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Episode 255: Maddy Crowell and the 'Invisible Kid,' Plus The Atavist Gets a New Look
151 Plays4 years ago
Maddy Crowell comes by the show to talk about "Invisible Kid," her piece for The Atavist Magazine.
Lead editor Jonah Ogles teases the piece and Ed Johnson talks about the brand new design.
Keep the conversation going @CNFPod and consider becoming a CNFin' member at patreon.com/cnfpod.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
In this week's podcast, I talked to three, count them, three people in one episode. What's the meaning of it all? Who the hell do you think you are? Who gave you permission to sick three people on us? We can barely handle one and you send three into my feed. How dare you? You finished? You through? Yeah.
00:00:31
Speaker
Oh, that's right. That's right, CNFers. This is the creative non-fiction podcast where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. This is the time of the month where I jam with the people from the Adivis magazine to showcase and highlight the month's featured writer in the month's featured piece. She's Maddie Crowell and her piece deals with the man who was sent to prison as a teenager.
00:00:59
Speaker
as a minor and kept there for decades. And what would happen to a man locked away for more than 30 years? What would he do when he got out of a world that was then locked down by pandemic?
Maddie Crowell's Story Exploration
00:01:12
Speaker
Great stuff. I mean, it's a sad story, but it's a great story. Follow me. Good.
00:01:20
Speaker
I also talked to Jonah Ogles, the lead editor on this piece, as well as Ed Johnson, who headed up out of his new brand design and their new design launch. So we, we get into a little bit about how design adds to the story, how this new design is going to make for a more literary, immersive experience. Again, great stuff.
00:01:44
Speaker
For I hand the ball off to Jonah. Be sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you podcast and keep the conversation going on social media at cnfpod. We're getting closer and closer to the launch of issue two of the audio magazine on the theme summer. In order to enjoy it you gotta become a cnf and member at patreon.com slash cnfpod for as little as two dollars a month
00:02:10
Speaker
You get access to the magazine. And for a little more scratch, you can get transcripts and maybe some coaching. I know I need coaching. I mean, have you heard me talk? Have you read my writing? No. That's because it's so bad I can't get anything published. Maybe I should hire a coach. If you can't do interviews, such was the old tagline of the show. Maybe I'll bring it back. I'm feeling it. I miss the days when I used to shit on myself.
00:02:40
Speaker
I know I'm not exactly ringing the bell of my own endorsements, but let me tell you how important it is to have a coach in your corner. To see things that you can't see. If you're stuck on a pitch, need help with an essay or a book, give me a call if you're ready to level up. Sometimes you need someone who can see what you can't see. I already said that, but I want to reiterate, and I'd be honored and thrilled to help you get where you want to go. Just email me, creativenonfictionpodcast.gmail.com or brendan at brendanomera.com.
00:03:11
Speaker
yeah imprinted america comes where you'll find show notes to this episode in all over two hundred fifty other interviews as well as our micro podcast casualty of words head over there that's where you can sign up for the monthly newsletter for a sweet sweet dispatch of book recommendations podcast news cool links to articles blogs you're entered into book raffles as long as you're subscribed and on the main list
00:03:36
Speaker
and there's a CNF in digital happy hour where we just get together we hang sometimes I invite a friend on and we can pick their brain and you can get a little better at whatever it is you do and we just sit around sit around the fire so to speak and we just shoot the shit only for newsletter subscribers think about it man think about it
00:03:57
Speaker
Alright, that's enough housekeeping. I hate that I have to do that at the top of the show, but it's the only time I can almost 100% know that you're listening. I mean, you might be hovering that finger over the skip ahead button, but at least you're here, man. So Jonah and I gonna talk a little bit about what made Maddie's piece so special, but also what makes an out of his story an out of his story.
00:04:25
Speaker
Get it?
Crafting Atavist Stories: Cinematic and Emotional Storytelling
00:04:26
Speaker
Alright, let's get after it. Just to get your sense as an editor, what makes an Atavistian story? What is it that makes it pop from an Atavist point of view?
00:04:49
Speaker
The thing we talk about most often is wanting our stories to feel cinematic, wanting readers to feel like they are perched on the shoulder of these characters.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I think what that means a lot of the time for us is scenes, really descriptive language, both describing the action and the environment in which it takes place, but also what's happening in characters' heads. In Maddie's story, I think what
00:05:29
Speaker
what I was hoping for was some emotional resonance. I wanted readers to feel close enough to this character that they felt things as he felt them. Because it's not, I think a lot of times when we describe a story as being cinematic,
00:05:55
Speaker
writers just assume that there has to be an explosion or like a bank heist or something like that. And that's not always true. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love a good bank heist and explosions don't hurt a story's dramatic tension usually. But I think it can also be done in quiet ways where
00:06:20
Speaker
where the action that's taking place is really an interior action, and it can be more character-driven the way the story is.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, speaking to that of a quiet moment of cinematic brilliance, I think of in the movie, I've only seen it once, but in the movie Castaway, when he finally gets back to mainland or whatever, and he's at some sort of buffet or celebration, he looks down at a crab leg.
00:06:50
Speaker
and like he had basically been sustaining himself on those the entire movie and so then when he sees it there like on the plate and it's sort of a very luxurious and decadent thing you look at it and it's like it's a very quiet thing but you just realize the sort of the humor of that moment but the pain of it as well yeah right right yeah that's that's a perfect example you know the and and the reason that works in in castaway is because of the rapport you've
00:07:19
Speaker
you've built with this character. You know, you've just spent so much time with Tom Hanks character that
00:07:27
Speaker
you have started to see the world a little bit the way he does. Obviously, I don't think any piece of art, be it literature or film is gonna be able to allow you to fully inhabit another person's mind. But I think when we're all striving towards that and pushing in that direction, I do think it's possible to give readers a glimpse of that.
00:07:56
Speaker
And those are the moments, especially with this story, but in any story like it, that I'm aiming for as an editor. Yes, but mostly as a reader, you know, like I just want, maybe this is because we're in a pandemic, but
00:08:12
Speaker
the connection is what I want. That's what always makes me remember stories or films that I've seen that I feel like, oh my God, I can relate to that. Even though like Adolfo's character in this particular story, he and I have
00:08:31
Speaker
very different backgrounds, very different lives. Obviously, he spent 34 years in prison. But I feel for him as a reader of this piece. I feel the frustration that he feels. And I hope that what readers will feel as they're reading it is
00:08:55
Speaker
is that same thing and we'll walk away feeling like we are all in this. We are humans in this together and one person's pain can be felt by another.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, and there's a moment of granularity in Maddie's reporting and also it gets to that quiet cinematics of Adolpho had just been released from prison and he's at a convenience store and it's just like he has like the Gatorade and the Snickers and the candy bars. I'm blanking on the exact things that he put on the counter, but it was just like such a very evocative thing that here he was like finally
00:09:37
Speaker
free and almost like not knowing what to do, but she got those details of like the exact candy and everything. And it really was just a really touching thing. And you can really put yourself in Adolfo's shoes at that moment. Right, right, exactly. And the thing that I think makes that scene really come to life is the line immediately after it, after he sets a Gatorade and a score and a Snickers on the counter.
00:10:07
Speaker
And then Manny has this line, if he had enough money, he would have bought everything on the shelves.
00:10:13
Speaker
And that's such a great moment. And Mattie does this in so many places in the story where it puts readers in Adolfo's head. And Adolfo is not the most verbose guy. He doesn't just talk and talk and talk the way I'm rambling along now. He's pretty quiet. And so when
Atavist's Redesign and its Impact on Storytelling
00:10:38
Speaker
you're a writer and you're
00:10:41
Speaker
You're faced with a source who is a quiet individual, and yet you know that you need to get readers inside his head in order for that all-important connection to be made. It can be really tough, but Manny did such a nice job of finding those handful of moments like that.
00:10:59
Speaker
where she could put readers just on his shoulder, you know? Because you read that line and you think, oh, yeah, I know exactly what he was feeling. You know, not just like his particular taste in candy bar, which does tell us something about the character, but also what he hoped for in that moment, even though it's like as mundane as, I would like to try all of this stuff. It still tells you something about him.
00:11:30
Speaker
And when I was speaking with Maddie, she said that the two of you shared several back and forths about trying to stick the landing with the ending. She was having a hard time with it. And without maybe giving too much away, maybe you could take us to those moments in that dialogue of writer and editor trying to stick the landing of a piece.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad that she talked about it because that's probably what I learned the most from in editing this piece.
00:12:06
Speaker
I think we did end up sticking the landing, but it took us a while to get there. And a couple of things I think helped us get to the place we arrived at. The first was Sayward telling us to start the piece in a different way.
00:12:23
Speaker
Um, so I think, I think initially it was told, uh, or the first draft might've come in and it, and it was just a straight A to Z story, you know, just chronological. Um, I think that, I think that's right, but I could be wrong. It might've started somewhere else, but then we ended up switching it and sort of starting at a point that would introduce a little more tension right away. Um, in the hopes that that.
00:12:51
Speaker
that tension would sort of play off where the story ultimately ended. And I think that worked pretty well, and I hope that's somehow clear, even though I'm being intentionally vague. But the other thing that we did, or at least that I remember, I'm sure Maddie has her own take on this, but we sort of, we reached a point where we thought the ending was working all right, and then we sort of
00:13:18
Speaker
engineered some echoes of it earlier in the story, if that makes sense. So we arrived at this place and we had a few concrete details that happened in that final scene. And we found some ways to tuck similar details into earlier sections of the story. And I don't think
00:13:46
Speaker
I'm not sure it's super noticeable. I sort of hope it's not, but there are enough of them that I think even subconsciously, at least for me as a reader, I think it just feels like a comfortable moment, if that makes sense. Like it's familiar. And I felt almost like I had been there before. And I hope that that really helped it
00:14:14
Speaker
feel satisfying and not in like a pat way. It's not like a gradient. It's not like everybody picks Adolfo up on their shoulders at the end of it and marches him around to feel or anything. But I hope readers feel like, okay, we landed somewhere solid, even if it's not necessarily like an uplifting place, if that makes sense.
00:14:43
Speaker
And also, I think I think it might be good to just talk a little bit about the out of his new design going forward. You know, Maddie's is the first is the first piece of the new design, though everything will sort of fall into that wire frame. But maybe you can give us a sense of, you know, of what what that has been like and what you're you know, what this the sort of new design is saying for what you guys are presenting in terms of story and the whole layout.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, totally. And I'm sort of like the least qualified Adventist member to talk about this because I had so little to do with it, but I can talk as just like a fan. I mean, first of all, it's just really exciting anytime you get to
00:15:26
Speaker
have a redesign. And this was an important one for us because it's our redesigned site that is we moved from our own platform to WordPress, which is owned by Automatic, which is a company that owns us. So it's sort of like we're being brought into the family fold, which is nice in and of itself. But the thing that I really like about the design is it's just so
00:15:56
Speaker
So clean and so focused on individual stories you know you don't. You don't go to the homepage and see like every story we've ever published you just see like three or four.
00:16:13
Speaker
And when you go into the story itself, there is sort of like a recirculation thing at the bottom that suggests other stories on similar topics, but you're not being hit over the head with distractions. You know, click here, go do this. It just allows you to fully inhabit this particular
00:16:37
Speaker
story that you're reading right then and to just exist in that moment and give it as much of your attention as you can. And that's such a rare thing these days, especially online. We can all still curl up with a book and sort of
00:16:55
Speaker
you know, pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist, but it's really hard to do online when you've got like 20 tabs open and things are flashing and popping at you. So it's really, it's just so nice. I mean, the activist, this is one of the reasons I wanted to work for them, you know, years and years ago. It's just such a reader friendly experience. And I hope, I certainly felt that in the redesign and I hope that other readers do too.
00:17:24
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, Jonah, it's always great to talk to you and get to pick your brain and tease out the story that you were the lead editor on, so I appreciate the time and I look forward to when we can do this again. Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to talk to you again. Okay, so next I speak with Ed Johnson for a few minutes about the new design for Adivis. Very exciting.
00:17:52
Speaker
A plus. It's lean, it's mean, it's downright literary. It's bad to the bone. Dare I say, it's kind of metal. I'm overreaching and I don't want to get fired, so here's it. Yeah, I mean, the process is really that, you know, the Atavist magazine and what was the Atavist technology platform
00:18:16
Speaker
you know, always existed on the same thing. And yeah, the technology platform was shut down. And so we had to move to WordPress. And so that was the real impetus behind the redesign, though we've been thinking about a redesign for a while. Kind of the ethos behind it is, you know, it's such a unique publication in that it publishes one thing every month, one story.
00:18:36
Speaker
you know, compared to most of the websites I've worked on that deal with content, that's just like, you know, a fraction of what's usually published. So Ethos is really about making people focus on each individual story and creating the best environment for readers or anyone who visits the site to really sit down and engage with, you know, our stories rather than click around a lot or, you know, serve a lot of ads. Like, you know, that's not what the ad is does. And the redesign was really thinking about how we wanted to
00:19:06
Speaker
kind of bring out the more literary qualities in the design. You know, with the transformation from it being part of a tech platform to being a standalone publication, we really, you know, Sayward and I and the editors talked about how we wanted to bring out the literary quality of what the work we make. And we did that with, you know, the fonts we chose and kind of the simplicity and the white space and, you know, the sort of a more elegant approach to the content that we create.
00:19:32
Speaker
I love that, that this idea of making the tech more literary and it's not something you necessarily associate with tech being literary. So maybe you can unpack that a little more in terms of how to make something that is, you know, on the surface like coldly technological into something that's more warm and literary.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, for me, when I'm thinking about content design, I really think about the typography. And so, you know, we use this typeface called Triptech, which is by a font foundry called The Pipe Foundry, which is based out of Norway. And it's kind of a evolution of a really classic typeface from the 18th century and kind of the ideals of that. So bringing out the literary quality was more just kind of like, you know, making it feel more like a book and more
00:20:24
Speaker
And the typeface really does this, I think, where it feels just like more like a literary journal rather than, you know, like a website that's trying to serve you stuff, right? And so that's how, you know, that was really, when I saw this font and I knew this project was coming out down the pike, I thought about, you know, I really thought it would be perfect for what our goals were.
00:20:45
Speaker
Nice. And I also wanted to get a sense from you from the design angle, how important that is in terms of the overall storytelling package. So of course, we have the pros and everything in photography. But how does design fit into the storytelling aesthetic, if you will?
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, the first, whenever I start, and this is what I've always done when I've done editorial design in both print and digital is, you know, I like to start by reading the story and hopefully through the process of both assigning the art.
00:21:15
Speaker
or the illustrations and bringing the design together, I'm reflecting what the story's about and kind of the vibe and the narrative of the story. So some stories that we do are kind of just more of an adventure, right? And that the design and the color choices and everything should reflect that where some are very serious
00:21:37
Speaker
and about very troubling things. And so that similarly should be reflected. So I tend to really be driven by what I read. So someone once told me the most important thing as an editorial designer is to read over and over again. It's just like editing, right? You end up reading the stories a ton to get it just right. I love that. And maybe lastly, what was it about Maddie's piece? What about this story influenced your palette for designing this?
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think just like kind of the, you know, it's a very sad story in a lot of ways. Obviously, you know, I think for me, when I think about these sort of sentences, I think they're very draconian and don't reflect a proper society. And, you know, so I think what I wanted with the design was to, you know, we have the dark background with the white type and typography. And, you know, I just kind of wanted to get people into a headspace of seriousness and somberness.
00:22:37
Speaker
I also think that, you know, we had Akila Townsend was a photographer on this issue and she did a really good job of kind of adding texture and color to the story and brought that out with the portraits she made and the other photography. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I just, it's hard to, we're working both within the brand of the adivis and then also within each story. And I just try to really, as I'm reading, think about how
00:23:06
Speaker
to reflect what the story is about subtly with the design choices. So I think I did that well this time. I'm pretty happy with how this layout turned out. Oh, yeah. It's great. And I love that it's like you're keeping in mind the aesthetic of the Atavus brand. But then within that, each story is kind of its own thing as well. So there's kind of like two balls that you're juggling at all times when it comes to designing a story for that month.
00:23:35
Speaker
It's very interesting. I mean, that's, you know, the brand versus the stories is always the kind of, when you do an editorial, it's always the, not the conflict, but what you have to think about. I mean, and with the ad of this, because again, it's such a unique publication, it's much more about individual storytelling for me. And that really reflects it. Whereas like, if you're doing most digital websites, you're using templates and it's like the same thing over and over again that you're just putting in different pictures, right?
00:24:04
Speaker
Nice. Well, excellent. It was great to get your insights into this, and I appreciate you taking the time because what you've done with the redesign, of course, with Maddie's very sobering and wonderful piece on Adolpho, it marries well. So it's just a job well done. I can't wait to see what else you cook up next for subsequent stories. Yeah. It's such an interesting place, stories to work on. This long format is just
00:24:33
Speaker
It really allows for a lot of thoughtful design, which I really appreciated having the chance to work on since I've been here.
00:24:45
Speaker
And at long last, now you know a thing or two about the design, and here's the moment you've been waiting for.
Featuring Maddie Crowell: Insights and Influences
00:24:54
Speaker
You sat through the undercard, and now comes the headliner to this Atavistian Rock Festival. The Globed Rotten. Native Chicagoan. The notebook villain. Matty Crowell. Give it up.
00:25:13
Speaker
me a sense about what you're what you're reading these days whether that be you know books or you know novel non-fiction magazine column when you know whatever you know what are you uh what are you consuming right now yeah well i always have like a pile of magazines around me at all times and and then usually i have like a book at the same time and i sort of just switch off depending on you know what my mood is um
00:25:38
Speaker
But the magazines, I still read Harper's cover to cover, I still love Harper's. And a lot of just the sort of other magazines, the New York Review and the LRB and the New Yorker sometimes get read and sometimes they don't. But I just started this new, it's not new at all actually, I'm sort of late to the party, but this book by David Gran called Killers of the Flower Moon.
00:26:06
Speaker
Oh, it's amazing. That's amazing. Okay, you've read it. Yeah, so it's about this Osage, these Osage murders and sort of the birth of the FBI. I'm just in the beginning, so I don't know yet what happens, but it's really gripping and really, just really a fascinating story so far.
00:26:24
Speaker
And as a journalist who writes in long form narrative, as you're reading that book as a reporter, as a writer, what's the static crinkling around in your brain as you're in the synapse? What are your synapses doing as you're reading that so far?
00:26:44
Speaker
I have a lot of questions for David Gran actually about some sort of behind the scenes of how this got made because you know, a lot of this book takes place in the, is it the 1900s or the late 1800s? I can't remember. Early 1900s. Early 1900s. Yeah. Yeah. And I you just feel reading this book like you're right there. Like, you know, he had just reported this story. And so, you know, his ability to kind of recreate this, this like past
00:27:11
Speaker
or recreate based on, I don't know, archives, and I don't know exactly where he was able to get all of his information, but it really does feel like the story comes alive. And I think that is something that's really hard to pull off in nonfiction writing is to be able to make a nonfiction story feel
00:27:28
Speaker
like fiction. Excellent. And on your website, I read that you say you're most drawn to writing about people who, by choice or necessity, live on the fringes of society. So what's the kernel of that? What's the allure for you? I've had a hard time, to be completely honest, trying to figure out what the threat is in all the different stories that I write, because my process is sort of, I'll come up with an idea or I'll get interested in something.
00:27:58
Speaker
and then I'll jump into it. And I don't really sort of connect the dots on like what I'm, you know, what sort of theme I'm following until later. And so this was something I sort of actually sat down with a friend and she helped me workshop my quote unquote beat. And we came up with this together. And I think, I don't know, I mean, I've always been interested in people who are doing strange or interesting things or have, you know, strange or interesting ideas or,
00:28:28
Speaker
ideologies or ways of looking at the world that are different or you know you could say on the fringes and I'm also equally interested in people who have been sort of pushed out
00:28:42
Speaker
People who you could say have you know populations that have been like not very visible that have not been given the sort of resources or been sort of recognized by the Whatever you want to say the forces that be the powers that be in a society and so yeah, I'm just interested in looking at sort of places you know where that is happening and looking at sort of why that that came about like why is it that why is it that we you know in the broadest sense why is it that we
00:29:12
Speaker
create hierarchies within societies? Why is it that some people, you know, just don't get an equal voice in a society? Why is it that, you know, why do we sort of create groups and create other, the other? And so yeah, so I've just sort of, I think that is sort of the thing I'm interested in following. I know it's very abstract, but I think it's sort of a theme in a lot of pieces that I write. Where do you think that comes from?
00:29:38
Speaker
I don't know that's that's actually a really hard question and because I think for me a lot of like the how I come to journalism is sort of intuitive in a way like I feel sometimes like I just sort of follow a story or follow a sense but yeah I would have to think about that more to be honest I don't exactly know where it's coming from
00:29:58
Speaker
Sure. And I'm always kind of interested in how people get into this vocation. And maybe you can just express how you know why you were drawn to journalism and this kind of storytelling. I started out in journalism sort of by accident. I was really interested in philosophy, actually. And I thought it was going to be like a philosophy or an academic or at least pursue philosophy as a PhD.
00:30:25
Speaker
Then I did this abroad program in college in Morocco, sort of right at the wake of the Arab Spring. It was a journalism in Arabic program. And that was really the first time that I fell in love with journalism. I started working on this story about
00:30:45
Speaker
the wake of the Arab Spring, I started looking at why, looking at what had gone wrong in Morocco, I think you could say, and one trying to understand why the Arab Spring had failed there in a lot of senses. So I was interviewing the leaders. There was a small cohort who, ironically, had also been philosophy students, a lot of them. But I was interviewing the leaders of the Arab Spring in Morocco.
00:31:12
Speaker
And in that process, I ended up getting like, followed myself by the Moroccan Secret Service and sort of got a tiny little dose of sort of what they were going through. And, you know, it was just the sort of first time that I felt like I was seeing a powerful regime like, you know, the Moroccan kingdom and an inner circle could sort of take down these revolutionaries. And so,
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah, I just completely fell in love with the process of being able to kind of ask a question. And even if it was an abstract question for me, like, you know, why had this failed? And then to be able to sort of chase it down and at least get some concrete answers. And so I started there and then really also fell in love at the same time with foreign corresponding. I think that that experience has kind of opened my eyes to
00:32:04
Speaker
to being able to report abroad and then moved to Ghana the following summer where I worked for a local newspaper and then moved to India after college for about a year, first working at a local Indian magazine there called The Caravan and then freelancing and moving around. And so I sort of got into journalism mainly through traveling and through living in different countries and getting a taste of like foreign corresponding.
00:32:34
Speaker
And when you're preparing for a reporting trip or an interview with someone, I think there are a lot of times maybe two schools of thought. A lot of people might do a lot of research ahead of time. And then some other people might be like, you know what? I'm going to do just a little bit so I know a little bit. And then I'm just going to ask the questions and let the questions sort of lead me down whatever road and then just kind of be a little more
00:32:58
Speaker
improvisational as the conversation unfolds. So what's your approach when you're interviewing someone, when you're looking to start pulling on that string? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think it, for me, completely depends on the story. In some cases, I do a lot of preparation, especially if I'm interviewing a government official or someone who you have to have talking points and you get a set amount of time. I often will prepare questions ahead of time.
00:33:28
Speaker
But my favorite kind of interviews are the ones that you just sort of leave the recorder on and you just let the conversation become natural. Because I think that's where you pick up the most interesting stuff, details that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise or side stories or tangents. The best thing is when they go on tangents, because you just, those tangents find a way back into the story, I think, often. But yeah, for me, it's just very much a mix. It really just depends on the nature of the story and the amount of time I have with the subject.
00:33:57
Speaker
Throughout the course of whatever reporting I've ever done, I've always struggled with the recorder. And maybe it's because I have this romanticized idea of some of the old guard reporters that I used to admire, like the John McPhee's of the world, and everyone who totally eschew voice recorders of any kind. They just go to the notebook. And I just love notebooks and pencils. And I love that. But I also know the value of the recorder being this big troll, a trolling net.
00:34:27
Speaker
that just captures everything. And then you can be judicious about what you use, knowing that you have everything. So when you're reporting, what is your toolkit, so to speak, but also your relationship to the voice recorder when you're interviewing and reporting? I very much would love to not to have to use the recorder. I wish my memory was good enough. I wish that I could just record things without it because I agree that I think it can
00:34:56
Speaker
Often once you're the person you're trying to interview sees the recorder even when you try to be discreet about it I do feel like
00:35:03
Speaker
walls will come up or people are a little bit more careful or I don't know, just a little bit more hesitant. I've tried things like sometimes, I mean, I always ask permission before I record, but sometimes I'll wear like kind of silly, but I wear like a big oversized shirt that has this big pocket in the front. And sometimes I'll stick the recorder like in the pocket facing up. And especially when we're like walking or trying to do an activity together, I just let it like,
00:35:31
Speaker
record and and just try to make the subject just forget that it's there because yeah I think that the worst kind of interviews are the ones where you're just where the subject is very stiff and you're very stiff and there's this recorder out and they're like very aware of it and so yeah I try to make it more discreet but it doesn't always work
00:35:52
Speaker
I know and I wish like you can be scribbling along like crazy and invariably you're going to lose stuff because you can't read your penmanship or the gaps that you are going to naturally miss. You're going to fill in with however Maddie Crowell talks to like kind of spackle in the quote if you're looking to quote and so it's never 100% accurate and I think if you're a real stickler for accuracy,
00:36:21
Speaker
of which it's so important to be accurate these days. It's almost like the recorder is, even though it's got a battery and it can die on you and it's an extra layer of technology, it's just, it really, I've come around to it that I need to just suck it up and say, it's fine, you need this. It's for the betterment of the story and also just accuracy. It depends, do you want truth or do you want accuracy? Oh my God, run with that.
00:36:51
Speaker
Now I can't remember the name of the book, but there was, I thought there was a Broadway play about this. Daniel Radcliffe played this young fact checker from some big magazine and he was fact checking this writer and the writer was being really difficult because the writer was like,
00:37:07
Speaker
Yes, what you're suggesting is factually accurate, but what I'm writing is truthful. It was a lifespan of a fact. Yes, thank you. Yeah, that's that's what it was called. Yeah. So that's yeah. I understand both sides. I've worked for a fact as a fact checker for many years, too. So I I can appreciate the sort of like meticulous, fastidious, both being a writer and being a fact checker. I, you know, I'm always grateful for the fact checking process.
Maddie Crowell's Atavist Story: From Prison to Pandemic
00:37:36
Speaker
Well, speaking of the writing and reporting, this great piece that you wrote for Atavist, it was a really gripping read for me. And I'm someone who, when I read, reading of any kind tends to put me to sleep no matter what. It's always a stretch, like a stretch.
00:37:55
Speaker
come on, Brendan, stay awake. But I read your piece, I was able to read your piece and it didn't put me to sleep at all. And I was just so engrossed by the thing. And so that's a testament to what you were able to pull off with the piece. So maybe you can just tell us how you arrived at this piece and what the story's about. This story started actually about a year ago when the pandemic first
00:38:23
Speaker
hit back in March, which feels now like a lifetime ago, but sort of right around the time that the world felt like it was kind of screeching to a halt. I found myself kind of interested in this question of what it would be like for somebody who had been locked up and especially someone who had been locked up for a long time to come out into this world, like to go sort of from one lockdown to another. And I was in Chicago at the time for a couple of months and
00:38:52
Speaker
So I reached out to some organizations there. There's a very robust sort of circle of criminal justice organizations. And there was this group, Restored Justice, who put me in touch with Adolfo. The first time that I talked to Adolfo, I think he had just, he had come out like maybe one week earlier. So I called him, I think it was late March or early April when I first called him. And I started talking to him and this, I don't know, I just sort of quickly realized that there was just a lot more to
00:39:23
Speaker
his story that I felt I wanted to get into. And more than, of course, the story I had started out thinking that I was going to write. And here's somebody who grew up with very limited resources and very limited set of choices and arguably with very little freedom in a way and had been locked up for 30 years and is coming back into this world, not just a world under lockdown, but he's also coming back to the very neighborhood that you could argue
00:39:52
Speaker
put him or sent him to prison in the first place or led to his ending up in prison. And so I think that like his story for me was sort of this interesting look at this question of like, you know, has anything changed in 30 years? And, you know, I think Adolfo would say in his neighborhood at least
00:40:12
Speaker
dancers know and so why is that? And so I just found myself sort of kind of having one question lead to another and just also just finding myself really just fascinated and compelled to tell his story and feeling like there was just a lot to say there.
00:40:34
Speaker
You know what this piece kind of reminded me of? It was Alex Kotlowis's There Are No Children Here. Yes. There was echoes of that in this. Was that kind of on your mind when you were kind of composing this reporting on this and then writing it? Very much, yes. I would say that was like the single
00:40:52
Speaker
biggest influence for this piece and just all of Kotlowitz's work I think just really brings like this very human angle to these much bigger issues that I think often get abstracted and talked about in sort of like macro sort of level conversations that
00:41:12
Speaker
that I think are good and important and productive, but also sort of neglect to show the sort of human side to the story. So yeah, Kotlowitz, I'm a big fan of his work.
00:41:24
Speaker
And there are no children here. I read before I was writing this and yeah, I sort of, I really admired his style and maybe I stole a few things from him. Well, I think a testament to your skill in this story was you just, you lay it out there. You're not heavy-handed with
00:41:43
Speaker
you know, being overly with that with being like preachy or this is what's wrong. You just say you just lay out his story. And and like, was that like a really important sort of a linchpin for you on which to tell the story like I'm not going to preach to the choir. I'm just going to tell this story and you be the judge. That's exactly how I wanted it to read. And I'm glad that it read that way to you. That was very intentional. I didn't want to get to
00:42:13
Speaker
I definitely didn't want to be preachy. I definitely wanted it to be neutral. And I also intentionally didn't write this in the first person. Like I really wanted it to kind of be a Dolpho story. And he really sort of, I felt almost like I was a messenger in a way. Like I was sort of, the way that I would write this would be like, just, you know, we spent a lot of time talking on the phone and we met up a few times in person.
00:42:41
Speaker
I spent like a week with him, but mainly it just kind of goes over things like again and again. And he was very, very patient with me, especially for like, you know, I was asking lots of annoying questions like, and what did you have for breakfast that morning? And what did you, you know, wear that day? And do you remember how you felt after this thing happened? And yeah, we got into a rhythm where, you know, I would just call him or there was a time where I was calling him almost every day.
00:43:11
Speaker
and he was just really patient and helpful and I think eager to tell me his story and to get his story out there.
00:43:20
Speaker
I love hearing reporters talk about this, like about getting those granular details that to the subject are like, why the hell do you want to know this? And but for us, like the the way, you know, I don't know the way the drawstrings on a on a hoodie are like, it's like a small detail that might just be like, okay, this person might be
00:43:43
Speaker
without even realizing it a little off balance because that thing's not even like those little details are just so evocative they mean a lot to us as writers and reporters but to them they're like why the hell do you want to know this yeah he he uh he was confused at first but i just tried to explain to him look like i'm trying to
00:44:03
Speaker
I'm trying to recreate this and can you help me? And he caught on immediately and he was great. Yeah, he's just like a very dynamic, self-aware, intelligent person. And so it was actually, it was actually a lot of fun to talk to. And I learned a lot talking to him myself. And he always surprised me. Like he always just had something, he would just add something that I didn't even consider or think through really. I think he just, he really brought this story to life
00:44:34
Speaker
And speaking of details, one section I highlighted is, you know, when he's released from prison, he's out and you say, you know, Adolfo picked out three different, is that a convenience store? You know, he picked out three different kinds of Gatorade, a score bar, and a Snickers. And it's just like the specificity of that. It's just, it's so charged with detail and the reporting that you have to get to.
00:45:02
Speaker
It's one of those things that really puts us there. It wasn't just a candy bar, it was a score and a Snickers. I love that. Yeah, that was something that he... Yeah, that was the whole scene that we went through in great detail together. He remembered everything too, so that was helpful for me.
00:45:22
Speaker
Of course, and why wouldn't he? It was the first time being out of the system. It's just like he would think the world is turning from black and white into color again. I can see the score, but I can almost picture what it must have been like to be holding all of that stuff in his hand and then putting it on the counter.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I wish that was a scene I really wished I had been there for in person.
Podcast Format and Personal Recommendations
00:45:52
Speaker
I missed it by like a few weeks, but yeah, he was helpful in creating it. Yeah.
00:46:02
Speaker
Excellent. Well, these Adivis podcasts are a little bit shorter than I typically do when I have people on. So somewhere down the road, I'd love to have you on for maybe a longer conversation. But as we bring this airliner down, I've been really getting into asking people on the show
00:46:21
Speaker
to offer a recommendation of some kind, you know, and that can be anything from a coffee cup to a kind of coffee or tea or to a pair of socks. I don't care what it is. So maybe you can share with the listeners just a recommendation that is exciting Matty Kral these days. Sure, although I don't know how exciting this will be because it was actually something that my activist editor recommended to me because we were on the phone
00:46:50
Speaker
talking about this piece and I was really frustrated at one point and feeling like stuck. And he told me about this book that John Steinbeck kept while he was writing East of Eden called Journal of a Novel. That's great. And yeah, and I ordered it and I've been reading it, or I finished reading it and it's just fascinating. I found myself more interested in reading that than in reading East of Eden because here's this writer
00:47:20
Speaker
You just see the sort of the daily struggle and there are days where he writes, you know, had a great day, wrote like wrote a full chapter and then there are days where, you know, he can't get anything done or he has to scrap the day's work. And it's just really reassuring to know that, you know, John Steinbeck still struggled. So I would recommend that to anyone who's interested in writing or trying to write or anyone who even just likes to
00:47:46
Speaker
or anyone who likes East of Eden, which I still haven't read. And that said, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about being frustrated in writing this piece and trying to crack the code of it. So in moments of writing this piece, what were those moments of frustration and how were you able to kind of crack the code and get through to the other side?
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure if I ever fully did. I think that for me, the hardest part about this piece has always been the ending because it feels a lot like Adolfo's story is not over. It feels like there isn't really an end yet. There's still a lot
00:48:35
Speaker
he wants to do and there's just a lot that could still happen and and so I was I really was struggling like how do you wrap up a piece that how do you wrap up a piece to make it feel conclusive to the reader but also ambiguous like how do you end on this note of like you know a lot still could happen and things are okay but maybe they're not okay but
00:48:57
Speaker
they're okay. You know, I really sort of, I really struggled with that. And I think when you struggle with the ending, you struggle with the whole structure of the piece because the ending is just so important and like bringing the piece together. And so yeah, I would say that that has been the thing that Jonah and I often were talking about was how do you kind of wrap it up? And, you know, by ending, I mean, both the last scene and
00:49:25
Speaker
the second half of the piece of him coming out into the world again. I think both have been problematic and difficult. When I've talked to people about endings, to me it's very important just personally to have the ending in mind as soon as you can in the process because it ends up being a lighthouse in the distance and then it's like, okay, now I know where I'm going.
00:49:53
Speaker
And sometimes that ending, you come to it very early in the process, like, oh, I know where I'm going. I have a true north. Sometimes it takes a little while, but the sooner you can get there, it's like, okay, now every word feels like it's in service of that destination. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think sometimes it's luck. Sometimes I'm reporting on a story and I see the ending immediately in a scene or in something someone says.
00:50:22
Speaker
And then you just get really lucky and sometimes that doesn't happen. And you're just sort of like swimming blindly trying to find a way to bring things to a close.
Personal Reflections and Podcast Conclusion
00:50:35
Speaker
Oh, fantastic. Well, Maddie, this was great to talk to you. This piece was incredible. I really commend you on a job well done. I loved it. And I think a lot of readers are going to dig it too. So thanks so much for carving out the time and coming on the show to talk shop and talk about this piece.
00:50:50
Speaker
Thank you and thanks for having me.
00:51:07
Speaker
The show is a production of Exit 3 Media LLC, proudly a media company of one, where we make podcasts and solve your every writing, audio, and editing need. We turn the screws, baby, tighten things up, tell them, tell some good story. We're here to help. By we, I mean me. Glad you're here. Glad you stuck around. How are you doing? How's the essay? How's that essay you're working on? How's the book? Taking that leap? That's fun.
00:51:37
Speaker
How's the research? Getting far? Making progress? I'm in a funk of all funks where some people fill that hole with drugs and booze or retail. I tend to fill it with booze, but this time I've been decluttering to fill the emptiness inside.
00:51:54
Speaker
I'm burning it all to the ground, man. I can't take it anymore. DVDs, CDs, Blu-rays, collectibles. Like this big Breaking Bad collectible thing I have. It's in the barrel and the thing. It's got an unopened Pollo Sermonos.
00:52:12
Speaker
Apron in there. Yeah, I got one of those I got it for Christmas a few years ago or something or maybe it was my birthday Who knows and I've been hanging on to it for why I? guilt Anyway t-shirts, it's all going I'm on day five of a 30-day declutter thing day one you get rid of one thing day two two Whatever, you know three day three so on
00:52:35
Speaker
By the end of the month, I will hopefully have purged 465 items if I did my math right. Less I have, the more I gain, you know? On this beaten path I reign, right? Rover. Wanderer. Nomad. Vagabond. I don't know. Call me what you will.
00:52:56
Speaker
I look around us and I feel so trapped by these things. We've always wanted, we being my wife and I and producer Hank here, we've always wanted to live in a tiny home and right now we live in this 1100 square foot mansion and it's a cool little place with a little yard with an apple tree that I like to read under if the weather's right and certainly drink tall boys under rain or shine. I'm grateful for all I have and really am and this impossible privilege of this life that I lead.
00:53:25
Speaker
I often go through the day and think, you don't deserve all this bullshit. Why do you get to have a roof and food and clothes and a podcast? You're not special. You're just an average 40-year-old dude squandering his life and career when there are other people who would die for what you have. And here you are, stressed out about whatever bullshit comes up in that day, starting the day with whatever sense of dread is weighing you down, and now you're like purging your stuff like you're some asshole.
00:53:55
Speaker
You have no focus and you wonder why you can't accomplish a single goddamn goal that you set for yourself before the weight of the world to crush your spirit sometime in your mid to late twenties. Anybody else feel this way? I don't know. I don't see any hands. At this point you probably left and I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't. This week I would not blame you. Well for those who are still listening, sorry I get like this. My producer here is
00:54:24
Speaker
giving me the throat throat slash signal so i guess that's i guess i gotta i gotta button this up so like i used to say back in the day if you can do interviews
00:55:12
Speaker
you