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Interviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.
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Episode 582: Joseph Cox
Joseph Cox is a cybersecurity journalist and co-founder of 404 Media. His new book is Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever.
“In the not too distant future, I will be a very old man, and maybe I won't be able to spend all day talking to drug traffickers. I will be mentally and physically exhausted. So I will doggedly pursue the story right now while I can.”
Show notes:
@josephfcox
Cox's 404 Media archive
Cox's Vice archive
Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever (PublicAffairs • 2024)
08:00 "FBI’s Encrypted Phone Platform Infiltrated Hundreds of Criminal Syndicates; Result is Massive Worldwide Takedown" (U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California • Jun 2021)
10:00 Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World (Bradley Hope and Tom Wright • Hachette • 2018)
19:00 "Revealed: The Country that Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI" (404 Media • Sep 2023)
38:00 "Follow The Bitcoins: How We Got Busted Buying Drugs on Silk Road’s Black Market" (Andy Greenberg • Forbes • Sep 2013)
41:00 "Hundreds of Bounty Hunters Had Access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint Customer Location Data for Years" (Motherboard • Feb 2019)
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Episode 581: Tavi Gevinson
Tavi Gevinson is a writer, actor, and the founder of Rookie. Her new zine is Fan Fiction.
“Stories are unstable, and memory is unstable, and identity is unstable. All of these things that I've tried to make permanent in writing, they're actually unstable. So even though it's tempting to go, Oh, that was fake, it's more like, No, it was just temporary.”
Show notes:
@tavitulle
tavigevinson.world
Gevinson on Longform
Gevinson on Longform Podcast
Gevinson’s Rookie archive
10:00 Operation Shylock (Philip Roth • Simon & Schuster • 1993)
10:00 Erasure (Percival Everett • Graywolf Press • 2011)
14:00 “Taylor Swift Has No Regrets” (Elle • June 2015)
20:00 I Love Dick (Chris Kraus • Semiotext(e) • 1997)
24:00 “Who Would Tavi Gevinson Be Without Instagram?” (New York • Sept 2019)
40:00 “Editor’s Letter” (Rookie • Nov 2018)
50:00 “The Special Panic of Singing Sondheim” (New Yorker • Dec 2021)
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Episode 580: Rachel Khong
Rachel Khong is a journalist and author whose latest novel is Real Americans.
“It's about the ways in which we miss each other as human beings and can't fully communicate what it is like to be ourselves. … And I think that's what makes it so interesting to me, to work on a novel and to spend so much time trying to get down on the page what it feels like to be a human being who's alive. … I think the effort itself is what human relationships are.”
Show notes:
rachelkhong.com
01:00 Real Americans (Knopf • 2024)
01:00 Goodbye, Vitamin (Picador • 2017)
01:00 Lucky Peach archive
01:00 "Would Limitlessness Make Us Better Writers?" (The Atlantic • Apr 2024)
01:00 "Dust to Dust" (Eater • May 2024)
05:00 "New Pornographers + Stars, 6/25 Prospect Park Summer Stage" (Village Voice • Jun 2005)
09:00 Same Bed Different Dreams (Ed Park • Random House • 2023)
12:00 "Inside My Days as a Content Bot" (Esquire • Apr 2024)
24:00 "The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Gilbert" (Rumpus • Oct 2012)
24:00 Eat Pray Love (Elizabeth Gilbert • Riverhead • 2007)
24:00 Elizabeth Gilbert's GQ archive
54:00 "The Great Pacific Oyster Trail" (Eater • Jun 2017)
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Episode 579: Kelsey McKinney
Kelsey McKinney is a features writer and co-owner at Defector.com. She hosts the podcast Normal Gossip and is the author of the upcoming book You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip.
“I was always very interested in how you strategize a creative career. And I think that that is an unsexy thing to talk about, right? It's much sexier to be like, Oh, I love working on my sentence-level craft, which is not true for me. But I think that a lot of a creative career is understanding it is still a job, and then understanding how you make sure that within the container of the job you can do the work that you want to do. That is a really difficult balance to make. So if you can understand how people who have done it before you, you can copy them.”
Show notes:
@mckinneykelsey
kelseymckinney.com
McKinney on Longform
McKinney’s Defector archive
04:00 “Why Doesn’t Mrs. Dalloway Get a Day of Her Own?” (Slate • Jan 2000)
13:00 “Chris Evans: American Marvel” (Edith Zimmerman • GQ • July 2011)
23:00 McKinney’s Deadspin archive
31:00 God Spare the Girls (Harper Collins • 2022)
39:00 “Gossip Is Not a Sin” (New York Times • July 2021)
43:00 You Didn’t Hear This From Me (Viking • 2025)
58:00 “Learning To Play Piano When There Is No Recital” (Defector • Dec 2023)
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Episode 578: Lissa Soep
Lissa Soep is an audio producer, editor and author whose latest book is Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations That Never End.
“I am so keenly aware of how much my own voice is a product of editing relationships and co-producing relationships with other people's words. … I will forever feel indebted to those then young people who are now writers and educators and therapists. … I feel like my voice is sort of a product of that time.”
Show notes:
00:00 Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations that Never End (Spiegel & Grau • 2024)
00:00 YR Media
33:00 "Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans" (Sam Anderson • New York Times Magazine • Oct 2021)
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Episode 577: PJ Vogt
PJ Vogt is the host of Search Engine.
“One of our tests editorially is if we think we’ve got something good, but we haven’t started reporting or recording on it, I’ll just try asking the question at dinner and stuff. If it derails conversations, that’s a really good sign.”
Show notes:
@PJVogt
Vogt’s Substack
Vogt on Longform Podcast
03:00 “Why Are There So Many Illegal Weed Stores in New York City? (Part 1)” (Search Engine • Mar 2024)
03:00 “Why Are There So Many Illegal Weed Stores in New York City? (Part 2)” (Search Engine • April 2024)
03:00 “When Do You Know It’s Time to Stop Drinking?” (Search Engine • Jan 2024)
08:00 “Why Are There So Many Chicken Bones on the Street? (Part 1)” (Search Engine • Jan 2024)
08:00 “Why Are There So Many Chicken Bones on the Street? (Part 2)” (Search Engine • Jan 2024)
13:00 “Is There a Sane Way to Use the Internet?” (Search Engine • Oct 2023)
15:00 “How Do You Survive Fame?” (Search Engine • Feb 2024)
15:00 “The Tao of Rick Rubin” (New York Times • The Ezra Klein Show • Feb 2023)
15:00 “Rick Rubin Says Trust Your Gut, Not Your Audience” (Bari Weiss • The Free Press • Mar 2023)
16:00 “Rick Rubin, The Seclusive Zen Master” (Tim Ferriss • Jan 2023)
16:00 “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” (Gay Talese • Esquire • April 1966)
18:00 The Ezra Klein Show
18:00 Fresh Air
19:00 Crypto Island (Jigsaw Productions • 2022)
26:00 “Do Political Yard Signs Actually Do Anything?” (Search Engine • Apr 2024)
27:00 Reply All
35:00 “What’s Going on With Elon Musk?” (Search Engine • July 2023)
38:00 “What’s It Like to Go Blind? (Search Engine • July 2023)
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