writer at the New Yorker and whose work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Wired, GQ and numerous other publications. Ed talked about his early career at the Independent, his decision to go freelance, breaking into the American market and the challenges of balancing his writing work and travel with his domestic commitments. He also discussed why he chooses not to live in London. https://edcaesar.co.uk/2011/05/04/isner-mahut-endless-tennis-gq/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/01/house-of-secrets https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/magazine/uss-wasp-lost-world-war-ii-aircraft-carrier.html You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Simon and Eleanor speak to Ann Goldstein, who translated Elena Ferrante's phenomenally successful Neapolitan novels (My Brilliant Friend and its three sequels) out of Italian and into English. Ann also had a long and distinguished career as an editor at the New Yorker, where she rose to become head of the copy department. Ann spoke about the process of literary translation, the challenges of working with a writer whose identity she did not know, and also how the world of magazines has changed since she began her working life in the 1970s. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Eleanor speaks to Kamal Ahmed, editorial director of BBC News and one of Britain’s most prominent journalists. He joined the BBC in April 2014 as business editor after a 20-year career in newspapers, including the Guardian, the Observer and the Sunday and Daily Telegraph. Kamal spoke about reshaping the BBC for a younger, more-open minded generation, and about the difficulties of maintaining a publicly apolitical stance. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Simon and Eleanor speak to Pandora Sykes, journalist and co-host of the hugely successful podcast the High Low. Pandora began her journalistic career at the Sunday Times, where she held the position of fashion features editor and wrote the Wardrobe Mistress column for the paper's Style magazine. She has written for numerous other titles including Elle, the Telegraph, the Guardian, Marie Claire, and the Spectator, and consults widely for a range of brands from Topshop to Cartier. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/when-hungry-bum-attacks-0gp0kqcg9q2 https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/how-bff-marketing-became-the-m-o-for-womens-direct-to-consumer-brands You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

In an episode recorded live at the Well Told longform journalism conference in London, Simon and Eleanor speak with author and journalist Andrew Hankinson. Hankinson has written magazine features for the Observer, Wired and Cosmo, and is author of literary nonfiction book You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life, a retelling of the last eight days of killer Raoul Moat and his stand off with the Northumbrian police in 2010. Hankinson spoke about why he chose to write in the rarely used second person and how he got the idea for his book, as well as how, as a result of bad editing and pay, he has stopped pitching to magazines. We hope you enjoy the episode. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Simon and Eleanor speak to Jennifer Croft, who won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s Polish novel Flights. Jennifer, currently based in New York, has received a slew of other plaudits for her work, including NEA, Cullman, PEN, Fulbright and MacDowell awards, as well as the inaugural Michael Henry Heim Prize for Translation. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Granta, Vice, n+1 and the Guardian. We spoke to Jennifer about her entry into translation, her longstanding relationship with Tokarczuk, the potential role of artificial intelligence in translation and her own upcoming memoir Homesick, which she first wrote in Spanish. https://twitter.com/jenniferlcroft You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Simon speaks to Alex Perry, who is a reporter, author and writer for film and television. His books include The Good Mothers, about the women who exposed the true might of the Calabrian mafia, which was excerpted in the New Yorker. His journalism has additionally appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times magazine, TIME, Newsweek, and other publications. Alex spoke to Simon about his first overseas assignment, what it's like reporting from danger zones including Afghanistan in 2001, working as a bureau chief in India and Africa, and how The Good Mothers is currently being developed into a television project. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Eleanor and Simon speak to Farrah Storr, editor-in-chief of the British edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. In her current role since 2015, Farrah was previously the launch editor of Women’s Health. She has won a slew of awards, including 'New Editor of the Year' in 2014 and 'Editor of the Year' (Men's and Women's category) in 2018 from the British Society of Magazine Editors, and is also author of the book The Discomfort Zone. Farrah spoke about the evolution of her career, whether 'women's magazine' is still a useful term, the position of reported journalism in Cosmopolitan and how the magazine now shows a wider variety of women's bodies than in the past. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.