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Episode 445: For Andrew Dubbins, It’s About the Love of the Story
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For Andrew Dubbins, stories of this nature are resource intensive, so he’s always seeking the story engine, what drives the narrative forward. In this case, it’s a cops-and-robbers story with sibling discord at the center.
It’s that Atavisitan time of the month and we have Andrew Dubbins, a journalist based out of L.A. who tells the tale about the After Dark Bandit: The Police couldn't’ figure out how the perpetrator ripped off two banks at the same time. Until they discovered there wasn't just one robber but a pair of them: identical twin brothers.
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Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
ah Hey, right at the top of the show, want to thank and welcome Chris Mills and Adam Russ to the Patreon gang. Pretty great. You can join for free or you can be like Chris and Adam and throw in a few bucks to support this enterprise and, depending on your tier, get face to face time with me to talk some things out. I know some things. Patreon dot.com slash CNFpod.
00:00:25
Speaker
Oh, and I guess I can say
Book Pre-order Announcement
00:00:27
Speaker
this now. The Front Runner, The Life of Steve Pre-Fallentaine, is available for pre-order. And look at that book cover. My gosh, that is some and gorgeous, gorgeous design. I've gotten some nice notes from people who beat that link like it owed them money.
00:00:43
Speaker
You can visit the booksell of your choice. Powell's Bookshop.org, HarperCollins, Barnes & Noble. Yes, even Amazon. Plunk down $32.99 or multiply it times two or three. Everything helps. Every author you know is always begging for pre-orders. It's just part of the game. And you only have so many dollars at your disposal, so I'll just say this.
00:01:07
Speaker
consider it. Hell, if you order five or more, email the receipt to me and I'll be sure to do a private like book club thing for you and your crew.
00:01:17
Speaker
And lastly, promotional support for this podcast brought to you by the 2025 Power of Narrative Conference. Happy New Year, by the way. Celebrating its 26th year on the last weekend of March, being the 28th and the 29th, 300 to 400 journalists from around the world.
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Speaker
We'll descend on Boston, Massachusetts. Talk journalism in long form and all the good stuff. Keynote speakers are Susan Orlean-Connie.
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Speaker
Keynote speakers are Susan Arlene, Connie Schultz, and Dan Zeck. They'll deliver the knowledge, man. Listeners to this podcast can get 15% off your enrollment fee by using the code CNF15.
Podcast Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:02:04
Speaker
To learn more, go to combeyond.bu.edu and use that CNF15 code.
00:02:20
Speaker
to be a trust will take. But you know, it was a machete brandished. I almost always had a very specific reader in mind. I know. I sometimes wish I would have never done any of these things. This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:02:39
Speaker
Oh, hey there, CNN efforts. It's a creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. I'm Brendan O'Mara, the riff master.
Story of Twin Bank Robbers
00:02:49
Speaker
With that atavistian time of the month in, we have Andrew Dubbins, a journalist based out of LA, who tells a tale about the after dark bandit. The police couldn't figure out how the perpetrator ripped off two banks at the same time until they discovered it there wasn't just one robber, but a pair of them, identical twin brothers.
00:03:11
Speaker
Tell me you don't want to read that. For Andrew, stories of this nature are resource intensive, so he's always seeking the story engine, what drives the narrative forward. In this case, it's kind of a cops and robbers thing with a sibling discord at the center. Now with these edivistian interviews, we usually hear from the editor of the story. In this case, it's Jonah Ogles, but Jonah's audio came through so poorly that I couldn't use it, had to nix it.
00:03:40
Speaker
So ah we hear from Jonah and Sayward so much that I might just send them their own microphones. Just ah just to zhush things up. Also, if you're a writer, like 99% of you are, invest in a good microphone. You can easily get up a good one.
00:03:58
Speaker
Like a really good one for like under a hundred bucks. ah You might not be hosting a podcast, but odds are you'll appear on a few. Add it to your gear list, take good care of it, and it'll last forever. Show notes to this episode and more at brendanamerra.com. Hey, there you can sign up for the monthly rage against the algorithm newsletter. ah You can read blog posts, like each episode's parting shot. It's kind of a new deal, but it kind of makes it a weekly blog post thing along with ah that week's show. I dig it.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's my little internet garden, all right? Andrew is the author of Into Enemy Waters, the story of World War II frogmen who became the Navy SEALs. He was journalist of the year by the l LA Press Club in 2020, and his work has appeared in Men's Health, Slate, The LA Times, Smithsonian, Alta, and The Daily Beast.
Journalism Career and Storytelling Approach
00:04:48
Speaker
In this conversation, we talk about like that story engine.
00:04:51
Speaker
how he bankrolls certain gigs out of pocket and how he makes that happen and how his passion for good stories drives him and his work. Great stuff. You can learn more about Andrew at andrewdubbins.com. D-U-B-B-I-N-S.
00:05:07
Speaker
He's not really on social media, good for him. So check out his website, andrewdubbins.com, read his work, and most notably, read his latest for the Atavist. That's at magazine.atavist.com, and consider subscribing. It's a pretty cheap subscription for 12 blockbuster stories a year. I don't get any kickbacks or commissions. so I'm wicked good at business. Parting shot about something that watching the movie sideways recently made me think of. So here's Andrew.
00:05:44
Speaker
ask like So as you as you go to go to Georgetown, you're there and you had a political bent, but how did you walk into journalism and specifically this kind of long-form journalism that ah that we're very drawn to? It was just through reading it. you know i I didn't really love covering politics. like I just got a taste of it with internships and and couldn't really geek out on you know what ah the political maneuverings and I have more of an entertainment sensibility and there's this kind of niche of journalism now, which is laying out stories and three acts structure and kind of with an eye for film and TV. And, and I just love that. And I, I read a lot of them and yeah, that's kind of how I pivot it in.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, when I was talking to Jonah yesterday about your piece, what what struck for for the outav was what struck me about it was I immediately thought of Vince Gilligan in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and how there's at the heart of a lot of his work is a brother ah relationship.
Backstory of the Twin Robbers
00:06:52
Speaker
and And it got me thinking, like, your your piece for the Addams. I was like, wow, this I feel like Gilligan could lock into something like this. Yeah, I mean, I love that about it, too, that it's such a family story, especially, you know, their father had been an influence. He was a bank robber and.
00:07:11
Speaker
started, you know, in, in Australia and Melbourne with a failed bank robbery and got him and outcast to New Zealand was on the run and breaking into post offices and chiseling open the the post office safes and boys came along and, you know, got to know their father's trade. And um for Doug, he said it was a great adventure. And you'd always volunteer to go along. Peter found it more disruptive, you know, that it was taking them out of school. And, but they really both admire their dad, especially as a carpenter to train them both in carpentry. And I liked that about it, that they were both learning the criminal trade from their father, but also the carpentry. And it
00:08:01
Speaker
They were always on the run from the police. So it was ah it brought them close together. And Doug kept calling it this gang of four. We were a gang of four, a close family. And then one by one, you know the game their father died, which was a huge loss for Doug. And he continues to speak really emotionally about losing his dad. He keeps his ashes.
00:08:24
Speaker
under the seat of his Land Rover that we were driving around in showed me. And so then the mom remarried. So he felt like that was a loss in the gang of four. And then finally, the climactic betrayal by his brother. And he said, I really never trusted people after that. It's really a family story at the heart of it. And one of the many things I loved about it So backing up a little bit, how did you come across this story and and lock into it and get the access you needed to to the core brothers, Peter and Doug?
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah, so I stumbled on a newspaper article, it's called the after dark bandit steps into the light of giving. And it was about Doug Morgan's charity work mostly since leaving prison, he's mentored young people to keep them out of jail at risk youth, he's volunteered for the Salvation Army in the wake of the big bushfires and in southern Australia.
00:09:21
Speaker
And about halfway down in the story it says, and he was one half of the after guard bandit, the infamous identical twin bandits of the 1970s. And then I was hooked and just started reading about these these twin bandits and really nothing in the US on them, but had had a lot of coverage in Australia. So, and it was kind of fun reading the newspapers because it unfolds like a mystery because The media didn't know that it was and it was ah two guys, that it was twins. So they were saying, how is this guy getting from point A to point B so quickly? He must be driving a fast car. and And they're grappling with why. And one robbery is kind of chatty. And then in the next, he's really aggressive. and they
00:10:09
Speaker
they Didn't know and then the great twist as I'm reading these old newspapers. Oh my god. There wasn't one there was two and So it really had me hooked. I love the family aspect. It's you know stranger than fiction is kind of a ah Genre I like to pretending to be the same person's just you can't even make that up and it also had this great outdoor adventure aspect to it, you know robbing these rural banks and escaping into the bush on motorbikes and bicycles. and ah They used a canoe on one job, Peter did a homemade canoe. um So I was hoping in this story to get to capture some of the beauty of Australia.
00:10:52
Speaker
And then as I got to know them, they're such interesting characters. I mean, sometimes they'll have a source who just answers, yes, no, that is far from Doug and Peter. They were they would tell these long tales, and I just had so much rich material. As for reaching them, it it was it was tricky, but um they were both really gracious. And once I went over there, and that's kind of what it took,
00:11:21
Speaker
um They appreciated, you know, they put my money where my mouth is and flew all that way and got to spend, you know, about a week with
Interviewing Techniques and Challenges
00:11:29
Speaker
them. and Now, because they have such a fractious relationship and are by and large is strange, how did you navigate talking to each one of them and playing information you're getting from one with the other just to round out this story?
00:11:48
Speaker
um I interviewed them separately. Yeah, they don't they don't really communicate anymore. ah The second part of what you mentioned was a little tough in that, and part of it is because this all happened so long ago, that their tellings of the same stories were could be a little bit different. So it was finding what they agreed on, but sometimes I'd get a great anecdote from one and The other one would say, no, that's not how it went. And a couple of times in the story, you'll notice I ah indicate that you know Doug's memories of this were different. but you know a lot And a lot of this stuff was backed up in police reports and court records and newspapers. you know That, that was I'd say, was one of the challenges is getting
00:12:36
Speaker
two different sides of the story. And I know as ah as a reporter and interviewing people and you're trying to get a lot of detail, especially detail that might be ah sensitive or just going down roads that people sometimes don't want to go down and you're always kind of drumming the same beat, like trying to get more detail, more detail.
00:12:54
Speaker
Like how did you, if you experienced this at all, like when someone might be getting impatient with you as you're trying to get information, like how did you ah how do how do you navigate that and maybe if you experience it with this story, how did you yeah just roll with with ah the conversations you were having?
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, that happens a lot, especially these older stories where people are just like, why is this interesting to you? this long ago I remember Doug saying like, don't you have any cool gangsters in the in the US you can write about? Like, why come all this way? and know But then also, you know, they're 70 years old, ah they're they want to talk about their lives. And it's always an advantage, like,
00:13:34
Speaker
You wouldn't think that you know people want the raw story that nobody else has, but I actually prefer when they have done media interviews because they've thought about this stuff and um thought more deeply about it. They're not retelling it for the first time. so I find that usually if a ah source is willing to talk, they're going to they're going to talk and they're going to give you the story. and and and Again, they appreciated that I came all that way, so they wanted to be helpful and I don't think they minded about all my um my detailed questions. Well, and circling back to that, you know the fact that you flew all the way from LA to Australia to meet face-to-face, ah maybe you can just speak to, especially in this more detached ah digital age of reporting where a lot of people are are texting or email, Zoom, and ah there isn't much by way of face-to-face encounters in journalism these days, it seems.
00:14:34
Speaker
yeah maybe you can speak to just the import of making that effort going door to door and in this case flying over the ocean to see them face to face. Yeah, well, I got so much more on that trip than I would have even just doing Zoom with them because it shows them that I'm serious and I care about telling their story well and, and you know, sensitivity. It's also fun. I mean, it was ah it was an adventure and and these guys were but you know it's You can do the touristy Australian, and but I never would have gotten to these little towns and seen Warburton and Heathcote and met these guys. I mean, Doug, when I first met him, he had a box of his dad's favorite cookies, they call them biscuits, and he had an itinerary for my whole week. This is what I want to show you and his robbery sites and Ned Kelly had grown up in the area and um you know a bar that his dad liked. and
00:15:33
Speaker
places that were important to his dad. And it was neat. He wanted, you know, to, to make use of my time there and driving around in his old Land Rover. And he said, you know, I don't trust a yank to drive on the wrong side of the road. and And then, you know, it's just so just getting to know this guy a little and see his paintings. He was an amazing painter.
00:15:58
Speaker
painting these really moody portraits of Ned Kelly and the Australian Bush, and talked a lot about painting. My sister and dad both you know paint for fun. and yeah yeah I couldn't put a lot of that in the story, but he learned in prison. He said one of the heavies spotted my talent. A guy planted a car bomb in Melbourne.
00:16:20
Speaker
um And you know so he had this little painting community in Pentridge, which is like the Alcatraz ah of Australia, a really high security prison. And he said he said, have you heard of the Heidelberg School? He said, no. He showed me these pictures of beautiful Australian impressionism. So none of which was in the story, but are all neat travel and memory experiences for me. And then he you know we talked a lot about his charity work. he he
00:16:51
Speaker
um had volunteered in the wake of this big bushfire and I remember him telling me a story. but was I had an ah and early draft, but he said I was just greeting people as they were coming in who'd lost everything at the Salvation Army. He said, I remember this old woman coming in and asking for a dinner set. He said, so I'm going around helping her pick out the gravy boat and trying to match all the plates. And he said, and I finally lay it all out in front of her, and geez she just starts weeping.
00:17:23
Speaker
And he said said, I never really knew why she was weeping, whether it was my helpfulness or whether she just lost everything and couldn't replace it. Then he connected it back to the bank robbing, he said.
00:17:34
Speaker
I'd always just been counting heads coming in and out of the bank, but I really started to see people as people and, um, to sympathize with their loss. And it's just, you wouldn't get any of that. You got to be driving around and seeing the bird trees. And it was necessary for this story to go over and spend time with them. And Peter to meeting him in Mirnda.
00:17:58
Speaker
And Peter's thing was really about setting the record straight, because the story has been told you know in newspapers, and and there's been various tellings. And he was constantly correcting my you know preconceptions, one of which was the way they got into robbing. you know as As I had kind of imagined it, they they built a pair of house frames. The guy didn't pay him on time, and Peter wanted money for Easter. And he kept correcting me, and he said, No, it wasn't really about the money. It was about the fact that this guy had such control over my livelihood that he could hold up these two checks. And Peter was more about taking back the power, which is subtle. I mean, I would have written it as, yeah, he needed cash for Easter, but he kept he kept correcting me. No, it was more about
00:18:49
Speaker
just having power over my own life and my family. And um he also had some health issues we talked about as he was a kid. So he was worried that you know he wasn't going to live long and carpe diem go out and get the money. So just little nuances that you get in person that that you wouldn't otherwise.
00:19:10
Speaker
Oh yeah, and he also mentioned, or you're right, how adrenaline what it just is was a powerful drug too. So there was that component of just addicted to the heist itself.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the adrenaline of planning it, these bush escapes, and then getting away with it, I think was a big thing for Peter, like that victory over the police and just craving that. um But yeah, both talked about adrenaline in the bush. It was pretty wild, they said.
00:19:41
Speaker
you know you come back bloodied and you know running in because they'd be escaping at night with no flashlights because that's a dev giveaway when the police are setting up roadblocks they'd see the lights they'd say you just bang into these low hanging eucalyptus trees and you know you'd be ah Doug said I fell asleep once and I woke up and had almost would have drowned had I not woken up because of such heavy rains. And it's really wild country, which is the reason they wouldn't rob in the summer months. They didn't want to get bitten by a poisonous snake. And both of them said the same thing on that. It's not so much a fear of the snake. It's that if you get a bite, you're going to have to turn yourself in. And you know then you're doing time for the the robberies too.
00:20:28
Speaker
and But yeah, they said you wouldn't really feel the pain. It wouldn't hit you. You'd just be exhausted the next day because of that adrenaline rush, which is another thing. I mean, when you watch like these these bank robber movies, it's all bravado. But, you know, these were young guys, and they, they were terrified, because the police had much bigger guns. At a certain stage of their robberies, after that tour case shooting, you know, they were wanted as deadly criminals. And and um it's one against, you know, all of Victoria's police. So, so there's some
00:21:06
Speaker
fear on their part, which you know I don't always he appreciate. when The bank robber is often as nervous going into the bank as the customers are, which that was something Peter had said about Heatgood that stuck with me. But yes, adrenaline for both of them was driving some of this.
00:21:26
Speaker
And there's a moment too where you cite, the there's there's a book by Jeff Wilkinson and another co-author called Double Trouble where they wrote about the the twins in there and these exploits. And what what that got me thinking of was how you tell retelling this story and how you ah approach it and make it fresh when there's been accounts of it. So how how are you navigating and how are you processing that to make it feel fresh even though things have been told before?
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah. And that was a great book. And I got to talk to Jeff when I was over there and now he was the police reporter who was covering this. So he had wonderful records and access on the police side of the story had interviewed Doug, but he hadn't gotten Peter to talk for his book. And so that was a half of the story that I thought needed telling. And the other thing was I really,
00:22:26
Speaker
I mean, how many books have been written on Churchill and yeah erk wiseman you know, wrote a Churchill book. So you come in with your own approach. um And my approach was really about the core relationship of the story, which is these two brothers relationship and.
00:22:43
Speaker
starting with that game gang of four and kind of relying on each other, their father dying, and then going into this criminal enterprise together and really not liking each other every step of the way, and yet really not being able to break from one another either. I mean, there's so many moments of falling out, which was a little tricky to write in the book, because you know the editors, and I imagine the readers are, why do these guys keep ending up working together? they They're threatening each other, and But it's because you you know they're they're brothers, and they they're all they had and after you know the but kind of the loss of their father. um So focusing on this correlation between the brothers was really, I felt, totally new and hadn't been done before.
00:23:34
Speaker
What struck me too about reading the piece was um the movie, The Prestige. ah Have you seen that? I love that movie, yeah. Yeah, it's probably what it's one of Christopher Nolan's best movies. less ah not as Not as popular as a lot of other ones, but it should be. in It's just ah such a tale and rivalry, but also um dedication and obsession. And at the heart of it, spoiler alert, you know there are these twin magicians who are able to pull off illusions because they're You know, they were able to be in two places at once. but Was that, a you know, is it just something that was on the forefront of your mind as you were unpacking and reporting out this story? Yeah. So fun bit of trivia about that movie. Jonathan Nolan, his personal brothers, the screenwriter, went to Georgetown.
00:24:20
Speaker
Um, and was developing that in a screenwriting class that I had to get out. of there someone And I just remember thinking to myself, he's writing the prestige, you know, and he's, I don't know, early twenties. And, um, I'm, you know, not writing the first day. Like I was pretty, pretty ahead of his time. And yeah, I love that movie. I did think about that movie, that twin twist.
00:24:45
Speaker
And I remember in outlining this thinking, is there a way to do that so that you hold the twist to to like, you know, three quarters, but you you couldn't do that and tell the story of their childhood, which is so vital to this. But yeah, that's, that's, that's the twist of this one too. Oh my God. It's not one it's two.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah well that that gets to a great point about structure and experimenting with how you're moving around these blocks and yeah you've broken this up into it I think it's I think it's 10 10 little chapters and outnumbered but they are named and yeah those modular parts and how you are you know, bridging the big time gaps ah by virtue of this structure. And then you just said, like, maybe there was a way you could hold that twist to the end. um But it didn't didn't work out that way. So maybe just talk a little bit about how you were thinking about the pieces and the structure and how to best evoke ah the core ethos of the story. Yeah, I mean, so that is the the deept twist of the story. And
00:25:45
Speaker
If you held it, you'd have to kind of write it from a police perspective. But I was getting the brother side of the story, which again, i I wanted this story of the sibling rivalry and their relationship. And another thing I i thought to myself is that you also need to open with them with a lead that's going to hook people. And I thought that twist is a great lead, the police learning that.
00:26:13
Speaker
this genius band that we've been chasing it's not it's not one man but two so you know attention span these days getting people hooked in the first section and then from there it's it's pretty much chronological just went back to their childhood i wanted to get into some of the but bush ranger lore which is another thing that hadn't really been done is these brothers have been Nicknamed by media the last Bushrangers. I don't think that ended up in the story, but they very much fit the mold of these Bushrangers of old. I overview the history, but Australia was a Great Britain's penal colony and the original Bushrangers were escaped convicts to who got out of the colony into the woods or in little you know societies gathering weapons and supplies.
00:27:07
Speaker
And then the real golden age of Bush ranging, Bush ranging was the the gold rush in the mid 1800s, where they were hitting gold escorts and robbing banks, and then escaping into the bush. You know, some of these guys became folkloric for usually these robberies with a lot of flair and avoiding violence. I spoke to this professor, I couldn't, he didn't end up in the article, but Dr. Graham Seal was his name, and he came up with this Robin Hood principle. Why the Bushrangers that achieved folkloric status did, and it was avoiding violence and some flair, and also aligning themselves with the the underclass and the impoverished. So you had Ned Kelly during a robbery, he burnt the mortgage papers of the small farmers during one of his heists, started getting some of the local support.
00:28:02
Speaker
And I love this whole Bush Ranger history, because it ties in today. You know you have split opinions on on the Bush Rangers of Australia. Some think they're psychopaths, and whereas others see them as folk heroes. there's even Ned Kelly was wearing um armor in his last stand, and you'll see mailboxes in Australia, which is his helmet, and slipped the what the ah mail through the helmet visor. So some people, and it's similar to like our old west Jesse James or Dillinger, where some people think god these were psychopaths, um you know, and yet they have this
00:28:42
Speaker
um kind of folkloric support. So overlapping that a little bit with the story of these brothers, and it doesn't all connect, you know, because in the end there was violence used, and um but the the bush escapes definitely were harkened back to the Australian bush rangers of old.
00:29:07
Speaker
Now, when you're out reporting in in the in this instance of going all the way to Australia, meeting with the brothers and going around in the cars and seeing things, um yeah what are the the tools that you like to have with you for your information gathering? And then how are you ah processing that, say, at the end of the day?
00:29:25
Speaker
um Well, always a voice recorder and a notebook. And ah yeah, that I'd say was another challenge in that these guys were such good storytellers. they they when I had them just hundreds of pages, probably, of recordings. And then you know in the notebook, it's always scribbling the visual details.
00:29:49
Speaker
you know, what, what everything looks like. I, so you know, snap photos too. And I think like walking around Warburton where Doug robbed the bank, snapping pictures of um what it looks like today and for description. But yeah, I had pretty, pretty basic recorder and a notebook.
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah, and taking photos, too, I think is kind of an underrated reporting tool, because it's just sometimes, even if you scribble things down, a yeah, you just end up maybe missing a certain detail or maybe even write it down wrong, which just happens to me i an unsettling amount of time, and I don't know why. And then I'll check it up against an image. I'm like, why did I say it was that color or it was that one? It just is like, it just kind of bonkers. And maybe it's just my own ah f-ed up head.
00:30:38
Speaker
ah But it's just, ah yeah, it's just like taking those pictures and they're like, okay, that there it is. And now you've got that detail and it's, ah you can really yeah yeah properly evoke it in an accurate way.
00:30:49
Speaker
When you're in the moment and everything is so raw, you're like, oh, I won't forget this, but you always forget it. Cause it's, I mean, in this case a year later, so it's, you need some either note that you wrote or picture that you took, you know, the other thing is like taking a picture of a neat little history that's on a road sign, you know, that you might want to use. So, um, yeah, I agreed pictures are helpful.
00:31:15
Speaker
kind of kind of just going back to the put in putting your money where your mouth was in terms of shipping yourself to Australia. and Some feedback I get from a lot of journalists on this show too is, ah let me poke in here and clarify, not not necessarily journalists on this show, but journalists who listen to this show. That's kind of what I meant. And we're going to dive into a little bit of the money aspect of doing this kind of thing.
00:31:40
Speaker
is just how how journalists and freelancers report out stories of this nature, just like but the stuff that's out of pocket. And you know you really kind of have to advance yourself ah money in some cases to make this kind of trip happen.
Self-funding and Belief in Stories
00:31:55
Speaker
So look what was how have you navigated that in your in your career? And like what were some of the the upfront costs that you needed to shoulder you know to get yourself over to Australia? Yeah, I didn't pitch this until after I had done that trip.
00:32:10
Speaker
So yeah, I was paying for that out of pocket. And I have done that before. I've done it both ways. Sometimes it's on assignment. Sometimes I'm just up running it. Yeah. But I mean, it worked out. I found a home for it. But it might not have. I i was pretty confident that this one would get picked up. by I just believe in these stories. The first one I did out of school um was about a ah pilot who was flying his family in this huge winter storm and in the early 80s and crashed his plane in northern New Mexico. Wife died in the crash and he and his teen son survived in the cockpit, this little beach crap bonanza for six days. These huge blizzards buried the plane. Twist was he was a drug smuggler and there was a quarter million dollars on the plane. And his Cuban buddies rented helicopters and
00:33:06
Speaker
ah local the local, the Unster brothers, the the famous race car drivers, they had a ranch in the area. They were trying to get up to the wreck. So it was this race to get to the wreck and and get the money and and get him and his son out of there. And I had no outlet for this one. And I just went.
00:33:24
Speaker
hog wild and drove nine hours out to Escalante to meet the the pilot's best friend, flew up to Portland to meet his brother. and just And it's just pure passion and loving the story and wanting to get to the bottom of it. The bit about the money had really never been found, so there was an investigative aspect to it.
00:33:47
Speaker
So, yeah, I just do it for the love of the story. And and I'm confident that somebody will see something in it. A long time. Louisa Thomas has been on the show a bunch of a handful of times. She's a New Yorker staff writer, um instructor in NYU and stuff like that. ah But the first time she was on, you know she talked about how she subsidized some of her, the freelance writing that she that she ah that she does sort of tweet out.
00:34:16
Speaker
And there's any number of writing that you know you're like, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that I don't tweet about, and that helps kind of subsidize the enterprise. And I wonder for you, is that you speaking of like the financial part of being a freelancer, you know is there you what kind of gigs, if any, do you take to kind of to help subsidize the passion projects so you can take these flights and and ah hopefully sell them to a place like the Atavist?
00:34:42
Speaker
um Yeah, I kept marketing and communication jobs going over the years. I am adjunct instructor at USC. So yeah, it's it's definitely I am in agreement with her that to have a a day job going is very helpful. And then you can write for passion and pursue the stories you want and have the creative energy. You know, if I was writing about a topic that didn't interest me all day, I might not have the fire in my belly to go fly to Australia. And, you know, so it's definitely helpful to have to have the paycheck coming in at the same time.
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, because I know when I when we when she and I had first spoken this several years ago at this point in ah because when you would look online, you know, social media or whatever and you're just seeing people just seem to just be unilaterally crushing it. You know, they're getting this cover story on outside or they're just got a piece in the New Yorker and you're like, damn, how they How are they making this happen and then you start feeling you start questioning your own path and how crummy you are and then you And then you realize that there are these other things that aren't getting Pushed out to Instagram or or or whatever and you're like, okay when you have a better understanding of that suddenly you're like, okay I don't I don't feel so crummy because there are these revenue streams that no one is publicizing as much as like, you know that nice glossy cover story and
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they're it's it's not news that journalism is, it's tough finding a place that'll pay you to write as a staff writer. Oh, for sure. I don't think there are many magazines, so it's kind of a freelancing world and, you know, you just have to love telling stories and find a way to make it work. and I feel like you know the way you are screening
Film and TV Adaptation Potential
00:36:41
Speaker
the stories you pursue, because they're so resource intensive, like you be like you wouldn't have flown to Australia if you're like, no, this thing has has certain story beats to it that are just too good to pass up. So like what is that that filter process where you're like, okay, now I'm ready to go whole hog?
00:36:59
Speaker
I, I really look for things with film and TV potential. Um, and, and that, I mean, we're talking about how to make money doing this and that's, you know, another way to, if you can option these and, um, get a little money in that way. Um, and it's because, it's because of their great stories to true crime stories and fun to tell and fun to report.
00:37:24
Speaker
so So that's part of the decision-making process, whether to pull the trigger. Do I think there's going to be some Hollywood interest? There's elements to a story that I love, like a good story engine. Eric Larson talks about this in his afterward. I was reading on the sinking of the Lusitania deadwick. He's like, I need a really strong story engine, whether it's a a ship voyage, or and for this, it's got the cops and robbers engine. You want to see if these two bandits or are going to get away with it. and So there's ingredients that I feel like a story needs. i'm i'm So yeah, I am pretty careful about what I decide to dive into, and it's got to check a few boxes.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of liken it to almost this long-form journalism that back in the day was something you could be a staff writer for and write four pieces a year and make a good living, and that was your career. And now I kind of liken it to, you know, being a short story writer or something. It's just like you would never in a million years be like, I'm gonna have a career and put food on the table being a short story writer, but damn it, I love writing short stories, so I'm just gonna try to publish wherever I can.
00:38:44
Speaker
And I feel like this kind of long-form journalism and narrative nonfiction, it's almost like you have to think of it as ah as ah a short story writer and more as the artistic and passionate pursuit. And yeah, maybe you can make a few bucks, but ideally it's just you're putting a few out because there's something you love to do, not because you love to do it and it'll pay you well. Yeah, I think that's totally right. I mean, you could say the same of screenwriters, too. You know, how many are actually making a living at it? just keep their day job and do it on the side and just hope that one gets picked up.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then there are some people who do this kind of work that we love and then there'll be, you know, fact checking here and there and all these other little, all these other little gigs. And it's just like, ah yeah, it's just, I think it, it, ah it underscores how, how you just need to have a, a burning love for this kind of narrative nonfiction and the juices in the reporting and the writing of it. And then just controlling those controllables is really the juice for you. It has to be because otherwise, you know, you'd just be a ah rotten, bitter husk. Right. No, I mean, you have to, you have to love it. And it's like, I mean, I kind of mentioned this, but I, I got to go to Kenya too. And it's one thing to
00:40:04
Speaker
just do the safaris, but you know my story is about this Egyptian-American scientist who was training the Maasai who traditionally hunts lions to protect the lions and using tracking equipment. and um So it just adds a whole other layer to your trip when you're hanging out with the Maasai.
00:40:24
Speaker
um visiting their camp and and seeing Kenya through a local's perspective um as opposed to just kind of the tourist trip. So it makes for really great experiences and memories and um and fun narrative stories.
00:40:42
Speaker
And I've read ah an essay earlier today in a story in The New York Times about ah a stand-up comedian and how she's like wrestling with this idea of she has to split so much of her time between... Let me rewind that a little bit. like In an ideal world, she would just be writing jokes and working on craft and that would be... yeah And now now comedians so often have to wrestle with this idea of putting clips up for social media consumption. And that just digs into the stuff that actually makes you better at what you do, which ultimately will make you a more sustainable artist and creative person in the long run.
00:41:19
Speaker
And I see a lot of writers online, too, who seem to be more performative, just saying what you know whatever, be it a cheesy picture of them at a desk, and I'm like, who's setting up there? Has anyone taken this picture, or are you like taking the time to like set your phone up in the corner of your office and then taking a candid of yourself, which is just gross to me? But I wonder how you just navigate the social media aspect, the the the online posturing of it that is just inherent and endemic to this kind of business now.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, I have a short answer for that one, which is I don't. I really i have no social media presence. And I remember kind of when when I was putting out the book wishing that I had built more of a big audience, but I had this friend who was in the early days of taking pictures of food on Instagram, which now everyone does, but she was lighting it well, and she had a big following. And I remember asking her advice, like, OK, how do I, in a couple of weeks, build And she said, it's just so saturated now with big brands that it's really hard to compete. It's almost like if you haven't already built the audience and built the brand, like why bother? And I just don't enjoy it. I'm not good at faking it. So I just I don't really even try on social media.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and that's ah oftentimes a hard conversation you have to have, say, with a book editor or an agent. Like, they want to see a robust social media falling, which I think is largely meaningless, but it's a number they can point to. um And the yeah how did you wrestle with that when, you know, and yeah Into Enemy Waters came out? Because that's something ah a lot of people I talk to on this show, they wrestle with that whole platform aspect of promoting their own books.
00:43:07
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I remember talking to some writers too. And they're like, it's such a different muscle than writing. And a lot of writers do not like having to flex that publicity muscle. I did a lot of podcast interviews. I mean, I was I did a book signing book reading. So, and I She did some promotion, got some blurbs for it. And yeah, the social media isn't isn't my strong suit. But i I tried to get it out as as best I could. And I think the COVID changed the model where it used to be going around to bookstores and having like a live publicity tour. But now it's a lot more talking to podcasters and niche blogs. and
00:43:59
Speaker
The excerpt was really cool. I got an excerpt in Smithsonian and vice did kind of a ah side by side story with Alta, which is a magazine I love here in California, written a couple features for them.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the the short answer is I did everything but social media. Yeah. What i what I'd like to piggyback on too is just ideas, what long stories like what you've done for the adverts, they take a lot of time and resources. And how many projects do you tend to have in the hopper going at a given time? No more than two. Yeah, these they're pretty all intensive, especially when you keep keep the day job going and you're writing on the side.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, no, no more than two. Right. I have a this kind of cool sports story, Colonial India, underdog sports story that I'm working on with David Woolman. He's a friend and oh writer. He's he's launching um Story Studio. He's going to start publishing narrative nonfiction. So I'm hoping to get that out early next year.
00:45:06
Speaker
um So I was kind of working on that one side by side with this one. But yeah, how you no, you hit the nail on the head. It's it's it's a heavy lift. it's i It's pretty close to a book's worth of work for these but these long form articles. I mean, you collect almost as much reporting and and whittling it down. It's not easy.
00:45:31
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And I think in a lot of people's heads who have day jobs and they they wish their creative pursuit was like the thing that
Inspiration from Day Jobs
00:45:41
Speaker
supported them. And sometimes I bristle at that. I'm like, I wonder if if you it was the sole purview, would you still have the energy and passion that it takes to to do this kind of work? And sometimes that day job but I can't tell you. ah There's been a number of times where having that day job has put me in touch with people I wouldn't nor normally be put in touch with. and In some cases it led to ah led it led to work. a It led to the publication of my first book. I won't belabor that story, but it just it happened. I was fitting someone for running shoes.
00:46:16
Speaker
And um i wonder I wonder just for you, because you've got your ah irons and a lot of fires, the the day job and the adjuncts, would you trade that in to be able to do this full time, or do you find that part of what nourishes you to do this kind of work?
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. I I have done it full time like in to finish the book. I was pretty much full-time writing and I find myself Sometimes when you wake up with a full day to write I find myself less productive than when i'm like Okay, I gotta get my writing done before work starts at nine or you know, you really make use of the the windows that you have, sorry i do when you have a whole day, it can kind of just stress you out and you can procrastinate and clean. And oh yeah, there's that advantage too, is that it focuses you and, um, and yeah, I agree with that. Like sometimes, you know, I've worked with some clients in the environmental sector and the, you know, the the writing and the, and the marketing work can be symbiotic sometimes.
00:47:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's good it's good to hear that. I think people like hearing that too because i think there and I might be projecting a bit, but I have a feeling some people feel this way. It's just like when you go to school for a thing, be it journalism or whatever, and you want to and be a creative person and do that kind of work and then you have to take on a desk job or something else and then you have to do your art in the the nooks and crannies of your life, sometimes you can feel less than if you're not making it with you know the the art that you love. and And it's just good to hear people be like, no, it's OK to have a 30 or 40 hour a week job. And then you know if you love it so much that you got you find it elsewhere. And then maybe you can scale back on the day jobby stuff you know if the other thing picks up some momentum. so I think it's good for people to hear. you know You're not less than if you need a day job. In fact, it's probably it's probably a good idea.
00:48:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm sure you found through all the people you've interviewed that there's really no one model these days, right? It's just a choose your own adventure. Right. Well, yeah, we go because we you know come of age or or we come up with what the generation or generations did before us and you try to follow that playbook. And when that playbook inevitably just doesn't work, you start feeling, you start flailing, you restart.
00:48:45
Speaker
getting really frustrated and bitter, like, why can't I have the career that Mike Sager or ah geez go even going back way far, like, that a gay Thales had? Well, the fact of the matter is, like, that ecosystem is dead, but you're kind of reared on that ecosystem. And then when it doesn't work for you, you're like, it's hard to adapt. And you have to just flail until you kind of figure it out. And it's something that can take decades. And by then, some people are just like, fuck it, I'm going to law school.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, just really need to love the stories or ah just narrative nonfiction in general. And i I love the stories and finding a cool untold tale and telling it well.
00:49:31
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's well well put, and it definitely comes across in ah you know this ad of a story which is just such a such a trip and so such a cool story that I'm so glad that people get to experience and then hear some of the the backstory of it and how you go about this work, Andrew. So ah the one thing I love to ah ask in closing these conversations is just asking the guest for a recommendation of some kind for
TV Show Recommendation
00:49:53
Speaker
the listeners. and That can just be anything that you're you're thinking about. It being the end of the year, maybe you have some New Year's resolution kind of advice or just anything else hey you're excited about. I have been, it's kind of a a relaxing, coming off this story, just been um watching Sons of Anarchy, so I can give that recommendation as kind of a fun, older show if you're into
00:50:21
Speaker
you know, the biker culture. It's also, it's fun watching a show set in around Lodi, which is, I had written a story about this Cadillac dealer who went undercover and busted this New York mob boss, Joseph Bonanno, in a little town called Lodi. And just, you know, you pass through it. So it's fun seeing all these little towns in California. So it's not a very inspiring New Year's ah resolution or anything, but fun show to check out. People need some watching. Oh, fantastic. Well, Andrew, this is so great to talk to you about your out of his piece and to get a sense of how you go about the work. So just thank you so much for carving out the time and ah and for talking shop here on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me, Brendan. It was fun.
00:51:15
Speaker
awesome thank you for making it this far for listening to the show thanks to Andrew for the time Jonah too even though his audio didn't make it into the show and of course the ad of us just in general for being a pal of the show going into our fourth year of doing this pretty amazing ah awesome partnership I'm so glad it's so grateful for it because uh Narrative journalism is like my jam, it's my thing, and so to be able to hang out with the Atavistian people, and the fact that they want to continue to hang out with me is ah pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty, pretty cool. And thanks to the power of Narrative Conference for promotional support, go to combeyond.bu dot.edu, check out the conference, see if it lights you up, and if it does, see an F-15 at checkout, you get it a sweet deal.
00:52:06
Speaker
Some burrito money or book money. Go get a burrito. Don't forget to consider pre-ordering the front runner. Actually, screw the burrito. Get the front runner. Melanie and I have a stack of old DVDs. We're looking to donate or keep. We're looking to just continually shrink our footprint um as much as possible. And so we have a stack of DVDs, and we're we don't even subscribe to a lot of streaming services. We don't start subscribe to any. Like, I mean that. We don't even have Netflix. I know. I know.
00:52:36
Speaker
um But we also have a lot of physical media then much of it. We don't need any more even though we prefer physical media Not a euphemism and so we've got a pile And we're just going top-down take the decision out of it Sideways, starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church, is a buddy movie, wine country buddy movie, based on a novel of the same name. Didn't age well? Most things from the odds I'm finding have not aged well, except Napoleon Dynamite. Well, Giamatti's character, Miles, is ah an alcoholic middle school English teacher, a bit of a maladaptive, malcontent,
00:53:19
Speaker
who's written a near thousand-page novel that no one will buy, surprise. At one point, he's asked what the novel's about by someone, and he can't even explain it. He's like, it just changes genres, the ending doesn't really make sense, it's a disaster. Finally, when he hears from his agent, she says, and I'm paraphrasing, publishers just didn't know how to market it. You know, three years of writing the book, poof.
00:53:45
Speaker
here's here's Here's the lesson. Here's a couple lessons. Well, one, don't pop a bunch of Xanax and then chug a bunch of wine. and And two, as much as it might make your artist heart squirm, you have to consider how your idea will sell. What does it look like as a product slotted alongside other titles?
00:54:05
Speaker
You have to imagine making the sales pitch to investors who aren't so concerned unnecessarily about the ARP or rather making money of getting a return on that investment, right? You have to code switch in that regard. You kind of have to put on a Don Draper hat like you're going to make that big pitch in front of a client.
00:54:25
Speaker
and really make the case for it. ah It's it's not ah not unlike what Stephen Haydn said on the pod recently. you have to You have your expertise and then you select the subject that has a certain measure of baked-in audience. It's no surprise that Stephen wrote about Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam among several other other books he's written and not, let's say, ah Pavement or Mud Honey.
00:54:51
Speaker
yeah There are scores of brilliant athletes out there, but if you're going to write a golf biography, you're better off finding an angle on Tiger Woods you know versus, say, a guy Fred Couples or Jordan Spieth. Tiger moves the meter. No one else does.
00:55:09
Speaker
We might be grossed out by that, but if you have skills as a storyteller, or a researcher, or a reporter, or a writer, you're going to have to sell out a bit, or at least consider it. Now, if you have a steady gig as a professor and you love writing weird essays on esoteric topics,
00:55:24
Speaker
experimental stuff and you can land the deal with a smaller press, even a bigger one. Great, awesome, cool. Then you might not have to be thinking in terms of commercial success or commercial optics. Just because a book is about a famous person doesn't mean it'll be a bestseller, obviously, but it gives you a better shot.
00:55:41
Speaker
is when my baseball memoir is in the drawer. yeah Memoirs are a tough sell and frankly I'd rather keep building my authority with this podcast and maybe if a biography or two or three works out, the memoir will then be more enticing.
00:55:57
Speaker
What we find is that people who fail to think in terms of how it will look as a product, as a commodity, as something that costs a lot of money to make and something that will hopefully make some dough, is that you just get burned out, bitter, resentful, speaking from experience.
00:56:15
Speaker
So there's no guarantee that it'll work out. And how many people try to write vampire stories after Twilight or horse racing after Seabiscuit? So I'm not saying chase a trend, but there are certain signifiers that make people's heads tilt a little bit. Like, oh, ah yeah, just say let me get lean in. And I'm like, okay, now that might have something more of a hook to it. And then you take your skills and lean in that direction. The lesson, be able to sum up the premise of your book in less than 20 seconds.
00:56:44
Speaker
and be thinking about how we'll be marketed. It might just grease the skids a bit for you. Anyway, stay wild, see you in efforts. If you can't do, interview. See ya on Happy New Year!