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Writers write. And sometimes talk shop! This week, Sarah and Nancy chat with one of the best: Kerry Howley, essayist extraordinaire and author of the superlative and unclassifiable Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, a book about “the deep state,” according to its cover, though Kerry admits, “I don’t know what this book is about.” Bottoms Up is unsettling, quietly profound, introducing us to whistleblowers like Reality Winner (yes, her real name) and how technology has us flattened us into data that can be harvested to create whatever story the Powers That Be want to tell. Good times! Also discussed:

* Is Monster energy drink a tool of the devil?

* Why Kerry thought the subject of her book sounded boring, too

* Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning are not the heart of this book

* Reality Winner is a hell of a character

* The Intercept’s fateful mistakes

* Do you have to interview a person to profile them?

* When the “compulsion to help” leads to dangerous places

* Why a bad memory is the key to good writing

* Empathy for Britney Spears’ father Jamie

* Profiles on Larry Nassar, whistleblower Daniel Hale

* The argument for reading celebrity memoirs

* We love a journalism assignment!

* The first pages of Moby Dick are … funny?

* The writers we turn to for inspiration

* Kerry and Nancy each have a daughter named Tavi

* Why writing is like a possession