Barrett Swanson is a contributing editor at Harper’s and the author of Lost in Summerland.“You just have to sit there for a long time. That lesson was indisputably crucial for me. Just being willing to talk to someone, even if the first half-hour or hour is unutterably boring, or it doesn’t seem pertinent. These little things, the deeper things, take a while to get at and they kind of burble to the surface at moments when you’re not totally expecting it to happen. So for me, it’s just making myself available for that moment to occur.”

Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show notes:

Swanson on Longform

00:30 Lost in Summerland (Catapult • 2021)

00:30 "Lost in Summerland" (The Atavist • December 2019)

00:45 "The Anxiety of Influencers" (Harper’s • September 2020)

10:00 "The Solider and the Soil" (Orion Magazine • December 2017)

11:30 "Men at Work" (Harper’s • November 2019)

20:00 "Political Fictions: Unraveling America at a West Wing Fan Convention" (Paris Review • November 2018)

28:00 “Annie Radcliffe, You Are Loved,” (American Short Fiction Issue #56 • 2015)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices