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Episode 345: Sarah Souli
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Sarah Souli is a freelance journalist whose piece "A Matter of Honor" was this month's Atavist Magazine feature.
Social: @CNFPod
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Show notes/newsletter: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Shout-out to Athletic Brewing and Listener Perks
00:00:00
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ACNFers, shout out to Athletic Brewing. That dry January time is fast approaching. And you might want to give it a go. I don't know. It's up to you. Delicious stuff. I'm a brand ambassador. I get new money. They're not officially a sponsor of the show. I just want to get the word out there. Go to athleticbrewing.com. Use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout. You'll get a nice little discount.
00:00:25
Speaker
Also, I haven't done this in a while, but I'm happy to bring it back into the fray, since I have a teensy bit more time on my hands. If you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, I will give you a complimentary edit of a piece of your writing up to 2,000 words. Once your review posts, usually within 24 hours, send me a screenshot of your review to Creative Nonfiction Podcast at gmail.com, and I'll reach out
00:00:50
Speaker
to you, and we'll get started. Who knows, if you like the experience, you might even want to do something more ambitious with me. I'd love to help you get where you want to
Introduction to the Creative Nonfiction Podcast
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go. ACN efforts, it's CNF pond, the creative nonfiction podcast, the show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Meara. How's it going?
00:01:12
Speaker
It's that Atavistian time of the month, so you know, spoiler alerts. I'd encourage you to subscribe to this podcast, of course, but maybe head over to magazine.atavist.com and fork over 25 clams for a year's subscription. No, I don't get kickbacks, so you know it's worth it.
00:01:30
Speaker
like nothing sexy about writing, right? You're just like hunched over a computer, drinking lukewarm coffee, trying to like Jedi mind trick yourself into getting over your neuroses to put some words on the page. That's Sarah Suley.
00:01:52
Speaker
Her peace, a matter of honor, is this month's peace. And here's the deck of the story.
Sarah Suley's Investigative Piece on Afghan Women's Murder
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Speaker
Why were three Afghan women murdered at the edge of Europe? A journey from
00:02:06
Speaker
Mazari Sharifa to Istanbul to Athens in search of answers. Sarah is a writer after my heart, panic sweats, puffy-eyed at the computer, squeezing words out of the rock that is our brains. I know you'll dig this one. We talk about her ambitious piece. Being assertive, wrangling the reporting, and managing the lulls between when she started this piece three and a half years ago to wrapping up just a few weeks ago.
00:02:36
Speaker
Sure, in that three and a half years, it wasn't like an everyday thing. So there was a lot of hurry up and wait. Hurry up, report fast, and then wait.
00:02:47
Speaker
Lots of good things to unpack, to fully immerse yourself in this out of his story. All right, little housekeeping first. Show notes to this episode and a billion others at BrendanTheMayer.com. There you may also sign up to my up to 11 Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter, put a lot of effort into a kick-ass newsletter that entertains, I like to think, gives you value, I like to think, and invites you to a monthly 40-minute happy hour, which is just my way of
00:03:15
Speaker
taking it to the algorithm, like right up the algorithm's keister. If that's your thing, go ahead and sign up. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. And also, there's a hat going round. You might want to consider going to patreon.com slash cnfpod. Helps keep the lights on at cnfpodhq. Show is free, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. Deeply grateful to the 20 patrons, but I'd love to build the community even more so we can get the show in front of more CNF-ers.
00:03:45
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so we can all feel a little less shitty in the end. And we all just want to feel less shitty.
Complexities of Sarah's Crime Story
00:03:51
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Okay, before we get to Sarah, I speak with Sayward Darby, editor-in-chief of The Atavist, author of Sisters in Hate, and dog photographer to the stars about the editor side of the table of this month's piece written by Sarah Sully. Are you ready? I think you're ready by this point. Let's do it. Riff.
00:04:23
Speaker
with this story. What struck you about it when it came across your desk? It's a devastatingly sad story, but I think too that we've heard, we've read, heard, seen so many stories about migrants in the Mediterranean struggling to get to Europe, being treated really terribly at European borders. And what was striking about this is that it sort of defied some of the stereotypes. It was a murder investigation and it's about these
00:04:53
Speaker
these three women who struggled to make it where they wanted to make it. And then someone literally slit their throats. So the question immediately becomes like who, but also why. And because of where it happened, like the geopolitical complexity, right? Like they were barely over the border into Europe and they had come from Turkey. Turkey and Greece do not get along on any number of fronts.
00:05:19
Speaker
And so it was just this true crime story tied up with all of these international forces, which were made
Years of Reporting Amid Geopolitical Tensions
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even more complex as Sarah reported the story because Afghanistan, where these women were from, obviously fell to the Taliban again in 2021.
00:05:38
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really struck by how it was a crime story inside of, I think we describe it in the story as, you know, a needle in a geopolitical haystack. Trying to solve a crime, which under pretty much any circumstances, you know, is gonna be a challenge, but then add to it the fact of where it happened, who it happened to, when it happened, and it just becomes this, just a very, very unique story, unlike anything I had ever read.
00:06:05
Speaker
And when you're receiving pitches and for stories, be it like this one or something else, how much legwork and how much pre-reporting or actual reporting do you like to see before you're like, oh yeah, let's pursue this kind of a story?
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in this case, Sarah had, if I recall correctly, she had a good contact at the Greek police, namely the woman who had spearheaded the investigation for a time. And she also had a grant support. And so she had found support to really do this reporting, not in a short timeframe, over a long timeframe. And so to be clear,
00:06:51
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compensated her like we do any other writer, but we also knew she had these additional resources if she needed them. And so I think the combination of
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who she had access to and the trust they clearly had in her. And then also the resources that she had mustered, obviously combined with what we found interesting about the story itself, made sense to us. I think it's important in this case, because we run a decent number of crime stories. And I think that Sarah and I, like one thing we talked about extensively over the years, because she's been working on this for so long,
00:07:27
Speaker
it was highly unlikely she was ever going to slam dunk solve this triple murder. And so one thing we talked about the whole time was, what is the combination of access, resources, and your dedication? What can we show with that? What can the narrative be here? And so I should say going into it, it wasn't in other cases
00:07:54
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a crime beyond belief, which obviously you've talked to a writer about a girl in the picture, you know, cases in which, you know, crimes have been solved. This was something very different. And I think that, you know, Sarah's sort of first person work was one of the things that we knew was going to set this apart from the beginning.
00:08:15
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Yeah, then you then you get a story like, you know, Patrick Radden Keith say nothing where he kind of like accidentally solves the murder. He just like late in the process to have him just kind of going through his notes. He's just like, oh, my God, I think this might have happened. And then all of a sudden, there's lawyers involved from like Ireland, England and America. It's like, oh, my God. It's like,
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, Say Nothing is such a fantastic book. And, you know, one of the best structured nonfiction books I've ever read in Patrick Renton Keefe is tremendous. Just so talented. And I think we all wish we could be Patrick Renton Keefe. But I but I also think, you know, that's such an interesting
00:08:58
Speaker
you know, that was such a high profile, you know, writing about the troubles, you know, well-known figures, people for whom, you know, there were a lot of like records and, you know, people who could speak to them and or speak of them. And in some ways, like, Sarah's story is almost like a through the looking glass, maybe that's the wrong metaphor, but
00:09:23
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We'll just run with it through the Looking Glass version of this, where it's like this terrible thing has happened to people who no one really cares about. Obviously, their loved ones do. But the people whose job it is to actually figure out what happened to them don't much care. And so again, it's that needle in a haystack kind of thing, which the odds were very much against her. They were obviously against Patrick as well.
00:09:51
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you know, solving a long ago crime. But I think there's something very poignant about almost kind of trying to do the same thing with people, with subjects, I should say, who otherwise no one would ever know about.
00:10:10
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no one would ever know their names. And I think, you know, the really beautiful part of this story, too, is, you know, we read so many crime stories about, you know, a person in the mid- and we've published these stories, you know, someone in the Midwest who's murdered and, you know, who did it.
00:10:27
Speaker
why and how terrible and that person was a mother, that person was a father, whatever it may be. And what's different about this is purely context. These are people with loved ones, with lives, with hopes, with dreams, aspirations, all of these things. And nobody's ever going to, with the exception in this case of Sarah, turn their attention to that story in the way they would
00:10:52
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you know, I don't know, a mom in Missouri or whatever. And I think there's something really like courageous poignant. I mean, you could use any number of words about Sarah saying, I want to do the same kind of reporting one would do in a story we're more used to hearing.
00:11:09
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And to be clear, those stories are incredibly worthy. Again, we've published many of them. But I think despite some of the rougher edges of a story like this, I think there's something just really beautiful about saying, I want to try. I want to try to tackle this. And I mean, man, she had an incredible break. Again, I don't want to give anything away. But her pounding the pavement, talking to random people,
Editorial Challenges and Narrative Integrity
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you know, hoping to find a lead. It seems like she's never gonna get one. It seems like she's never gonna get one. And then she does, and it's a big one, you know? And it's a really impressive thing. And, you know, that alone is, I think, worth documenting.
00:11:49
Speaker
And when you're editing a piece, any piece, what are some common, let's say, potholes that you're driving along and you hit and you're like, oh, we need to figure out a way to kind of patch that up. What are some of those that come across when you're reading?
00:12:06
Speaker
Um, I mean, it's kind of hard to generalize, I guess, because every piece has different kinds of potholes. You know, I think in this case, there were any number of challenges. Um, I mean, Sarah, you know, started reporting this in, oh my God.
00:12:23
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2019 I want to say maybe even a little earlier the women were killed in 2018 you know but she really started following the story soon after that and you know just think about all of the events that happened in the world since then she wanted to go to Afghanistan to talk to these women's families and
00:12:40
Speaker
or to their family, it's a mother of two daughters and couldn't because of the pandemic. And then, you know, even at a point where it was like, maybe you can travel because vaccines, you know, Afghanistan essentially becomes a war zone. I mean, it's always been a war zone, but, you know, obviously the Taliban is back in power. And so, you know, in this case, it was kind of dealing with
00:13:01
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potholes, to use your word, that it wasn't as though Sarah hadn't done her job. It wasn't as though there was some loose end that we just hadn't tugged. It was like, oh, the world is burning.
00:13:16
Speaker
How are we going to figure out how to keep telling this story? And I think it's very, very unique in that way. I mean, I will say this is kind of a diversion, but you know, I think, or digression, not diversion, sorry, digression is the word, I need coffee, Brendan. The digression is that I'm, you know, it's been really interesting since the beginning of 2020, watching the ways in which
00:13:39
Speaker
COVID has affected so many of our stories. From the standpoint, not only of, you know, where can you go, what can you report, which was certainly, you know, especially the case for the first year or so, but, you know, how it's literally shaped narratives, you know, subjects who've gotten COVID. Court, you know, rulings that have happened, you know, later than expected because of COVID. I mean, you know, last year we ran invisible
00:14:06
Speaker
kid by Maddie Kroll, which went on to do incredibly well and was a finalist for a national magazine award. And it's about this guy getting out of prison where he thought he was going to spend his life the day that his city goes into lockdown. And I think that in this case, it's
00:14:21
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We meet these women's, members of this, these women's family on WhatsApp because, you know, doing a WhatsApp video was everything Sarah could do at that point to be able to communicate with people in a place that she had hoped to travel to.
00:14:37
Speaker
So yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't necessarily, it's really, again, really hard to generalize about potholes because I feel like, you know, every story has different ones. Absolutely no story is perfect. And, you know, part of a job as an editor is to, yes, patch over, but actually I think it's more about going around and pointing to them. I'm a big fan of saying, you know, hey, in the story, let's not act like this isn't a problem. Like, let's acknowledge that it's a problem.
00:15:06
Speaker
Um, because I think it's more honest. Um, I think, you know, having a really, really polished story that like conveniently ignores some of the
00:15:14
Speaker
know, obstacles or pitfalls or whatever that, you know, a writer dealt with. I mean, awesome. I'm so glad it reads nice, but I don't know. I don't necessarily trust stories like that. And I think in this case, you know, Sarah did a really nice job of using that first person to, you know, express frustration and anxiety about some of the obstacles she encountered
00:15:38
Speaker
along the way. And not every story requires that. But just generally speaking, you know, to me, it's about seeing the pothole and not falling into it, not it not about, you know, kind of, well, how can we hop over this as though it's not there or, you know, put something in its place to act as though it's not there? It's more about sort of acknowledging the reality of the situation.
00:16:03
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, as always, it's a pleasure to get to pick your brain about your side of the table on these stories. And we're going to kick it over to Sarah in just a moment. So say a word as always, a pleasure. And thanks for making the time. Always, always happy to do this. Thanks so much, Brendan.
00:16:25
Speaker
Alright, it is almost time to feature Sarah Suley, but here's a little more about her. She's a freelance journalist currently based in Athens, Greece after several years in Tunis. She writes about politics, people, and places often in combination.
Sarah's Background and Writing Realities
00:16:42
Speaker
She was previously a staff writer for Colors magazine in Treviso.
00:16:46
Speaker
Though it doesn't seem like it, she does occasionally travel outside the Mediterranean. She's also the author of Moon Guides, Athens and the Greek Islands, came out April 2020. Athens and the Greek Islands. She would know a thing or two about them. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in political science. Smart. She works in French and English and can order sandwiches and four more languages with varying success. That's wicked, smart kid.
00:17:15
Speaker
Alright, enough of my bumbling, rumbling, rambling, here's Sarah Sully, hoo!
00:17:30
Speaker
And that's a good life philosophy, right? Like, sometimes you just have to show up. That's all that it takes. Oh, 100%. And I think that they're really just dovetails wonderfully into talking about writing, because I think we largely they...
00:17:46
Speaker
especially in the United States, we kind of value precocity and the genius of youth and we don't really value the long haul and perseverance as much as we like because it's not as sexy. So I think it's just really wonderful to hear you say that, that sometimes it's like being patient and enduring and just getting incrementally better over time is really what's going to sustain you over the long time, not like a flash in the pan.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, well, there's also just like nothing sexy about writing, right? You're just like hunched over a computer drinking lukewarm coffee trying to like Jedi mind trick yourself into getting over your neuroses to put some words on the page. I feel like that's the great fallacy also in the US that we like tried to make it this whole seductive thing, but it's not. I mean, it's very individualistic and it's a very weird practice also, I guess.
00:18:46
Speaker
Anytime I see ads on like instagram for like you know be a professional writer something is always it's usually like a woman in a cabin overlooking a lake and just like it looks so romantic and everything like.
00:19:02
Speaker
This is just so not the image of what it really is of just like getting up and just puffy-eyed shit everywhere on your desk. And it's just like there's no panic in someone's face. I need to see panic in someone's face to believe. That's true. I want the residue of a panic attack, you know, like that sweat, the suffering on their face, the bills for therapy. Yeah, all of that is missing.
00:19:28
Speaker
Exactly. And not that like, you know, and not that writing is torture, but it certainly is difficult, especially when you get into the kind of reporting that you're doing. Like it is, you know, it is not fun to write about, you know, a triple murder, you know, on the border between, you know, wherever, you know,
00:19:48
Speaker
Where was the buzz between Turkey and Greece or free? Yeah. Yeah. So the region is called Evros and that's the region between Greece and Turkey.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, so it's just like to that to that point when you know you're going to be like cranking on a story of this nature. It's not like you know, you're it's not like you're you are swollen with joy when something like that happens. You're like, ah, this is I got to crank this out. I got to do justice to this story. It's not romantic, but it but it is the work.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess for me, I felt a little differently. Like this was one of the rare instances where the writing felt like the easiest part of the whole process just because the reporting was
00:20:37
Speaker
I was so out of my depths at so many moments in the reporting and really felt like I was taking on roles and responsibilities that I had never had to before, like even when doing other vaguely investigative work. This was like deep infiltration, not just into people's personal lives, but also sort of
00:21:02
Speaker
following a trail that the police had covered up to a certain point and then realizing that there was a lot to explore beyond what the police had done and just sort of venturing out on my own. In a lot of ways, I had no business doing any of that. Like I'm not a trained investigator or a police officer, nothing like this. And so in the reporting of the story, I found myself in situations where often I was just like, what am I doing? I should be behind a desk.
00:21:30
Speaker
That's what I should be doing writing like where am I what am I doing? So I would say the writing part was actually a bit easier during For this particular story and in this whole process Yeah, how did you navigate? As you say like the the reporting part that was like as you say like out of your depth like how did you process that and try to find some degree of comfort in in it because it was what you had to do and
00:21:56
Speaker
I guess the first thing is journalism, especially when you take a piece of this size or a reportage of this depth and breadth, it's never like an individual thing. It's always so much more collaborative.
00:22:11
Speaker
And I would not have been able to do what I did without the support from my Afghan colleagues. So I worked with a couple because this was a project that I did over three and a half years. And at various points, I worked with a couple of different people, most of whom have asked to remain anonymous, just given sort of the nature of the reporting.
00:22:30
Speaker
that we did, and sort of the precariousness of the political situation in Afghanistan right now. But there's no way that I could have done what I did without the people that I worked with, in particular, Huayga, who is credited on the piece. She's an amazing Afghan journalist from Kabul, who's now actually studying in California. And she's brilliant. I mean, I couldn't travel to Afghanistan because it was COVID. And I remember I had
00:23:00
Speaker
It was March 2020, and we all remember that time, right? And I had decided like, okay, now's the time to go to Afghanistan. And I remember I went to go meet my grant manager.
00:23:15
Speaker
And we were talking and he was like, yeah, this COVID thing, like probably just a few weeks it'll blow over and like you can go to Afghanistan in April. And that obviously did not turn out at the time also. I think Afghanistan had one of the worst cases of COVID in the world. And so at some point I realized, okay, the situation is not gonna get better. There's no way I can travel. I need to really rethink how I'm going to report this from Afghanistan.
00:23:44
Speaker
And so I worked with a journalist that had been recommended to Mihuega by a couple of different colleagues. And she traveled to Mazari Sharif, which is where Fahima and her daughters are from. And we were basically just on a WhatsApp video call for like 12 hours a day for 10 days. And, you know, I could never have done that without her or when I was in
00:24:08
Speaker
Turkey, for example, in Istanbul, I think that there were various moments where we're meeting with smugglers or we're meeting with Said who sort of becomes like the central character in this story, where I was just surrounded by people who are much more perceptive and smarter than me and could tell me like, okay, Sarah, this is a sort of uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation. We shouldn't do this or we can do this. And that was really how I was able to navigate it.
00:24:38
Speaker
And there are moments too in the reporting where you inject yourself into the piece. And one moment in particular that I found particularly just sort of brave and even harrowing was when you confront Said with the pictures of the three slain family members, the mother and the two daughters.
00:25:03
Speaker
And you just run up with the picture in front, and I was just like, I'm like, holy shit, this is truly almost like a carnal moment. And I was just like, where did that come from where you, as someone for me who doesn't have much of a backbone, I'm like, holy shit, she's really going after it here.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, one thing I realized, I mean, I had a lot of people over the years, like my family members or people who were close to me be like, aren't you scared?
Confrontation with a Murder Suspect
00:25:39
Speaker
Like you should be more scared. This is dangerous, all of this. And again, I never
00:25:44
Speaker
put myself because of the people that I worked with. I was never in situations that were extremely, extremely dangerous. And one thing that I realized in Turkey that really broke my heart, actually, even if I'm talking to someone who's a human trafficker or potentially a murderer,
00:26:03
Speaker
They're much more scared of you than you are of them. There are a couple of layers to that. One of them is that Turkey doesn't recognize Afghans as legal refugees, so everyone's situation is quite precarious. And there's just a lot of mistrust when it comes to journalists in general. So I never personally felt like I was in danger. But again, I was with Tabshir, who's a
00:26:27
Speaker
amazing, like one of the best journalists I've ever worked with. And I felt quite safe being with him as a man. I think if I was alone as a woman, I probably wouldn't have done that. And the confrontation with Said, which actually in terms of writing was the most difficult for me to write, and I think with Sayward we edited it.
00:26:45
Speaker
several times. It's just really hard to write action in a way that doesn't feel cheesy. It was such an intense and cinematic moment because at that point, I'd been reporting for, I think this was last year, so it would have been two, two and a half years. And I was just pissed, honestly. Like I had all of this information.
00:27:07
Speaker
I had all of these leads and it was all pointing towards this one person. And so when I finally had a chance to meet him, I was just filled with anger. And also the shop was very well lit, so I didn't feel particularly dangerous. But at that point, I had just done so much
00:27:24
Speaker
So much reporting and felt really sure about this next step that I had to do in this person that I had to confront. But I think the other thing, I mean, you kind of have these out of body moments as well. I wouldn't consider myself like in general or particularly
00:27:42
Speaker
like brave individual, but I think you just have some moments in your life where it's like, it's not even you, like you're not even really there. Like something else is going on that puts you in that situation and you react in that sort of way. But it's interesting that you bring it up because I mean, in terms of the writing of the story, this was something with say word that we went back and forth with from the beginning. This is the first time that I've really injected myself into a piece and it made me
00:28:12
Speaker
deeply uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. I mean, I think as journalists, we're sort of trained to never put yourself in the story. And so when I was asked, or it became clear at some point that it's going to be necessary to do this, to move the story forward, there was a lot of internal grappling that I had to do.
00:28:32
Speaker
Well, yeah, and it must have been all the more uncomfortable that the piece starts with, you know, basically a little first-person vignette with you where there's a bit of despair in terms of hitting a roadblock in terms of the information you're looking to find.
00:28:48
Speaker
And then you do through serendipity find someone who has seen these women and could tell you a whole bunch. So it's just like, that was just an example of, I think it was really effective to kind of set the stage of here you are in this moment of almost, I don't know, just not desperation, but you were just like dejected, I guess is the best way to say it. And then you get a lead and then it's like, okay, now we're off to the races.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that was actually, I have to give the credit to say word for that because when I sat down to write and I gave myself last September after I came back from Istanbul, like a three week period to just sit at home in Greece and to just write it all out. And I was like, okay, beginnings and ends are the hardest. So we're just gonna forget about that right now. And we're just gonna write the middle. So it was easy to write sort of what happened in Greece and the reporting in Afghanistan and a little bit what happened in Turkey as well.
00:29:46
Speaker
And I was talking with Sayward and I was like, I just, I have no idea where to start this story. She was like, well, you should start it in the ice cream shop.
00:29:58
Speaker
I was like, okay, well, isn't that like, you know, this is a murder investigation and we're starting in an ice cream shop. I don't know, is that like too superficial or the fact that I'm going to have to talk about myself is that somehow disrespectful to the main characters of this story, which are Fahima, Rabia and Farzana,
00:30:18
Speaker
and the women that I want to put first and forward in this story, not myself. I could understand at some point that that was going to be what was most helpful for the piece. So I swallowed a bit my pride and just sort of wrote it in that way. And it's funny because ahead of this call, I went back and I read like the very first drafts that I wrote to see how much they have changed
00:30:42
Speaker
over time and sort of this final editing process. And we definitely refined it quite a lot. So what you read, like today, I guess the piece is coming out, is very different from what was originally written. Thank God.
00:30:58
Speaker
I love hearing it's almost like you know there's like a flowchart where you ask yourself a certain question like you know it could be like the first person flowchart like you know it's you are asking a series of questions and be like do I belong essentially do I belong here okay but why do I still belong here okay maybe I do
00:31:17
Speaker
And then you go all the way down. Some people might come at it the wrong way. We're like, you know what? I'm going to be in it from the start. And that's where it might be a disservice to the story. But it sounds like you did a lot of thinking on that. Be like, OK, for the purposes of this story and to get people hooked and to get people to keep scrolling and turning the digital page, this is a device that I can use to effectively get people into the narrative so they can really learn about the story.
00:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was a bit more like that because, I mean, I remember the original conversations that I had with Sayward after, you know, she agreed to take on the story for the activist. And I, because she was saying a bit from the beginning, like, oh, it could be interesting, you know, to have
00:32:01
Speaker
you as part of the story and I remember I think like the first deck like the one of the first like edited edited decks that we had was like a journalist like I forget exactly the phrasing but somehow something about the journalist of the story like taking up the reins of the police and I just
Pitching to The Atavist and Gathering Information
00:32:19
Speaker
felt like
00:32:19
Speaker
you know, that wave of shame that goes across your body. And I was just like, no, no, it's too much. I think also because the nature of the story when it comes to talking about women, talking about refugees, talking about Afghanistan, like,
00:32:37
Speaker
These are not always topics that are sort of just held up on their own. They always seem to be filtered through something else. And I was really wary of trying as much as possible to not filter it through my own gaze, I guess. But of course,
00:32:58
Speaker
you know, like with say word over the course of talking through, you know, how we're going to write the story and organize the story and all of this, it became clear that I would have to inject myself just a little bit. And I hope that it's not, I hope that I found the right balance in all of this because yeah, it's not, obviously it's not about me.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think you do that brilliantly. And to back up a little bit, sometimes like kind of charting the journey of the piece itself. And that always starts with how you get access, how you find the story, and ultimately how you digest it into a pitch that would be acceptable to someone on the other side being say word in this case. So what was, how did you arrive at the story, and then what did the pitch look like?
00:33:50
Speaker
Like I said in the beginning, or as we were talking about this region of Evros between Greece and Turkey, so this has historically been a very common point of migration, actually so much so that until 2009, there were still landmines on the border. And that was actually like the most common, or one of the most common cause of death. I can hear my, Kyla, my fact checker's voice now in my head where I'm like, okay, everything has to be super correct as I'm talking.
00:34:20
Speaker
And so it's always been this important point of movement and of migration into Europe, but never really has gotten the same amount of press as the Mediterranean Sea, especially with what goes on in Greece, on the islands in Lesvos. And so when I first moved to Greece in
00:34:41
Speaker
2017, I heard about this region and I was like, oh, that's really fascinating and interesting. This is such a historically important point. And there aren't a lot of people reporting. So I started going up there and started doing a lot of reporting on pushbacks, which is an illegal practice that
00:34:59
Speaker
Again, I hear my fact checker's voice that the Greek government categorically denies doing, but there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A pushback is basically when someone comes into a country, they're legally allowed to ask for asylum, and then depending on their case, they can be turned back to their country if they're deemed to not fit the standards or the quotas of an asylum seeker. Instead, what happens on this border is that people are
00:35:28
Speaker
pushed back into Turkey without ever being processed. And this happens. It's been happening for years. It's very well documented. And so I started doing a lot of reporting on this. And I was going up to Evros pretty regularly from Athens.
00:35:44
Speaker
a few times a year. And so I had a lot of contacts up there. And I was up there in 2018. I think it was late October or early November 2018. And I'm talking with some of my sources in villages. They're like, well, didn't you hear about this murder?
00:36:00
Speaker
And I was like, what murder? Up until that point, I mean, there are a lot of people who die on this crossing, but it's often they die either from drowning in the river, because it's a river border that they cross, or they die from hypothermia. There are a lot of car accidents or people who walk along the train tracks, and then they get crushed by a train. But murder
00:36:22
Speaker
is not something that happens. Actually, it literally hadn't happened in that region in I think about 20 years. And so that really piqued my interest because it seemed like a huge deal. In Greece in general, there aren't necessarily a lot of homicides. There are an increasing amount of femicides, but still like it's a pretty small number compared to other countries. So usually every time that there's a murder, it kind of like makes the news and this hadn't. And so I started doing a little digging.
00:36:49
Speaker
And I went to go see Pavlos Barbidis, who's the forensic scientist who I've interviewed many times. And he kind of, you know, he had done the autopsy and he was like, yeah, well, we have these three women, but we don't really know much about them or really anything about them because
00:37:06
Speaker
one of the big problems with dead bodies that turn up in Evros is that people don't have their papers or they don't have any documentation and so it becomes impossible to ID them. So in the beginning it was just this extraordinary murder mystery and the the mystery in the first place was like well who are these three people they didn't even know where they were from and so that really interested me and I and I wanted to start you know digging into that and
00:37:33
Speaker
I remember I went and I pitched Say Word. So I should pause and say that like obviously for every journalist
The Role of Fixers in Journalism
00:37:40
Speaker
in the US who does like long form narrative work, like the dream is to work with Say Word and the dream is to be published in The Atavist. And so I wrote to her with this pitch that was really, I went back and I read and I was like, oh, Sarah.
00:37:58
Speaker
Like you have no information here. Like I was just like, there's this amazing story, but you know, we don't know anything who they are, what happened. And I kind of contextualize it with what I just said about what's going on in Evers and say word. I mean, what I really like about her amongst many things is that she gives really good feedback, even if it's negative. And she was like, well, you know, you don't, we don't know the who, the why, the where.
00:38:23
Speaker
There are all these really big missing questions, so we're going to have to pass because you don't really show us how you can make a dent in the story. I don't know what weird character flaw I have, but it was obviously a rejection and I didn't take it as a rejection. I was like, right, so I just have to make a dent.
00:38:44
Speaker
And then I'll come back and then she'll accept the story. So I basically spent like the next year trying to make a dent. And in the meantime, I also applied for a bunch of funding, got rejected from, I don't know how many grants until I got one grant from
00:39:01
Speaker
a foundation here in Greece called the Incubator for Media Education and Development, which is funded by the Stavros Niárros Foundation. And they gave me an extremely generous budget to be able to report on this story. And I went back to say a word
00:39:18
Speaker
At that point, the police had made some headway. They identified who the women were and where they came from, which was Afghanistan. And I was like, OK, I'm going to work this story backwards, like starting in Afghanistan, traveling to Turkey to how they ended up in Greece. There was a great character that I found as well who was the lead investigator on those on the
00:39:41
Speaker
investigation, Zakharuda Tsirigoti, who, I mean, is just like a total firecracker of a woman and was also the highest ranking female officer in the Hellenic police. So there were, you know, a couple of things that came together. And then a year, almost a year from when I got that initial rejection that I did not take as a rejection, they accepted the piece and then, you know, I started working on it, like much more seriously.
00:40:08
Speaker
And you've alluded to having this grant and the reporting of this piece taking something like three and a half years. So were you completely basically subsidized by this grant or were you doing some other things too so you could afford to work on this piece for so long?
00:40:29
Speaker
Oh, well, I mean, I, I should say this wasn't like, I wasn't working on it full time for three and a half years because then I think I would not be calling you from an apartment. I would, I would not have been able to pay my rent. Um, so I was working on this on and off for three and a half years. And there were moments where, you know, the reporting was much more intense. And then other times where there would just be like a huge low, obviously, of course, like COVID really had an impact on how I could do a lot of the reporting.
00:40:57
Speaker
But the IMED grant basically they subsidized all of the expenses. So I didn't get paid by them for the reporting. I got paid by the Atavist for the piece that I wrote. But they subsidized working with fixers, traveling, transportation costs, translation, everything, which was amazing. And really the biggest cost is working with fixers because of course, especially if you're working in a place like
00:41:24
Speaker
Afghanistan where it's more dangerous, people very rightfully so ask for a higher fee, and I was able to have everything very generously covered, and for two years, which was like really, I couldn't have actually done it without, or I could have done it and I would be bankrupt, I guess.
00:41:44
Speaker
I remember when I was talking to someone who works primarily in audio and she was somebody who works more behind the mic as a producer and it's a very big umbrella term what a producer does.
00:42:00
Speaker
because they can do everything from booking to editing to sometimes doing some reporting, blah, blah, blah. My point is, for people who might not be familiar with fixers, what does a fixer do? There might be translating, obviously, but what else is a fixer doing? I imagine it's a big blanket term of what they do and how they serve you in this case.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that's a really good question. And I think we could also spend a long time interrogating the word fixer because it's, I think within like the hierarchy of journalism, they're often kind of the lowest paid and sort of, you know, they don't really get a lot of credit. And especially when you're working in countries like in Turkey or like in Afghanistan, I mean,
00:42:55
Speaker
The people that I worked with first of all, I would say, well there were two of them who were already very established journalists like with their own. So way goes one of them and then tab she who gets a pseudonym in my piece. He's the other journalists that
00:43:10
Speaker
that really helped me so much. I mean, they do an impressive amount, so it depends. I mean, you can hire and work with a fixer who helps you on the ground, someone who just does translation. But for me, I really felt like I was working with a colleague, and I was really lucky in the case of
00:43:32
Speaker
both Tabshir and Huayga to be working with people who were really invested in the piece and really invested in the story and really invested in figuring out what happened to Fahima and her daughters and getting some justice for them.
00:43:47
Speaker
As you progress through your reporting, there's always this moment too where you kind of land someone who's like a really great interview or you're not even aware of just how great they're going to be, but like you leave that interview like really charged like, oh my God, like that was
00:44:05
Speaker
That was amazing. And I imagine, like, the times you were talking with that investigator, the firecracker you were talking about, like, once you had her, you were probably like, oh my god, this thing kind of, like a firework, kind of really, really expanded the piece and blew it up for you in the best possible way.
00:44:24
Speaker
Oh, for sure. I mean, I feel like everyone was a character, honestly, like everyone had such a big personality or I mean, even someone like Pavlos, who is a man, a few words, like even he, how he looks in his morgue, like the whole thing. I mean, he's such a character as well. Um, but Zacharula for sure. I mean, she's like my favorite kind of woman. I mean, she's just like a chain smoking tells it like it is like to the left.
00:44:54
Speaker
you know, just hardcore, passionate, romantic person. It was really moving to see her as well. How, how touched she is. I mean, this is something in general that I really love in Greece. People are really not afraid of the full spectrum of human emotion and are able to go really deep. So it was quite, you know, I've never had an interview with a police officer, even an ex police officer where
00:45:20
Speaker
you know, they start crying when they're describing a case and they're describing a situation. And I mean, she put so, she was so dedicated to this for so long. And I'm really appreciative of, you know, all of the time that she gave me and all of the personal information that she gave me. It was a huge help for the case. And I guess the other really big
00:45:45
Speaker
interview was also with Mohammed, you know, this family member of Said in the ice cream shop. That was just also such like, I mean, he himself how he looks, which I couldn't really describe in the piece, but he has such a look and the whole situation where we were the ice cream shop, the whole thing was so cinematic. And that definitely felt like, oh, shit, like, okay, this is this is a moment, this is something big that's about to happen and be revealed.
00:46:13
Speaker
a little while ago you were saying, you know, beginnings and endings are uniquely challenging. You know, you did a lot of the writing at first like doing the middle. And that's where a lot of times like a piece can sag, you know, because a lot of people put a lot of
00:46:30
Speaker
a lot of energy into the beginning and the end, and then the middle tends to slow down sometimes. But that's where you kind of put your energy. So I'd never heard anyone really speak about it like that, where you're like, you know what, I'm just gonna work in the guts of this thing. So just walk us through that and how you were, you know, you were just like, you know what, this is where I'm gonna start my work, or at least do the bulk of it before I bookend this in a crafty way.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, I guess I have my dad to think for this because he would always tell me when I was in middle school and high school and studying for tests and all of this, he would always just be like, just do the easiest thing first. When you read all the questions on the test and then just point out the ones that are the easiest and start with those because then you'll feel a bit confident and then you can move on to the hard ones as opposed to doing it just from page one or trying to go with the hardest ones.
00:47:28
Speaker
So because I had done already a lot of reporting and writing of that reporting on pushbacks and on the general situation in Evros, it was the easiest thing for me to start writing the portion in Greece. And so I was like, okay, well, obviously I'll start with that and then I'll get a little confident because I think when you report on something like this, it's very easy to
00:47:54
Speaker
get in your head, which I did many times and to be like, I'm never going to be able to write this. I'm never going to be able to do justice to this story. Like I should just, I don't know, become an accountant or something and like completely forget, forget about writing or journalism. And so I was like, okay, I'm, I don't need to make this any harder for myself than it already is. I'll just start with Greece, write that. And then once I started writing that,
00:48:20
Speaker
moved on to the reporting that I had done in Afghanistan with Hwega because that was also easy to start writing and then a bit later I started working the beginning and the ending which also like really started to come together in this last month.
00:48:37
Speaker
I was reading a craft essay on writing and it was by Francine Prose in a tin house anthology and she writes that writers are creatures who function best when we recall the writing process and tranquility. So for you in those moments of tranquility, and we kind of touched upon it at the very start of our conversation,
00:49:00
Speaker
You know, what is the writing process for you like when you're alone, by yourself, in the dark? In that moment of tranquility as you're trying to crack the code of a piece, especially one of this nature.
00:49:13
Speaker
I mean, honestly, I think it's like one of severe disassociation. I was trying because I knew there was going to be a question like this. And I was trying to recall like those three weeks because there was a real chunk of time where I like completely cleared my schedule and was like, I'm just going to sit down and write. I'm going to give myself these three weeks. And then, well, I don't have any other time after that. So I have to do it now.
00:49:39
Speaker
I think I kind of blacked out, honestly. Like I just sat, wrote it. I don't really remember a lot of like the process or the feelings that I had about it. But you know, it's a bit difficult for me to consider myself a writer. Like, I don't know, it's not
00:50:01
Speaker
when I think I have friends who are who are real what I would say in quotes like real writers who write novels that you know get written up in the New York Times and craft these whole worlds and write these beautiful sentences and come up with these extravagant characters and just have a real depth of imagination and I've always felt like
00:50:22
Speaker
what I'm most interested in in the journalism process is really just talking to people and hearing the story and sort of pulling the threads and putting together this puzzle. The writing is usually for me the afterthought. And so it's, yeah, I don't even know if I would consider myself to be a writer. I just kind of, I write because that is the medium through which
00:50:49
Speaker
It's easiest to tell these sorts of stories and because I don't, you have a very nice voice for radio. I don't have as nice of a voice for radio. So I write, but it's not, yeah, I don't know. It's a bit, it's a complicated relationship that I have also with this identity.
00:51:08
Speaker
And do you have, just in your experience, what has to be in place for you at your workstation so you can at least feel like you're the most ready to start writing or continue writing or kind of grease the skids and get some momentum going?
00:51:28
Speaker
I mean, it's awful. I'll just wake up. Really, I wake up, I will maybe like put on pants with like a zipper and a button, but usually I'll just like put on, I'll stay in pajamas or like be in workout clothes because I'll like try and trick myself into being like, you're going to work out later because that's good for writing. Well, I'll have my glass of tap water, a huge cup of coffee, and I will just drink coffee
00:51:55
Speaker
until like noon and not eat. And then I'll just write. It's really, as I'm saying it, I'm like, God, that's so unhealthy. But that's kind of how it goes. And I'll write, I have to start from the morning. I have to wake up and it has to be the first thing that I start doing. I'm not one of those people who can
00:52:14
Speaker
You know, I wish, especially because I live in Greece and it would be nice if I could, you know, be one of those people who, oh yeah, goes to the beach in the morning and swims first and then comes back and no, no, no, it's very utilitarian, very unromantic. I just get myself up, put myself on an extremely uncomfortable chair because I also still, after all these years of working from home, haven't gotten a desk chair and just start writing and that's it.
00:52:42
Speaker
That's great. I was going to ask you what percentage of your day is spent in sweatpants? I'm in them right now. So am I. At what point do you feel like, over the course of your reporting, that you feel like you have enough to start writing?
Coping with Reporting Stress
00:53:05
Speaker
I was so anxious about the writing process for this because just the reporting itself was so overwhelming and it was really start, stop, start, stop. And I just felt like there were so many moments where things could just go terribly wrong and sort of the whole thing would fall out from under me and I would get
00:53:32
Speaker
I think the sort of imposter syndrome that I know a lot of writers and journalists talk about on your podcast and I'm doing it now, but I just felt like someone at some point was just going to call my bluff and be like, you have no business doing any of this, but you're reporting on. And so I was so hesitant about starting to write until I had enough of the reporting done. And at one point it was just like, well,
00:53:59
Speaker
I mean, it's never going to end up in a perfect conclusion.
00:54:07
Speaker
that I think should be on trial or at least questioned by the police that looks like it's not really going to be happening. So you just have to sit down and start writing. And Sayward was good for this also to like be helpful and tell me like, okay, start now. And then the piece, so I wrote most of it in September, 2021. And then it just kind of lagged for a while because there was no real
00:54:33
Speaker
conclusion or ending, and I was like, if only I could just speak to Mirajuddin, who was Fahima's alleged boyfriend. If only I could just speak to him, but it, you know, and police at one point had actually a few months later, you know, had actually arrested him in the north, and then he like slipped out of police custody. And then in March 2022, I got a call from a source
00:55:02
Speaker
He's like, well, we have him, he's been arrested, so you can go interview him in prison. And that was the thing I was looking for, I think, to kind of tie the piece together because at no point otherwise did I have a clear idea of
00:55:19
Speaker
what happened from when Fahima and her daughters left Istanbul and crossed into Evros. And obviously as a reader, that's something that you really want to know and that's something that I wanted to give people as well. And also for these women, like what were their final moments like in their life? And so I organized, which in Greece, I guess I should say the other thing is like it's
00:55:42
Speaker
not very easy to work as a journalist here and it's only gotten harder in the last few years. I think now the country is ranked 108th when it comes to the Reporters Without Borders Freedom of Press Index Fund, which for the
00:55:59
Speaker
so-called birthplace of democracy is quite shameful. And also when it comes to, I mean, there's no FOIA, in Greece Freedom of Information Act, when you're trying to get any sort of public records, well, they're not public, they don't make them public. So if you're trying to get any sort of information, it's quite difficult. Same with organizing a prison interview. So it was like a whole couple of weeks of organizing everything and getting letters and all of this and
00:56:24
Speaker
It was a prison in the north of Greece in a town called Komotini. And I was actually the first journalist ever to go to this prison. And it was funny because, well, not funny, actually, it was sort of, well, it was dark comedy, I guess, like a lot of moments in reporting this piece where I fly from Athens. At the time, I wasn't even living in Athens. I was on an island.
00:56:47
Speaker
and I go just organize everything to do it just in one day because to find a Dari translator who could come from the Sanoniki, there were a lot of moving parts to organize because Minajuddin only speaks Dari, and I couldn't interview him otherwise, and to get clearance for the translator. So I'm on the airplane from Athens to Alexander Rupuli, which takes about an hour, and we fly all the way to Alexander Rupuli, and then
00:57:17
Speaker
The pilot says something in Greek, and I'm half asleep, so I don't really understand what he's saying. And then the plane just turns around. We're literally over at the Exandrupoli, like I look out the window and I can see it. The plane turns around and flies back to Athens, supposedly because of bad weather. And then it became a hole to reorganize everything to go for the next day, because it was a very specific time period that I was allowed to do the interview.
00:57:47
Speaker
But anyway, after I did all of that and I had that interview, then I was able to write that section, and then the piece really started to come together. A moment ago, you spoke about how the reporting was a bit overwhelming. And granted, you weren't working on this every day for three and a half years. So it was a lot of piecemeal reporting and then putting it all together.
00:58:14
Speaker
Over the course of the reporting, how did you work through that overwhelm, and then how did you keep everything organized and straight? So when it was game time, you were ready to hit the ground running with all the information you gathered.
00:58:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, I was terrified of the fact checking process from the beginning. So I had everything like as much as I could. I'm sure Kyla will be like, I could have done a better job, I think with with labeling some of my of my recordings, but I tried to be like, as fastidious as possible in gathering as much information. And also when I wrote the piece, like I had already
00:58:55
Speaker
like every sentence basically was footnoted for the fact checking process. And then in terms of managing, the question was about managing the stress of reporting or?
00:59:06
Speaker
I guess just the overwhelm of it, yeah, and the stress. And then making sure that you're capable of accessing the right information. Like, okay, I'm in this scene, I gotta find that information and that thing. So you don't get totally just blindsided and just overwhelmed with the glut of information you have.
00:59:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I will say, first of all, it was not easy to get a lot of information. So every interview felt like a very long, drawn out process. And so that was kind of helpful. And people in general were very generous with their time. It was interesting. Even in Turkey, when I was interviewing smugglers who obviously weren't going to tell me anything, they were still down to sit with me for two hours. And I could keep asking the same questions over and over again.
00:59:57
Speaker
But I guess on a person, I mean, I think there are two layers to this. It's like the professional one which, you know, how do you deal with all of this?
01:00:07
Speaker
varying sources of information and putting all these puzzle pieces together and I think it really is just patience and time and also talking through the reporting with your colleagues and trying to see like where the gaps are and putting things together and then on a personal level it's just therapy honestly because like I had never done any sort of reporting like this and I don't think it's
01:00:33
Speaker
normal also like to stick your fingers so deep into other people's lives and to be interviewing people who you suspect of murder. I mean it's a very strange feeling all of this and I didn't really have the emotional tools to be able to deal with that so I got help from someone who could help me find those for myself.
01:00:58
Speaker
Given the sensitive nature of the story and how emotionally taxing it was and is, what kind of reporting or stories were you drawn to before this? Was this one really something that tested you in a way that you hadn't tested yourself before?
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think I've I've had been doing a lot of stories on migration and refugee rights in Greece. So, you know, I've heard a lot of very difficult stories over the years that like really break your heart and a lot of interviews that I've done in refugee camps, or even situations of like, you know, I've been
01:01:48
Speaker
on the border in Evros when like a family has crossed and I've held a woman in my arms like just after she's crossed. So you live like these very intense moments with people. So I had some kind of understanding of like the larger context around what it means to leave your home for honestly, for whatever reason you choose to leave it. Like that to me doesn't seem to be the important thing. But there were definitely
01:02:18
Speaker
moments. I think one of the hardest things for me to do was when I was doing the reporting with Hwega and she was in Mazari Sharif and I'm here in my flat in Athens and I'm video calling with Hadila who's the older sister of Fahima and Hadila didn't know that her sister and her two nieces had been murdered. She thought that they had just drowned and
01:02:47
Speaker
You know, I have to be the one because that's the whole reason that I'm talking to her is to see what kind of information she could possibly have that the police didn't get. I had to be the one to sort of tell her what had actually happened. And that's not a situation that I've really ever been in before.
01:03:07
Speaker
And also a couple of times with Abdul, the husband of Fahima, that was really trying as well, because obviously he's a single father, so his children come with him wherever he goes. And when we did our interviews, he hadn't told his children that their mother and sisters were dead. Not even that they were murdered, of course, that's like overwhelming information for children, but that they just
01:03:36
Speaker
that they weren't alive anymore. And there were a lot of moments in the reporting where I just felt horrible about what I was doing and thinking like, is this really worth it? Like the story that I'm trying to tell, like there are so many broken and heartbroken people within just these three lives. And who am I to like come in and try and figure out what happened?
01:04:04
Speaker
I hear what you're saying too, and sometimes it can feel like, especially of a story that is so heavy of this nature, that it's also like, you almost feel mildly, if not sometimes more than mildly, exploitative of their story, it's so sensitive, it's just like, well,
01:04:22
Speaker
You know, what right do I have to kind of come in as this third party to come in, tell your story for, I don't know, for my career and stuff of that nature. And it's like, you know, I can tell it comes from a good place for you. But sometimes I feel like if I'm ever doing a story of this nature, and I've done one, not quite like that, but very sensitive.
01:04:45
Speaker
And it was, I just felt sometimes, in some ways, icky. I'm like, should I be even doing this? This doesn't feel right. I don't know if you wrestle with that at all. Of course. And I mean, I think there's room for all of those feelings together, right? Like, yeah, sure. It came from a good place. But like, does that really matter? I don't know. Like, it's also...
01:05:08
Speaker
There are other layers to this as well, and some people might see it differently. But I was always hyper aware, I think the whole time, of what I was doing. And there's a lot in the piece that I don't include because it's just not necessary to the reporting or to how I tell the story. But I think this is something that
01:05:32
Speaker
a lot of journalists grapple with. I mean, this is inherently like an exploitative business that we're in. I mean, the number of times that I've had interviews, not for this piece, but just in general with refugees and migrants. I mean, I remember interviewing one guy from
01:05:49
Speaker
Afghanistan who had been pushed back like 15 times and we're talking and he's just like well What are you gonna do for me? Like what does it matter if I tell you my story? I've been telling journalists my story and nothing has happened like my life He was so desperate that he was telling me like I'm just gonna commit suicide because I don't see any other option with how my life is supposed to go and like that's very that's very real and I think
01:06:17
Speaker
I don't know. There are a couple of layers here like how much responsibility we have as individual journalists, oftentimes like overworked and underpaid, in an exploitative, capitalistic business that really thrives on these sorts of stories and how much responsibility is with the industry itself. But
01:06:41
Speaker
With this particular story, the thing that I just kept coming back to, because I was thinking of it in the context of femicides in Greece, which unfortunately in the last few years have been on the rise, but every time that there has been a femicide, when
01:06:56
Speaker
Whether it's a Greek woman or a foreign woman, it's gotten rightfully so a lot of attention and a lot of press. And there's been a level of justice for the victim, whether that's her story being told or the case being brought to justice and a criminal or in a legal sense. And it really pissed me off that there were three women. It was a mother and her two daughters, a 17-year-old and a 13-year-old who
01:07:24
Speaker
weren't given that same opportunity largely from where I was standing felt like because they're brown, because they're refugees, because they're from Afghanistan, which is a country that, despite the fact that it's been in war for nearly two decades, like Afghans are not treated as refugees in the same way that people, for example, from Syria or Ukraine are. And it was really,
01:07:52
Speaker
frustrating for me to see that lack of attention on a story that really just deserves much more attention. Does finishing a piece of this nature, does it leave you more energized or drained in the end?
01:08:11
Speaker
You know, I've been working on this for so long and it feels so strange now to put it out in the world. On Sunday, I got like the layout for the piece with all the illustrations and it was the first time in reporting it that I cried to see the faces of these, I mean, I keep saying women, but it's really like a mother and her two girls.
01:08:36
Speaker
uh and to see their faces in front of me and the illustrator did such an amazing job like i was looking into their eyes and i was just like this is i don't know it's it's it's
01:08:51
Speaker
I'm so happy in a lot of ways that they're finally getting their story told and that there is some sort of modicum of justice that comes at the end of the piece. I don't think I've really processed yet. And I'm sort of, I think like most freelancers, just constantly working. So I have like quite a slate of assignments for the next few months. But it has made me,
01:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, rethink sort of what kind of stories I want to tell in the future and how I want to tell those stories as well, in what format, in what medium, sort of where do I see my place. You asked a very specific question, I gave a very roundabout answer, but I think I just kind of feel everything at once.
01:09:38
Speaker
And another kind of writer type question too, and it sounds like you can speak to this just based on what we've been talking about is like there's always those moments in a draft or a piece or even in the research and the reporting of a piece where you just
01:09:54
Speaker
You just hit a wall and you have that doubt and you start doubting yourself. But when it comes to the writing and you know you've got the information and you're starting to doubt yourself and you get that imposter syndrome that you alluded to, how have you, over the years, written through it? Because you know you just got to finish. How do you write through that doubt?
01:10:18
Speaker
I don't think you can write
Overcoming Self-doubt in Writing
01:10:20
Speaker
through it. I think you have to go and visit the little monkey doubt. I really see it in my head, my inner critic, as a monkey with two huge symbols. It's just crashing his symbols together. This is going to sound a little kooky, but you have to go and visit that little place in your mind and just
01:10:44
Speaker
give it a little attention, but not let it sort of take over the process. And that's maybe easier said than done. But there were just moments where I was like, okay, monkey, like,
01:10:58
Speaker
You don't need to be here right now. You can come at the end of the day and doubt everything that you've written or at the end of the editing process, but right now I need you to go back in your box for a while. That sounds a little insane when I put it like that. I love it. I think that's how I managed it.
01:11:21
Speaker
Well, Sarah, what I always love doing to bring these conversations down for a landing is asking the guests for a recommendation for the listeners of some kind. That can be just anything you're excited about. So I'd extend that to you. What would you recommend for the listeners out there that you're excited about?
01:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'll give two, if that's OK. Because I think the first is, whenever I read a very intense piece that's very sad and depressing, I'm just kind of like, well, OK, great. Like, what do I do now? So I'd like to encourage your listeners, if they feel so moved by Fahima's story and Rabi and Farzana's story,
01:12:06
Speaker
you know Afghanistan is in a extreme like political and human rights and humanitarian catastrophe at the moment so I got some recommendations from some Afghan friends told me that the best charity to donate to that's doing really good work
01:12:23
Speaker
with Afghans both in Afghanistan and Afghan refugees outside of the country is the International Rescue Committee, the IRC. So if you feel so moved to give a donation. And then I guess the other thing, because the piece starts with an epigraph from Kapka Kasabova, who's this amazing Bulgarian author and really was kind of an inspiration also for me to start visiting Evros in the first place.
01:12:51
Speaker
I would recommend her book, Border. That's Border by Kapka Kasabova. It's really fantastic and just a very illuminating look into this small corner of the world. Yeah, and that epigraph, it reads, just by being there, the border is an invitation. Come on, it whispers. Step across this line if you dare.
01:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, it felt like a very, I mean, when I read it the first time and when I started writing the piece, I think that was actually one of the first things that I put on the paper as sort of like my talisman to have it there. Well, fantastic. Well, this piece was an incredible feat of writing and reporting and it was a pleasure to get to speak to you and unpack it a bit and how you go about the work, Sarah. So thanks so much for the work and thanks for carving out the time to talk about it.
01:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, thank you, Brendan, for your curiosity. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me and actually all the other journalists and writers that you're talking to. It's really interesting what you do. All right. Thank you to Sarah, Sayward, and you, the listener. Couldn't do it without you, CNFers.
01:14:04
Speaker
My Spotify wrapped for the podcast was great. 76% growth on the platform, pretty crazy. I'll probably share some of those images in Instagram because that's your devotion to this little podcast that could. I'd like to show you the results of your attention. Valuable as that is. Biggest thing I did this week, I re-rearranged my studio back to its original footprint. I felt too crammed in the corner of the new layout.
01:14:34
Speaker
I like this idea of having my bookcase behind me in the event that I'd be interviewed on screen. Real cool, I know. But I like where I'm at better. A little more elbow room. Sometimes you get back together with the one you left.
01:14:50
Speaker
I'm sorry baby, I can change. No news on the book proposal and my reporting stalled somewhat. It's more or less a me problem. It's like inertia. In this case, repartorial inertia. Making a call feels like putting 315 pounds on the bar to squat. And I can't squat that shit right now. Maybe by the end of 2023, if all goes to plan. Point being, objects not in motion like to not stay in motion.
01:15:19
Speaker
But I made contact with a source I've been trying to reach since May. Spoke for an hour. He gave me three other crucial phone numbers, so there's a little momentum. Now I'm eager to keep making those calls, like Jeff Perlman said a few episodes back. Call, call, call, call, call.
01:15:38
Speaker
This wasn't a super illuminating conversation. It was very good, but some are better than others, but it's a great first step. I find my first conversations with people sometimes aren't that great because they're kind of feeling each other out. They're definitely feeling me out to make sure I'm not some sort of
01:15:57
Speaker
vampire. We kind of circle the top of the drain and each ensuing interview gets tighter and tighter, narrower and narrower, until we get to the gold. In any case, point is, setting the bar low, making that one call, and getting something out of it
01:16:13
Speaker
That starts to spin the flywheel. Soon you're wanting to get to what's next and who's next and what will come of it. Then the anxiety starts to abate because you're filling the well with all this information. I wake at one in the morning, just about every morning in a relative panic about being able to deliver. And with each of these calls, I'm like, okay, this is new ground. I'm building the mosaic.
01:16:40
Speaker
But it's hard to see the forest for the trees when you haven't bothered planting anything and you're like, shit.
01:16:48
Speaker
I don't even have a forest to get lost in. I need to build a forest, to plant a forest, to sequester this anxiety. And that happens one call at a time. Feeling good. For the first time in a long time, I'm feeling kind of good. All right, that's it. Stay wild, seeing efforts. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.
01:17:32
Speaker
you