Longform

Jeff Maysh is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. His latest article is "How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions."

“I’ve always looked for stories with the theme of identity and identity theft. I’m very interested in people leading double lives. All of my stories are the same in a sense. Whether that’s a spy or a fake cheerleader or a bank robber or even a wrestler, someone is pretending to be someone they’re not, leading a double life. I find that really exciting. I’m drawn to characters who put on a disguise.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, Pitt Writers, and Coin Talk for sponsoring this week's episode.

@jeffmaysh

Maysh on Longform

jeffmaysh.com

[1:15] "The Half-Time Hero" (Howler • Sep 2013)

[1:45] "How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions" (The Daily Beast • Jul 2017)

[6:20] "A Catfishing With a Happy Ending" (The Atlantic • Oct 2017)

[19:55] "America Is Bull" (Jeanne Marie Laskas • Esquire • Jan 2007)

[27:55] Epic Magazine

[29:50] "Behind Hollywood’s A-List Bidding War for a McDonald’s Monopoly Article" (Chris Lee • Vulture • Aug 2018)

[30:30] "Elizabeth Banks To Star In & Produce Paramount Players Pic On The Day A Wyoming Hotel Maid Won A Dream Date With Prince" (Mike Flemming Jr. • Deadline • Aug 2018)

[38:25] "The Cop Who Became a Robber" (Los Angeles Magazine • Aug 2017)

[39:35] The Spy With No Name (Kindle Singles • 2018)

[40:30] "The Rise and Fall of the Bombshell Bandit" (BBC News • Apr 2015)

[49:45] "The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy" (Michael Paterniti • Esquire • Jun 2009)

[50:30] "Murder House" (Medium • Sep 2015)

[53:35] "The Counterfeit Queen of Soul" (Smithsonian Magazine • Jul 2018)

[57:55] "The Scarface of Sex: The Millionaire Playboy Who Murdered His Way to the Top of Porn" (Daily Beast • Jun 2017)

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David Marchese is the interviewer for New York's "In Conversation" series.

"The thing I like about doing long interviews with people is that each one feels like a totally unique experience to me. It’s not like I go into an interview and already know the arc of the story I’m going to tell, and I’m going to just fill that in the best I can. I have ideas of what to talk about and what the conversation might entail, but it does feel like I’m starting at zero and the conversation can go anywhere.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.

@david_marchese

Marchese on Longform

[2:40] Marchese on Vulture

[3:30] Marchese on Salon

[3:35] Marchese on Spin

[6:40] "In Conversation: John Oliver" (Vulture • Feb 2016)

[7:00] "In Conversation: Louis C.K." (Vulture • Jun 2016)

[7:10] "In Conversation: David Letterman" (Vulture • Mar 2017)

[8:10] "In Conversation: Julian Casablancas" (Vulture • Mar 2018)

[12:10] "In Conversation: Jeff Goldblum" (Vulture • Jun 2018)

[12:35] "In Conversation: Billy Joel" (Vulture • Jul 2018)

[16:00] "The Billy Joel Essays: Essays from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" (Chuck Klosterman • Scribner • Jul 2018)

[17:35] "In Conversation: Kathleen Turner" (Vulture • Aug 2018)

[35:40] "In Conversation: Dave Matthews" (Vulture • May 2018)

[45:15] "The SPIN Interview: Lou Reed" (Spin • Nov 2008)

[50:30] "In Conversation: Quincey Jones" (Vulture • Feb 2018)

[50:45] "In Conversation: John Cleese" (Vulture • Sep 2017)

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Nathaniel Rich is a novelist and a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. His most recent article is "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change."

“There’s a huge opportunity with climate change because we talk a lot about the political issue with it, the industry story and the scientific story, but we don’t talk about the human story. And I would say that not only is it a big human story, but it is the human story. ... With every step of the ladder that we’ve advanced, we’re borrowing from our future. I don’t think we’ve reckoned with that in a serious way.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.

@NathanielRich

nathanielrich.com

Rich on Longform

Longform Podcast #96: Nathaniel Rich

[00:30] King Zeno (MCD • 2018)

[1:30] "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2018)

[4:10] "Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart" (Scott Anderson • New York Times Magazine • Aug 2018)

[45:30] "The Problem With The New York Times’ Big Story on Climate Change" (Robinson Meyer • The Atlantic • Aug 2018)

[57:59] No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies (William Vollmann • Viking • 2018)

[58:00] No Good Alternative: Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies (William Vollmann • Viking • 2018)

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Laura June is author of Now My Heart Is Full.

“Parenting wasn’t considered literary fodder for a long time. I think women in particular are raised not to complain. Which is not what I was doing. If you have to boil it down, it’s base emotion. Then you’re complaining about how hard it is. Or, the opposite end, you’re bragging. There’s no in between. Most of my writing is in between.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.

@laura_june

June on Longform

[1:25] June on The Verge

[1:25] "For Amusement Only" (The Verge • Jan 2013)

[2:10] Now My Heart Is Full

[2:40] Topolsky on Longform

[3:15] June's archive at The Cut

[11:00] June's archive at The Awl

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Rukmini Callimachi covers ISIS for The New York Times and is the host of Caliphate.

“My major takeaway that I have come away with in this work is go to the enemy. Talk to the enemy. I think that the way that Al Qaeda and ISIS is typically covered is by reporters who just speak to officials in Washington. ... That’s only one side of the story. And I have learned so much by seeking out their documents, reading their propaganda ... speaking to them themselves.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Stitcher Premium for sponsoring this week's episode.

@rcallimachi

Callimachi on Longform

[3:15] Longform Podcast #129: Rukmini Callimachi (February 2015)

[3:30] Caliphate

[8:30] The Daily

[25:00] “Justice for Our Children, Killed by ISIS” (New York Times • February 2018)

[27:45] Shoah (Claude Lanzmann • April 1985)

[28:15] The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William Shirer • 1960)

[31:00] “Thousands of Children Work in African Gold Mines”(New York Times • August 2008)

[1:12:45] “The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” (Lawrence Wright • 2006)

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Megan Greenwell is the editor-in-chief of Deadspin.

“I’m the first external hire to be the EIC in Deadspin history, so not everybody knew me or knew anything about my work. I don’t think there was resistance to me being hired, but I do think when you’re coming in from outside, there’s a need to say, ‘Hey, no, I can do this.’ Somebody told me about a management adage at one point: everybody tries to prove that they’re competent when they first start, and what you actually have to prove is you’re trustworthy. That is something that I think about all the time.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Stitcher Premium for sponsoring this week's episode.

@megreenwell

Greenwell on Longform

Deadspin

[4:30] Press Release: "Univision to Explore Potential Sale of Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion" (July 2018)

[23:00] "Welcome to Deadspin. We Come With a Pure Heart and Mirthful Disposition" (Will Leitch • Sep 2005)

[33:00] "The Marathon of Their Lives" (David Fleming • ESPN • Oct 2013)

[40:45] "How Things Went Bad at GOOD Magazine, What's Next for Fired Staff and the Company They Left" (Andrew Beaujon • Poynter • Jun 2012)

[44:00] "Water's Edge (Taffy Brodesser-Akner • ESPN • Mar 2016)

[44:00] "You Can Only Hope to Contain Them" (Amanda Hess • ESPN • Jul 2013)

[46:00] "Me, My Father, and Russell Wilson" (Mina Kimes • Slate • Jan 2014)

[49:45] "One Mission, Two Newsrooms" (Erik Wemple • Washington City Paper • Feb 2008)

[56:30] "Fear Drives Baghdad's Housing Bust" (Washington Post • Sep 2007)

[1:03:30] Greenwell's thread about leaving Esquire

[1:04:30] "Extra! Extra!" (Alex Foege • People • Mar 2000)

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Bryan Fogel is the Oscar-winning director of Icarus.

“There was a long period of time that none of us were really thinking so much about the film. It was really that we were in a real-world crisis. Gregory's life was essentially in my hands.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Google Play, and Stitcher Premium for sponsoring this week's episode.

@bryanfogel

icarus.film

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Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah is an essayist. Her 2017 GQ piece “A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof” won the National Magazine Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

“I remember feeling like ‘you’re playing chess with evil, and you gotta win.’ Because this is the most terrible thing I’d ever seen. And I was so mad. I still get so mad. Words aren’t enough. I’m angry about it. I can’t do anything to Dylann Roof, physically, so this is what I could do.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, and Netflix for sponsoring this week's episode.

the-rachelkaadzighansah.tumblr.com

Kaadzi Ghansah on Longform

Longform Podcast #101: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah

"A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof" (GQ • Aug 2017)

[21:30] "America’s Most Political Food" (Lauren Collins • New Yorker • Apr 2017)

[23:15] Light in August (William Faulkner • Random House • 1990)

[43:30] "The Rise of the Valkyries" (Seyward Darby • Harper’s • Sep 2017)

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May Jeong is a magazine writer and investigative reporter.

“I don’t have kids, I don’t have an expensive drug habit. Everything that I do right now at this moment in my life is to serve the story. That means that sometimes I’m not the best partner. I’m not the best friend. I’m a really terrible daughter probably. If my parents had a satisfaction survey, I don’t think I’d rank really high. I have friends who are buying houses and stuff. I’m very far away from that. What else have I sacrificed? I don’t know. Sometimes I let my body atrophy because I’m on the road all the time. I think I can do it for five more years. I’m 30, so thing will have to change.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, Casper, and You Can't Make This Up for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: Longform Podcast t-shirts are still available!

@mayjeong

mayreports.com

May Jeong on Longform

May Jeong's archive at The Intercept

[01:50] "The Final, Terrible Voyage of the Nautilus" (Wired • Feb 2015)

[14:00] Nathan Thornburgh on Longform

[17:45] May Jeong's archive at The New Yorker

[24:30] "Death from the Sky" (The Intercept • Apr 2016)

[36:15] "The Avenger" (Patrick Radden Keefe • The New Yorker • Sep 2015)

[41:30] "Losing Sight" (The Intercept • Jan 2018)

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Helen Rosner is a food correspondent at The New Yorker.

“I believe the things that are really important to me are structure over all and—forgive me, I’ve said this on other podcasts before—if I were going to get a tattoo this is what I would get a tattoo of is that it doesn’t matter what you say, it only matters what they hear. It’s my job to make sure the gulf between those two things is as narrow as possible and there’s as little ambiguity between what I say and what you hear. It’s never easy, but it’s certainly easier in the realm of arguable objectivity. To create emotion in a reader requires a huge amount of really thoughtful work on the part of the writer in a way that forces you as a writer to remove yourself from the emotion you’re creating in the reader. If I to set you up for sadness, I have to create emotional stakes. I have to create investment in whoever I’m talking about or whatever the story’s about. The craft of making stakes and setting up a potential downfall, a potential loss, whatever it may be I think is not something you can do well if you’re feeling the feeling you’re trying to create in the reader.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Read This Summer, and You Can't Make This Up for sponsoring this week's episode. Also: very rare, very exclusive Longform Podcast t-shirts are still available!

@helsn

Rosner on Longform

Helen Rosner's official site

Helen Rosner's archive at The New Yorker

[06:15] Menu Pages

[08:40] Helen Rosner's archive at New York Magazine

[12:35] Helen Rosner's archive at Saveur

[19:40] "The Exquisite Blankness (and Highly Suspect Guacamole) of Antoni Porowski from 'Queer Eye'" (The New Yorker • Mar 2018)

[32:10] "The Best Time I Got a Bikini Wax" (The Hairpin • Mar 2011)

[33:15] Helen Rosner's archive at Eater

[38:30] "There’s nothing good in cooking, but there are no other options." (Sandra Zhao • Eater • Aug 2016)

[40:20] "One Night at Kachka" (Erin DeJesus with Danielle Centoni and Jen Stevenson • Eater • Jun 2015)

[49:55] "On Chicken Tenders" (Guernica Mag • Jun 2015)

[51:00] The Boundaries of Taste

[1:06:10] The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster • Random House • 1961)

[1:16:20] "An MSG Convert Visits the High Church of Umami" (The New Yorker • Apr 2018)

[1:16:30] "Christ in the Garden of Endless Breadsticks" (Eater • Oct 2017)

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