Longform

Ed Caesar is a freelance writer based in England whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, British GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine. He is the author of Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon.

“That was a really horrific situation. People were being killed in the street in front of us. People were firing weapons in all directions. It was really chaotic and quite scary. It freaked me out. And I thought, 'Actually, there's not a huge amount more of this I want to do in my life.'”

Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, The Message, RealtyShares, and Prudential for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@edcaesar

edcaesar.co.uk

Caesar on Longform

[2:00] "House of Secrets" (New Yorker • Jun 2015) [sub req'd]

[3:00] "Congo: The Horror" (GQ (UK) • Jan 2010)

[3:00] "Tehran Nights" (GQ (UK) • Jun 2009)

[4:00] We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Philip Gourevitch • Picador 1999)

[5:00] "Blood Oil" (Sebastian Junger • Vanity Fair • Jun 2009)

[7:00] "The Visit: Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Life Inside" (The Independent • Sep 2011)

[7:00] "Jon Bon Jovi" (The Independent • May 2006)

[10:00] The Guardian Long Read

[17:00] "Hell Is Other People" (GQ (UK) • May 2014)

[22:00] Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon (Simon & Schuster • 2015)

[23:00] "Sammy Wanjiru: The Runner They Left Behind" (Sunday Times Magazine • Nov 2011)

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Jazmine Hughes is an associate editor at The New York Times Magazine. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and The New Republic.

“You hope that one day when you’re the editor-in-chief of Blah, Blah, Blah, that you’ll wake up and be like, ‘Okay, I deserve my job.’ But so far I haven’t met anyone who has told me that they feel that way. But, I will say, I don’t talk to white men a lot.”

Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, and The Great Courses Plus for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@jazzedloon

[3:00] "I Bled Through My Pants My First Day Working for the The New York Times" (Lenny • Oct 2015)

[7:00] "Do You Have Impostor Syndrome?" (The Hairpin• Nov 2014)

[15:00] "I Dressed Like Cookie from Empire for a Week to Get Over My Imposter Syndrome" (Cosmopolitan• Oct 2015)

[23:00] "How Many White People Does It Take to Ruin a Good Joke? (The New Republic • Sept 2015)

[24:00] The Secret Fantasies of Adults (New Yorker • Nov 2014)

[26:00] I'm Black, He's White. Who Cares? I Do, Actually. (Jezebel • Aug 2013)

[38:00] "The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison" (Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah • New York Times Magazine • April 2015)

[42:00] "One Big Question" archive (The Hairpin• Sept 2015)

[42:00] I Love Myself When I'm Laughing and Then Again When I am Looking Mean and Impressive (Zora Neale Hurston • The Feminist Press at CUNY • 1979)

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Lena Dunham, the creator and star of HBO's Girls, is the co-founder of Lenny and the author of Not That Kind of Girl. A special episode hosted by Longform Podcast editor Jenna Weiss-Berman.

“Writing across mediums can be a really healthy way to utilize your energy and stay productive while not feeling entrapped. But at the end of the day, the time when I feel like life is most just, like, flying by and I don't even know what's happening to me is when I'm writing prose. It's such an intimate relationship that you're having. When you're writing a script, you're making a blueprint for something that doesn't exist yet. But when you're writing prose, the thing exists immediately. And that's really satisfying. It's the best place to go for my deepest and most in-the-now concerns.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Prudential, Casper, and The Great Courses for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@lenadunham

Dunham on Longform

[2:00] "Women of the Hour," Dunham's new podcast (iTunes)

[10:00] "Seeing Nora Everywhere" (New Yorker • Jun 2012)

[11:00] "First Love" (New Yorker • Aug 2012)

[21:00] "Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co‑Stars?" (Jennifer Lawrence • Lenny • Oct 2015)

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Matthew Shaer is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and The Atavist Magazine.

“I could not turn off the freelance switch in my head. I could not not be thinking about these different types of stories. My Google Alert list looks like a serial killer's.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, Howl, and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@matthewshaer

matthewshaer.com

Shaer on Longform

[12:00] "A Shtetl Divided" (Harper's • Jan 2011) [sub req'd]

[15:00] Among Righteous Men: A Tale of Vigilantes and Vindication in Hasidic Crown Heights (Wiley & Sons • 2011)

[18:00] "A Monster Among the 'From'" (New York • Dec 2011)

[24:00] "The Orthodox Hit Squad" (GQ • Sept 2014)

[27:00] "Whatsoever Things Are True" (Atavist • Sept 2015)

[46:00] "How Thailand's Most Notorious Prison Became a Fight Club" (Men's Journal• Apr 2014)

[47:00] "Freedom Fighters" (Hemispheres• Nov 2013)

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John Seabrook is a New Yorker staff writer and the author of The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory.

“Whether or not the piece succeeds or fails is not going to depend on whether I’m up to the minute on the latest social media spot to hang out or the latest slang words that are thrown around. It’s going to be the old eternal verities of structural integrity. So much of it is narrative and figuring out the tricks—and they are tricks, really—that make it go as a narrative. And that’s really the most interesting thing. Because you never ultimately have a formula that goes from piece to piece; it’s always going to have to be rediscovered every time you work on a long piece. And that’s kind of fun.”

Thanks to MailChimp and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@jmseabrook

Seabrook on Longform

Seabrook's New Yorker archive

[3:00] The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (W. W. Norton • 2015)

[11:00] "The Doctor Is In" (New Yorker • Oct 2013)

[20:00] "Blank Space: What Kind of Genius is Max Martin?" (New Yorker • Sept 2015)

[31:00] "E-mail from Bill" (New Yorker • Jan 1994)

[45:00] Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, The Marketing of Culture (Vintage • 2001)

[46:00] "Crush Point" (New Yorker • Feb 2011)

[46:00] "The Flash of Genius" (New Yorker • Jan 1993)

[55:00] "Factory Girls" (New Yorker • Oct 2012)

[56:00] "The Song Machine" (New Yorker • Mar 2012)

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Karina Longworth is a film writer and the creator/host of You Must Remember This, a podcast exploring the secret stories of Hollywood.

“For me the thing that’s exciting about it is that it’s research, and it’s reportage, and it’s criticism. But it’s also art. It’s creatively done. It’s drama. It consciously tries to engage people on that emotional level.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@KarinaLongworth

Longworth on Longform

Longworth's LA Weekly archive

vidiocy.com

[8:00] Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor (Phaidon Press • 2014)

[8:00] Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997 (Princeton Architectural Press • 2014)

[15:00] Holy Motors (Leos Carax • Arte Cinema • 2012)

[18:00] "1: The Hard Hollywood Life of Kim Novak" (You Must Remember This • Mar 2014)

[26:00] "7: The Many Loves of Howard Hughes, Chapter 1" (You Must Remember This • June 2014)

[32:00] "33: Star Wars Episode VII: Lena Horne" (You Must Remember This • Feb 2015)

[33:00] "28: Star Wars Episode II: Carole Lombard and Clark Gable" (You Must Remember This • Jan 2015)

[34:00] "44: Charles Manson's Hollywood: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Manson Murders, Part 1" (You Must Remember This • May 2015)

[36:00] Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson (Jeff Guinn • Simon and Schuster • 2013)

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Jessica Hopper is editor-in-chief of the Pitchfork Review and the author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic.

“I have an agenda. You can’t read my writing and not know that I have a staunch fucking agenda at all times.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Blue Apron, and Fracture for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@jesshopp

Hopper on Longform

Hopper's Pitchfork archive

[28:00] "Review of Superchunk's I Hate Music" (Brandon Stosuy • Pitchfork • Aug 2013)

[35:00] "The Passion of David Bazan" (Chicago Reader • July 2009)

[39:00] "How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock" (BuzzFeed • Nov 2013)

[39:00] "Read the 'Stomach-Churning' Sexual Assault Accusations Against R.Kelly In Full" (The Village Voice • Dec 2013)

[41:00] "Deconstructing Lana Del Rey" (Spin • Jan 2012)

[48:00] The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic (Featherproof Books • 2015)

[50:00] "Gals/other marginalized folks: what was your 1st brush (in music industry, journalism, scene) w/ idea that you didn't 'count'?" (Twitter • Aug 2015)

[52:00] "Where The Girls Aren't" (Rookie • July 2015)

[55:00] Hopper's keynote at BIGSOUND (YouTube)

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Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of This American Life.

“You can only have so many questions about feelings, I think. At some point people are just like alright, enough with the feelings.”

Thanks to MailChimp, EA SPORTS FIFA 16, Fracture, and FRONTLINE's "My Brother's Bomber for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@iraglass

Out on the Wire (Jessica Abel • Broadway Books • 2015)

[10:00] "1: New Beginnings" (This American Life • Nov 1995)

[14:00] Serial

[21:00] "75: Kindness of Strangers" (This American Life • Nov 1995)

[27:00] Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host

[28:00] "480: Human Sacrifice" (This American Life • Nov 2012)

[30:00] "562: The Problem We All Live With" (Nikole Hannah-Jones • This American Life • July 2015)

[31:00] "564: Too Soon" (This American Life • Aug 2015)

[31:00] "565: Lower 9+10" (This American Life • Aug 2015)

[35:00] "513: 129 Cars" (This American Life • Dec 2013)

[53:00] Longform Podcast #124: Alex Blumberg

[54:00] Conan's Farewell Speech

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Peter Hessler is a staff writer for The New Yorker.

“It may have helped that I didn’t have a lot of ideas about China. You know, it was sort of a blank slate in my mind. …I wasn’t a reporter when I went to Fuling, but I was thinking like a reporter or even like a sociologist: try to respond to what you see and what you hear, and not be too oriented by things you’ve heard from others or things you may have read. Be open to new perceptions of the place or of the people.”

Thanks to MailChimp and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

Hessler on Longform

Hessler's New Yorker archive

[14:00] "Boomtown Girl" (New Yorker • May 2001)

[21:00] Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (HarperCollins • 2006)

[21:00] "Travels With My Censor" (New Yorker • Mar 2015)

[24:00] "Dr. Don" (New Yorker • Sept 2011)

[25:00] "Tales of the Trash" (New Yorker • Oct 2014)

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Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has written for The New York Times, Newsweek, and Harper's. Her latest book is Negroland: A Memoir.

“One of the problems with—burdens of—‘race conversations’ in this country is certain ideological, political, sociological narratives keep getting imposed. This is where the conversation should go, these are the roles we need. In a way, this is the comfort level of my discomfort. ... Maybe we’re all somewhat addicted—I think we are—to certain racial conversations, with their limitations and their conventions.”

Thanks to MailChimp and Casper for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@jeffersonmargo

Jefferson on Longform

Jefferson's New York Times archive

Brownscast: The Official Podcast of the Cleveland Browns

[19:00] On Michael Jackson (Pantheon • 2006)

[20:00] "Critic Jefferson Stays in Off-Broadway Negroland through November" (David Lefkowitz • Playbill • Nov 2001)

[29:00] "Thomas Bradshaw by Margo Jefferson: An interview" (BOMB • 2009)

[31:00] The Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (Richard Rodriguez • Bantam Books • 1982)

[31:00] Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (Richard Rodriguez • Penguin • 1993)

[31:00] Brown: The Last Discovery of America (Richard Rodriguez • Penguin • 2002)

[31:00] The Women (Hilton Als • Farrar Straus Giroux • 1996)

[31:00] Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (Mary McCarthy • Harvest/HBJ • 1957)

[35:00] "Ripping Off Black Music From Thomas 'Daddy' Rice to Jimi Hendrix" (Harper's • Jan 1973) [sub req'd]

[40:00] The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed their Workplace (Lynn Povich • Perseus • 2012)

[57:00] "The Reign of Beyoncé" (Vogue • Sept 2015)

[106:00] "Books of the Times: The Scars of Disease, External and Internal" (The New York Times • Sept 1994)

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