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Episode 443: Jared Sullivan and the Subtle Art of the Cold Call
0 Playsin 9 hours
Jared Sullivan got his start primarily editing and admired the kinds of writers and reporters who do both well, like a David Remnick. Valley So Low is Jared's new book, and it is along the lines of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action and illustrates the toll that greed and negligence exert on the people exposed to toxins and the cost cases of this nature take on the legal team, both financial and physical.
Jared’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal, and Field & Stream.
Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
Introduction and Book Pre-order
00:00:01
Speaker
Well, I guess I can say this now. The Front Runner, The Life of Steve Prefontaine, is available for pre-order. And look at that book cover. My goodness. That is hot with two T's. You can visit the bookseller of your choice, Powell's Bookshop.org, HarperCollins, Barnes & Noble, and yes, even Amazon, and plunk down $32.99, or maybe even $65.98, or $98.97.
00:00:31
Speaker
Everything helps. Every author you know enter the sun pegs for pre-orders and you only have so many dollars at your disposal, so I'll just say, consider it. Hell, if you order five or more, email me the receipt and I'll be sure to do a private book club meeting for you and your gang.
Podcast Promotion and Discount Offer
00:00:49
Speaker
Okay, but listen though, promotional support for the podcast is brought to you by the Power of Narrative Conference, celebrating its 26th year on the last weekend of March, it being the 28th and the 29th, three to 400 journalists from around the world.
00:01:04
Speaker
to send on Boston, Massachusetts. Keynote speakers include Susan Orlean, Connie Schultz, and Dan Zach, and they're going to bring the knowledge and the inspiration. Listeners to this podcast can get 15% off their enrollment fee by using the code CNF151515.
00:01:26
Speaker
To learn more, visit combeyond.bu.edu and use that CNF15 code. I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be talking. Yeah, ya boy, P.O. Do the thing that other reporters are not willing to do.
00:01:48
Speaker
Hey, it's
Guest Introduction: Jared Sullivan
00:01:49
Speaker
the Creative Nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. I'm Brendan O'Mara, prepare to die. Jared Sullivan is here. He's the author of Valley Solo, One Lawyer's Fight for Justice in the Wake of America's Great Coal Catastrophe. It's published by Knopf. Jared's book has gotten a prime review in the New York Times and was one of those four featured books in a recent issue of The New Yorker. You know the briefly noted section toward the back. It doesn't matter what issue. What matters is that it was there, man.
00:02:24
Speaker
Jared got his start primarily editing and admired the kinds of writers and reporters who do both very well, like ah David Remnick. And I'd also throw Daniel Zaleski in there from the New Yorker as well, who's primarily edits people like Patrick Ryan Keefe and even David Gran. But his profile in Guillermo del Toro from like 2010 or whatever the fuck it was, it's fucking awesome.
00:02:46
Speaker
um valley solo getting back on track valley solo is along the lines of jonathan harres the civil action and illustrates the toll that greed and negligence exert on the people exposed to toxins and the costs that cases of this nature take on the legal team both financial and physical it's a pretty riveting tale and just um makes you sad in a lot of places it makes you angry it made me very mad i don't get mad very easily Jared's work has also appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Gardening Gun, Men's Journal, and Field and Stream.
Connecting with the Audience
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, is he's all over the place, man. Show notes to this episode more at BrendanOmero.com. Hey, there you can find blog posts and sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. Links to cool stuff, book raffles, CNF and happy hour. Things that make your writing life a little more fun, damn it.
00:03:43
Speaker
First of the month, no spam, as far as I can tell. You can't beat it. You can also window shop at patreon dot.com slash cnfpot if you want to throw a few bucks into the cnf and coppers. Get a phone call with me to talk some things out. Sometimes you just need to talk it out, man.
00:04:02
Speaker
All right, so Jared is here and he's going to talk about how he got his start in this writing mess and how he wrote this book during the pandemic with little kids and cherishing, and cherishing, cherishing.
00:04:18
Speaker
cherishing every spare moment he could find, how excited he was to assign work to other writers when he was an editor, especially Men's Journal, learning from the likes of Nick Pomegarten and Devin Young. And stay tuned for a parting shot on being able to stay in the game. Hey, did you know my blood pressure the other day? My reading was like 144 over 105. Is that high? Is that high? Am I gonna die? Here's Jared.
00:04:55
Speaker
I'll just
Career Journey: From Editing to The New Yorker
00:04:56
Speaker
tell you a little bit how I got to. I'll just kind of tell you, take you from the beginning if that's okay, if you if you don't mind. I went to school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. did not I did not know how people made their way in journalism. I didn't know any really practicing journalists, especially magazine journalists. So I think like a lot of people I finished college and thought I was going to write like the next great American novel. So I still I realized I needed a job. So I got a job for a tiny book publisher in Nashville, editing books about antique firearms of all things.
00:05:28
Speaker
It was incredibly not glamorous. I worked on the strip mall next to the highway. You could hear semi-trucks buzz by all day. But then around this time, I started reading some of the magazine greats, the Nick Pomm Gardens, the John D. M. R. Sullivan, those sorts of folks. And then I quickly was like, oh, this is actually what I love. So I worked in Nashville, worked for a year in Columbia, South Carolina as Small Outdoors Magazine.
00:05:57
Speaker
and I didn't really have like an end in New York. i I ended up writing in this for this outdoor magazine, basically because my, I grew up in Nashville and I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad. I i was not like a pro at it or anything.
00:06:11
Speaker
But I enjoyed it enough. So once I got to Small Outdoors Magazine in Columbia, South Carolina, it's called Sporting Classics. I was like, okay, I want to get to New York City. There's a big Outdoors Magazine in New York. It's Field and Stream. It's a legendary publication. And they hired me and I moved up there in 2015. And Field and Stream is a magazine that people in New York media circles don't pay attention to at all hardly.
00:06:36
Speaker
But it was a great, great training ground for me as a young editor slash writer. I got to do a lot of, you know, at a pretty young age, I guess, you know, 25, I was getting to write some fun, long, like survival stories, like people get lost in the woods. And those those are, those are actually really, really fun stories to tell because you get you get people on the phone or you go visit them and kind of reconstruct what happened to them. And I still, I mean, I learned lessons doing that that I still use in writing my new book, ah Valley Solo. So it it was a great experience. And the editors there are like mean and hard in like a good way, right? And so I just learned a tremendous and amount from them. And
00:07:21
Speaker
Gosh, that changed my life, like moving to New York for Field and Stream. And it has a great, yeah probably people probably think it's like a Redneck magazine. magazine It probably is to an extent, but it was founded by, not not by Teddy Roosevelt, by by some of his buddies. So it actually has a very, very long history of like really solid, great, important conservation writing. So that's really what I focused on there, was conservation in the environment. And that's still, I feel like, kind of what I'm covering like to this day with my book.
00:07:48
Speaker
So when I was at film stream though, I kind of realized that I liked going on the, all these fun trips to write. I went to Alaska, went to New Mexico, all the, all of, all over North America. But I didn't want to just write about the out outdoors. I want to do other things. So in, in 20, gosh, when was it? 2017.
00:08:07
Speaker
Oh, let me back up. But in 2016, I had a huge break. And this is when I, I feel like this kind of like put me on the trajectory. I've still been, I'm still benefiting from this lucky break. Oh, you know, all these years later, when I was at a field and stream USA today, they produce a ah once a year. Like hunting magazine. And they asked me to write a piece for it. I did. I was not.
00:08:31
Speaker
thrilled to do it, it was about this TV personality. She has some show on TV. And so I was like, whatever, I'll do it. I wouldn't interviewed her on the phone, wrote a short little piece at USA Today, ran in the sports page. My big break came was, this was in 2016, and in the run-up to the, ah during the, I guess run-up to the election, when Trump was trying to kind of secure the the presidential, you know, the Republican um nomination,
00:08:59
Speaker
The his camp I guess reached out reached out to me because they wanted some coverage in USA Today ahead of I think it was the Iowa caucus in 2016 I did not want to write for no offense to anyone who works at USA Today. I did not wonder I it was not a great experience.
00:09:15
Speaker
But I was like, what if I did a talk of the town piece for the New Yorker? And they, they took, this is a, they actually wanted me to write about Donner, Donald Trump Jr. Cause he's an outdoors man. Not about Donald Trump, but they had the camp, I guess the team approached me doing a lot about Donald Trump Jr. And I said, I said, what about the New Yorker? They took a day or two to think about it. And they got back to me and they're like, okay, we'll try it.
00:09:37
Speaker
So I emailed the New Yorker cold. I emailed ah Lizzie Whiticum who's long time talk to the town because deputy editor of talk to the town and she responded to me in like five minutes or something. You know, I think I was at the email then got to get a drink of water or go to the bathroom. I came back and you're like, yes, when can you do, when can you do it? And I think I went white, you know, I did not, I had never really reported.
00:10:01
Speaker
A story for any big publication. And so, uh, that was my real break. So i I took a sick day the next day and it went to Trump tower. Matt Donald
Advice for Aspiring Journalists
00:10:10
Speaker
Trump Jr. In his office. And like Paul Manafort was there and all these people who would become so infinite, infamous in American life. And at this time it was still like the child Trump campaign. It was like a total lark. Like, I didn't, I mean, I didn't think they would win. I don't think anyone really thought they would win.
00:10:25
Speaker
You know, it's bizarre. I, you know, they have a beautiful office that overlooks central park. And I feel like I was a, you know, kind of like a hick from the sticks had just moved to New York like a year, not even a year earlier. I think all of a sudden I was on assignment for the New Yorker and in the Trump tower. It was a, it was a, I had like some cheap suit. I bought, bought, I'm sure I bought like JC pennies or something on totally out of my league. I think I had a, I think I had an overnight, like a recorder. I'm not sure if I even owned her like a handheld reporter yet.
00:10:55
Speaker
To do the interview. I think I had to buy it overnight on Amazon. Anyways, so Donald Trump and junior and I, we walked around central park and we talked about the outdoors for you know an hour. or So I came back and then I stayed up until three or four in the morning, drafting a talk of the town piece, filed it. And by lunchtime, the next day they had like totally edited it. And I, ah you know, they, they did some rewriting. My draft was not perfect, but i lot like the soul of it was still there, which made me happy. Right. Like.
00:11:25
Speaker
A lot of the, a lot of my original lines were still there. So, uh, yeah, that was, that was kind of like my big break writing for writing for New Yorker. Then from there, I got an agent and I was a literary agent. And then I kind of use that piece and some other follow-up pieces I wrote for the New Yorkers website to get a job as a featured features editor at men's journal. And there's all kinds of snowball from there. So I feel very, very fortunate. Uh, it was kind of a weird, weird, lucky break to go from Pitt from an outdoors writer to, um,
00:11:54
Speaker
I guess doing all the things I'm doing now, so. Did the but talk of the town piece, did an editor, an editor agent reach out to you, or were you able to kind of pitch that to and and you know an agent just, and you're like, hey, I'm looking looking for a representation for some unknown book down the road or something? No, it's crazy. I i don't know this for a fact, but every time I've written, I've only written four four little pieces for the New Yorkers website, you know,
00:12:21
Speaker
but every time I've almost every time I've written for them those handful of times an agent has approached me like out of the blue say hey are you represented yeah do you have any interest in doing a book so I have the suspicion that literary agents probably just haunt the New Yorkers website looking for new bylines and Kind of use that as a way to find a new talent because I hadn't I mean I had very few clips when agent started approaching me I'd done maybe one feature for field and stream and some front of the book stuff and this one talk of the town story And that that was kind of it. So yeah like lucky break indeed
00:12:58
Speaker
yeah I know when you know whatever it was, 12 or and twenty what year is it now? Yes, 12, 14-ish years ago is when I was like really trying to get some traction in feature writing and freelance journalism to no avail. and I was just like totally Bitter and resentful and frustrated I just didn't know it's like you just don't know how to even get a start and make those kind of connections and it's. It's it sounds like you know for free that there is if you're focusing on the work enough you know you give the opportunity for luck to strike and I was too I was often too focused on just.
00:13:41
Speaker
what other people seem to have around me and like I was just so mired in my own funk that I just couldn't kind of get out of my own head and just like kind of focus on my own running my own race and you know just you know just for you for people who might be similarly frustrated you know what might you say to people like that who just who are looking for that to get that traction be it a lucky breaker just through sheer force of will Yeah, that's it okay. You used that's a lot to
Social Media vs. Writing Quality
00:14:08
Speaker
back in what you just said. And i've I felt similar similarly. It is really, it is really hard. I always focused on the writing like there's some writers, I don't have a huge like Twitter or social media following. Yeah, I mean, and I wish I wish I did now I'm promoting a book. Oh my gosh, it'd be really handy to have like 100,000 Twitter followers like I could promote this book to you but I always just focused on the writing and I
00:14:35
Speaker
Okay, so I'm a public high school kid, public college kid from Tennessee. I got hired to film the stream to work in New York City. I kind of felt like I had to make it work.
00:14:49
Speaker
I just got married six months earlier and it was a very hard transition from getting married, then six months later, moving to New York City with my my new wife. And it was very, very, very hard. But again, I was like, I have to make this work. So I just wrote as much as I could. I wrote i was also a full-time editor at at Field & Stream, also doing short pieces for for Outside.
00:15:11
Speaker
ah yeah Like I said, I started doing these little pieces for for the New Yorker through this lucky break. But I was kind of saying yes to everything, no matter how unglamorous it seemed at the time. like I was not super thrilled. I mentioned that i for USA Today, I profiled this sports woman that had a reality TV show. That was not it that was like not my dream assignment. right I wanted to do cool profiles or cool narratives.
00:15:40
Speaker
But I just did, I said yes to everything for a long, long time. I feel like that's kind of what it takes. And that, yeah. And you just hope something catches and something works out. I've been fortunate. A few things have, a few things have worked out and I've gone to build on, you know, bill on the bill and running for the New Yorker build on, I wrote some features and I wrote a feature for men's journal, but I expanded into my book. So I guess it's just.
00:16:08
Speaker
doing a lot and hoping a few things work out, right? I also like to just trust that they will work out. I don't know. That's probably, that's probably naive advice. I wouldn't want to steer someone in the wrong direction. It probably is a point where it could be wise to throw up your hands and say, I'm going to try something else now, but I also is always just pretty hard headed about it. So I'm just going to keep doing it and doing it and doing it and trust that um I'm decently smart. I get, you know, something's going to work out eventually. So.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah, I guess i'll say like it's not a zero-sum game. I kind of it can feel like a zero-sum game media Sometimes when these people are I remember like back in like 2020 I guess what was it 2016 like everyone who like worked for like buzzfeed or or whatnot or gawker were like the cool kids i'm In the twitter universe, you know, you're right and uh But then, you know, like, where are those people now? I don't know. I also say, like ah because ah I said, I've really made my career as an editor and I really do like editing. It's very, very fun. I, of course, will not mention any names, but some of the people with the largest Twitter followers are not the best writers by any stretch of the imagination. That's not to say if you have a large Twitter following, you are a bad writer, but
00:17:17
Speaker
The correlation is pretty, is pretty weak, you know? Um, but I'll also say some, some big name writers are big name for a reason too. I, Dave Sedaris doesn't have a large Twitter following by edited story, but an essay by him once and his drafts come in like near, almost near perfect. They're very him, right? Like they're, they're, they're very much a Dave Sedaris essay, but he.
00:17:46
Speaker
I know people, I know, I know people have community mixed feelings about him, but he's, I think he's famous for a reason. He turns in very, very clean, well thought out story. So anyways, I don't know. I've just always tried to just do my best. I don't know. to Do the thing I like and I'm not great at social media. So I just just always try to focus on the writing and kind of pour myself into that. Cause that's one thing I do enjoy it and I'm in control of. So.
Transitioning from Editing to Writing
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I found in promoting this book, even though I don't have just a monster social media presence, there, if you work hard, people respect you and people with monster social media presence will retweet your work or or will post about your work. Margaret Rankle, the Times columnist and author, you know, she has a very large, she's a very large platform for the times that I think that's translated to a very large social media following. You know, she, she read my book and, and posted very, very kind things about it.
00:18:46
Speaker
So I guess to your point, put the work, put the work first and it'll get recognized by your, by your peers. So that's, that's how it's worked for me at least. But what do I know? I'm just a first time author. So.
00:19:00
Speaker
Well with your with editing and writing, is just in what ways has the you know the backbone of the editing work you've done translated into your capacity to ah go to the other side and report and write with with skill? Some of this just like simple language stuff.
00:19:20
Speaker
When you look, being an editor has taught me what editors look for in stories, basically, is a timely, this is, this is basic, but no one really tells you this when you start. Like when you're pitching features, a lot of times you get pitched subjects. Like here's this, here's a topic, right? Well, editors, they really want a character that can help lead the reader through a bigger subject.
00:19:46
Speaker
I mean, that's every New Yorker story, for instance, it follows one specific person that starts like, on such and such day, this happened. And then it kind of goes from there. it's very like They're about people. So, but a lot of young writers don't always understand that. They'll teach, they'll pitch you like, Hey, there's this big problem. I want to write about it. Okay. That's a subject. But what, what is the story? You know, who's, who's the character? What happens to them? How are they going to lead the reader through a narrative? And maybe that's pretty basic, but it does. I think that does take a long time for, for.
00:20:21
Speaker
people to understand. And also just simple question, like why are we telling this story right now? You know, that's every editor asks him or herself when they're assigning a story, why is this important right now? And you kind of have to have a ready defense for that if you're a writer. Some of the other lessons for from editing is just write clear, simple sentences, avoid cheap tricks. I always get annoyed when like books start with like the most, or stories even, they start with the most,
00:20:50
Speaker
Dramatic compelling scene right in the first sentence and they're like, they jumped back in time. It's like, okay, here's all the boring stuff. Then you, they lead you back to that. That moment of climax. I always find stuff. I always find that move just predictable and boring. So.
00:21:06
Speaker
Being an editor, you just get your hands on a lot of coffee. You get to see people what people's moves are. And that's the move I just described as one i I am very bored of. with I think it might be, I forget if it's Steven Pressfield or Julia Cameron, who talks about ah shadow careers. And I feel like editing can be kind of can be a shadow career for people who really want to ah They there might be blocked writers or people are they want to write but they're in the editing side and they have a hard time breaking through that firewall. and um you know How did you avoid that pitfall? Pitfall of what being stuck is just an as an editor?
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then as a result, maybe just getting kind of like bitter, like, oh, I want to do this. I'm seeing all these people do the thing I want to do. But I hear I am stuck editing. and Not that editing is a bad thing, but you might have wanted to always be like have the byline out there be more for be more platformed or forefronted. um But it seems like you've struck a really good balance there. Yeah, I've ah yeah've always worked for like dying magazines where the where if if I have raised my hand to write an assignment,
00:22:16
Speaker
you I'll get paid more for writing for whatever forever magazines I've worked for, typically, right? They don't pay me extra to write. So if I raise my hand to write something, usually people say, okay, fine. That's just saved. That just helps our budget if you write things. So I've never really had a problem getting stories okay to run with where I've worked. And, you know, I guess I've worked for filled stream men's journal that I've, you know, freelance a bunch of different places.
00:22:45
Speaker
As far as I like love editing, it's fun. It's really fun to work with great writers and get inside their brain and see what they, I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing to me more fun than someone pitches you a great story idea that has a clear character, a compelling subject that, you know, it's just like so right for your audience. Then getting better in chief or whoever it is that gave you the money to fly that person to some like far flung place and bring back a story that is everything you hope it'd be or close to, you know, it's compelling and dynamic. I just love doing that. Like I love sitting at writer's places and basically saying, you know, go find some treasure for me and bring it back.
Reporting Techniques and Challenges
00:23:28
Speaker
In creating literature out of trying to create something akin to literature I guess out of out of real life I did it's just always a thrill to me it' It's never not fun sending some someone's to some far-from-place or to hang out with some interesting person whether it's Greg Daniels from the office or or Bill McKibben or I think other profiles I've assigned John Prine. I signed a John Prine profile to Rick Bass. Oh, I sent Devin Gordon to profile the manager of the Mets. I sent a guy, ah Matthew Bremner to Mexico to hang out with this poor father who was looking for mass graves.
00:24:07
Speaker
left by the cartel. you know the I guess the cartel would disappear these people and leave the bodies in these masquerades. So I said, Matthew Brimner, it was his his idea he brought to me. i got the I got the funds to send him to Mexico to go hang out with this poor father who was looking around the rural countryside trying to find his son among these masquerades. I mean, you get a story like that. That is such a compelling, heavy story. And this is this is from Men's Journal. It is just so thrilling to see what riders come back with when you send them to a place like that.
00:24:37
Speaker
And it's never not interesting. I also sent the same writer Matthew Bremner to to Peru to write about yes ayaas this white i guy from Canada, Ayahuasca shaman, self-proclaimed shaman, who went to Peru to study Ayahuasca with some you know some tribe. and shit went down, he ends up getting murdered and I sent Matthew to this small village right about what happened and he came back with this very very compelling portrait of like the ayahuasca trade in Peru. I mean it is
00:25:10
Speaker
I get thrilled every time. so And I learn from people. I like i love ah love seeing how they take the raw material of research and reporting and weave into a compelling narrative. So I feel like having my hands in all these different writers' copies, whether it's Anna Peele or Nick Pomegarden or or me and Mercado, different people. <unk>ve i've I've learned their tricks. and i've I steal the best ones of them. I've tried to steal the best ones of them and and use them in my own pieces.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah, i was my follow-up to this is is ah that having access and collaborating with such skilled reporters and writers, it's ah what what from their bag of tricks have you most ah utilized when you're in your own reporting, in your own writing? That's a great question. This is this is a small, like, Devin Gordon, he was a longtime GQ Top editor I forget was exactly whose exact title was when he left GQ I ah i wasn't minstrel. I wanted to I wanted to compete with GQ and Esquire, right? I kind of thought maybe we could uh Go toe to toe with them. I minstrel I feel like has always been like the number three men's magazine, but kind of behind those two giants I guess I mean all those magazine in my view are kind of sorry shapes now, unfortunately, but This is back in 20
00:26:36
Speaker
17 through 2019, I guess, when I was at Men's Journal. I was trying to make Men's Journal working in collaboration my with my colleagues, of course, make it a little more general interest and a little less like out a little less like outside. So I brought in Devin Gordon to write a monthly sports column and also do sports features for us. I sent him to profile. That was his idea.
00:27:00
Speaker
like got the green light to send him to profile a star slugger for the Mets. Something I was not inherently inherently interested in, right? Well, Devin went to this photo shoot in some like banquet hall in somewhere deep in Brooklyn. And yeah athletes are not known for being very quotable, right? And that's why a lot of sports, in my view, some sports features are pretty, are pretty dry. And also you don't get much access to athletes a lot of times, but Devin, instead of just like quoting him, he did quote him, but he also just like paraphrased this sluggers quote in a way that i was like a thousand times more interesting than, than the words that would have actually come out of the guy's mouth. If that makes sense. So instead of doing, like yeah instead of doing direct quotes, he was just like, Devin, Devin was just like, I can't remember the hitter's name, whatever it was.
00:27:52
Speaker
He just like paraphrased what he was saying in a way that was so funny and so sharp. Like that's a great move. Like no one says you have to direct quote. Uh, a profile subject like the whole time, right? You can paraphrase and be smart and funny. You you kind of have the license to do that. you You know, obviously you don't want to put words in people's mouth. You don't want to, you don't want to, uh, you know, it was certainly not vint things ever, but that that was really helpful for me when I was writing my book about law, you know, my book valley so low it's.
00:28:21
Speaker
It's a law book. Well, I, there's a lot of like long ass depositions in court trials. I had to summarize very succinctly. I realized, oh yeah, I don't have to like direct quote. I can just like paraphrase the general idea of what these 10 pages of documents tell me and a couple, like few kind of quick, I'm not gonna say fun sentences, but I can, I can kind of distill that down and kind of say it in a way that's kind of sharp and fun. So I guess I kind of used, you know, Devin,
00:28:50
Speaker
Devon kind of influences in a small way in that regards I'm trying to think what else I mean, I think I For you. It was John Bennett. He was a long time, New York I did not work with him because longtime New Yorker features editor I read some tips that he gave maybe as an interview or something It went along the lines of like this tell the story from start to finish like don't don't be too flashy Just like give it there. Give it the reader give the reader the story straight you simple clear language and just trust that you have a good story. And i've got I've tried to basically follow that advice. I know in my many, many, many, many rewrites and revisions of this biography I have coming out, like my early on, I had far too many quotes pulled out from whatever sources I am.
00:29:41
Speaker
Called any of my editor who's just been so committed like I won the lottery with my editor and I'll break my heart to never work with him again I hope I'll be able to but that's not never a guarantee um but he did say he's like listen this thing like you can put this in your own words and you still cite it where you got the information from but you don't have to use them you can like the reader needs you to tell them what's important in there you need to have you need to be in the driver's seat and so by you paraphrasing certain things that means the one when you do actually quote someone it really stands out that degree of agency and authority is on the writer instead of outsourcing all the the quoted material to other people like you take on the agency of that information and that was really
00:30:30
Speaker
That was such a valuable lesson I learned in just the writing of my own book from, you know, just a few months ago.
Investigative Process in 'Valley Solo'
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually a great point. So, um my I have a great agent, Elise Cheney, and ah she has, I guess her sub-agent, Alice, we were going over my book proposal. I had a very similar thing where I was i was ah probably over-quoting the subject of my book, and I wanted my book to read like a
00:31:12
Speaker
my book. I only quote characters when they're like talking to each other in scene, right? Like I don't have any reaction quotes. Really? I can think of, I don't have quotes that move the narrative forward. It's only like in scene. And I, I think that's given, I like to think that that helps my book feel more like a, a novel because that's how novelists treat, you know, treat their, their quotes. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, it would be so weird in a novel to be like, here's the scene. And then here's someone who's just like, the this is how I felt about this particular scene. Yeah, exactly. yeah Yeah, it makes no sense in fiction. So yeah, when you're doing narrative nonfiction, in the best the best narrative nonfiction reads like reads like fiction. And so yeah, you have to have you have to have the confidence to narrate the story yourself and then
00:32:06
Speaker
which means a lot of your reporting a lot of maybe even a lot of interviews that they don't are and they're not necessarily attributed even if they might be cited because it's all there for information so it might not be so and so said it's just like the essence of what they said is there based on your reporting but it's not a direct quote exactly exactly and a lot of a lot of young writers don't always realize that especially if you get your start as a news background whether it's a you know online or like an actual real newspaper, which I know there are few and far between of those. You know, those are quote heavy, ah those are quote heavy operations, right? You're trying to scramble to get stories up. You rely heavily on quotes, but yeah, with long-form feature writing, whether it's book or you know for a magazine, yeah, try to pull back a little bit and only use the absolute quotes that are just,
00:32:56
Speaker
perfect, that just you have to have in there. ah Taffy Brudesser-Ackner does a great job of this too. yeah She has these long, long celebrity profiles, but she doesn't really quote her sort of subjects that often, but the quotes that are in there are like the are like like the chef's kiss quotes, the the absolute perfect quotes. Taffy's a master in a lot of ways, but she's definitely a master of that too.
00:33:18
Speaker
Nice, and in the reporting for Valley Solo, as you're you know as the the story you know it comes to you and you really start to lean into it, and you know you're starting to start your reporting and making those phone calls, you know what's always hard, and I think what goes unmentioned a lot, is the the constant almost like salesmanship that you have to have to like two people you want to get information from. and How did you just you know get ah get on the phone or emails in and make that pitch over and over again in a climate where people are very ah very suspicious of journalists and you have to earn their trust over and over and over again? so How did you navigate that? Yes, that's a great question. so just I'll give you a little summary of the book real fast.
00:34:05
Speaker
and In 2008, there was a power plant outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, and they had this 84 acres, six story tall mound of coal ash. And it, which is kind of like a city byproduct of when you, when you burn coal, it produced electricity and it collapsed in the middle of the night, middle of the night and covered 300 acres, 900 men and women from across the country came to help clean this stuff up. We'll jump forward a few years.
00:34:30
Speaker
They start getting really sick. It turns out they weren't given dust masks. Very few of them were given dust masks or respirators when they're on the job site. So my my book follows this attorney Jim Scott. he he's got but subscribing is like a good-hearted knucklehead. He who almost reminds me of like i Huck Finn a little bit, like he means very well but like makes some mistakes but has like a good heart deep down right and he he works in this little office strip mall in Knoxville, Tennessee on a very ugly road and he shows up to meetings wearing white athletic socks and sends emails to opposing counsel like but riddled with typos. He's a great character right so
00:35:10
Speaker
I found the story just by reading what I was in work from mister and all know my job was to i ah to assign stories to to writers to go do right. And there's not just tons and tons of southerners and New York City newsroom. So I tried to pay extra close attention to the south. It's where I'm from, you know, from Nashville. So I saw that there's this big trial around this this disaster and these sick workers. And I was like, there's no like i this is my kind of story. I'm from the state of Tennessee. It's a high-stakes story. TVA is the power company, and that has a really interesting history. It was created as part of the New Deal.
00:35:46
Speaker
kind of like a FDR FDR's brainchild and it did a lot a lot of good to help lift this region out of poverty so there's some cool history that fascinated me so I basically got the lawyers on the phone and they said come on down we'll we'll talk to you and the sick the sick workers my book my book follows some of these workers they were I think naturally inclined to speak with me because they wanted their story to be told. And that's like a good lesson. Like what people, people do, yes, people distrust the media. By the end of the day, if a reporter shows up and you're in a desperate situation, people want to talk and in a lot of cases, in my experience, you know.
00:36:27
Speaker
um but I was listening to an interview somewhere, it was some reporter, he was talking about his boss, his boss asked him to call the families of 9-11 victims, like the day after the attack. And at first he protested, but then he got these people on the phone and to his surprise, his or her, I forget who the reporter was, these families wanted to talk to him and just wanted to keep talking and talking and talking because they wanted their stories told, right? So it can feel it very, incentive I mean, reporting is a very intrusive activity. You're really,
00:36:56
Speaker
There's no other context in life where it's appropriate just to call up some random stranger, but can you tell me about your heartache? But journalism, like you can do that. and It's one of the neat tricks of the of this profession. So these these workers were they wanted to talk to me. They they really did.
00:37:14
Speaker
It helped. I think that I'm from the area. I'm from Tennessee. I went to school in East Tennessee. that I mentioned I worked for FilmStream and that, you know, I think that maybe bought me some points with them, right? I was, yes, I flew down from New York City to report this, but I was also kind of a Tennessee boy at heart. How that opened up to me. um Well, then I should say I got laid off from men's journal when the pandemic hit the whole staff got laid off and I was six, six months old baby at the time. And it was, it was a, it was bleak, bleak times and heard, heard her daycare. I should get hired quickly at Hearst, like right after I had fired from men's journal, but before I could even turn in my like new hire paperwork back to Hearst.
00:37:54
Speaker
they were like, Oh, nevermind. Like this, this pandemic is real, like, nevermind. So um no yeah, that was discouraging. So like, okay, me and my wife, like, okay, we're gonna fly home to Tennessee, stay with family until this blows over. Then we, then we just never left. We're, we're still here. We're not buying a house down the street from my parents.
00:38:13
Speaker
But moving back here, Knoxville is only a couple hours down the highway from me. So I got to go. I was on, I, I kind of accepted my unemployment for a year. I did some small magazine assignments, but I really just reported this book. I said, I'm going to give this COVID year and just report the heck out of it. So I, I called people also interviewed people in person, you know, safely at a safe distance. Yeah. People were very gracious people. One of their stories told people, I appreciate that I was being so diligent and.
00:38:43
Speaker
really trying to get it right. and and so i've That's what I've experienced. if you If you tell a source, I'm just trying to, like I need your help. I'm just trying to get it right. Usually people will talk to you. I never had leave voicemails for sources. people i wanted to ive People I'm cold calling. I always say, Hey, I'm i'm a writer for such and such place. I'm hoping you can help me out with something. Please call me back. Something about, I'm hoping you can help me out with something.
00:39:09
Speaker
Almost always gets people to return your call like people like to help other people So that's what that's one little trick. Yeah There's this they have lawyer for the defense in my book. He did not speak to me so I that was a ride I had to do a ride around basically that so I spent a week on linkedin figuring out people who had had previously worked for this guy. And that's, that's just a numbers game, right? You figure out who worked for them. You, I use fast people search.com, which is just like some public directory. It's, it's a real low budget website, but it's just like a public directory of phone numbers. It's pretty disturbing. What's on like yeah information that's on there. Yeah. And you, so it's just in numbers games, you, you see the numbers are on there. Then you, you just blow through them. I don't do too much research. I just.
00:40:01
Speaker
call people up and say, Hey, I'm trying to find out some information about this person, not good or bad. I'm just curious what it's like to work with this person and what you can tell me. I'm just, I want to get the story right. It's something about that too. When you say, I just want to get the story right. People, I feel like respond pretty positive to that.
00:40:17
Speaker
So if you do that, I think my odds are pretty good. I got maybe one out of five, one out of 10 people would, would, would speak to me about this, about this defense attorney. And I really enjoy the whole process of just like working the phones, I guess, you know, maybe talking old time real reporter or something.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah, I tell you, a few things like will stop me in my tracks than having to make cold calls. i just I hate it. I'll do anything not to do cold calls. I know I have to, and it's just what you got to do. But my god. It's not pleasant. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah, so I've always told myself, I said the scrappy mentality when I move because of like, I didn't go to Ivy league s school. I didn't, I didn't have an internship at Harper's or whatever. I have not worked for like prestige. but I had not really worked for, I did not come up through like prestige publications. Right. And I also know like I'm a good writer. I'm not like, I'm not John Derma Sullivan though. Right.
00:41:13
Speaker
I don't, I, my, my pros are not that on that level of fireworks. So I always told myself, okay, knowing those things, I can, I, I can not work people though. I can, I can out hustle people in my reporting. So I kind of like, I will, I'll be the person who makes all the cold calls because no one else will. So I've tried to tell myself, like do, do the thing that other reporters are not willing to do.
00:41:37
Speaker
And that means working, you know, cold calls and and kind of in leaning into that. And I feel like that's my, if I have a superhero as a, if I have a super power as a writer or reporter, I feel like that's probably it. Just be like, I'm going to just going to grind through this and dig deeper than other people will to make it, make it for my all, all my other deficiencies as a writer and reporter.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's
Organizing Research and Structuring a Book
00:42:00
Speaker
i always that's what I like about having writers on the show that are that might be in their late 50s or 60s, their reporting skills predated email. Oh, sure. And everything. And so they just even if they might be uncomfortable making calls, it's just such a ah muscle memory. It's just like, yeah, this is the job. You just you know pick up the phone and you just call, call, call, call all day long.
00:42:26
Speaker
And that's all they did. like Ian O'Connor, who has a great biography, just came out on Aaron Rodgers. And you hes i mean he interviewed hundreds of people and like ah and wrote the book in like a year's time. It was like deadline biography. I don't know how the hell he did it. And it's just, he has that that reporter mentality. ah and And the thing is, you don't need the pyrotechnics of a John Jeremiah Sullivan if you are great at gathering information. Because once you have great information, the story almost writes itself.
00:42:56
Speaker
That's what I found. Yeah. That's, that's definitely been my experience. And also like, if you're a younger person, it's like two year advantage that no one really calls anymore. Like, so yeah if you're the one person who does make phone calls, man, you're like so far ahead that of other people who are just like waiting to hear back from email. Like I was like the element of, so I guess they have thing about phone calls. Like the element of surprise is kind of on your side and people will.
00:43:18
Speaker
A lot of people won't pick up initially, but if you do my little trick where where you say, hey, I'm running for such and such, can you help me out with something? People call you back a lot of times and you can just kind of spring your questions on them, really. And people will people will be honest with you. They may not talk to you forever, but they may say something.
00:43:35
Speaker
and And what struck me about Valley Solo, also, aside from the physical costs that it took on a lot of the workers who suffered just terrible illnesses as a result of being in and around fly ash and coal ash, was also just the the personal and physical costs that, say, the attorneys underwent the whole time as personal injury lawyers who don't take fees until a settlement is there. And they're working for years and years and years accruing hundreds of thousands of dollars and just incredible cost to their personal lives as well. And you document this really well with Jim Scott and how his life just kind of unraveled throughout this whole case. So just ah to what extent was that just on the forefront of your mind just to show the totality of the cost of this disaster? That's a great question. So I i think this goes back to what your question about what I learned from being an editor. One thing I learned is that you need characters who are
00:44:33
Speaker
at the center of the action and moving the plot forward. And these workers, theyre very you know I go into great detail about their lives and the in the book, but at the end of the day, they worked hard and they got sick. They weren't the really the like the the narrative engines moving the story forward.
00:44:51
Speaker
That's really why I landed on Jim Scott, because he was like kind of the active participant in and moving this law lawsuit forward. and Also, I looked at things like Aaron Brockovich. People love that story. They can't tell you what what the what chemical it was. They made all these people sick in California, but they can and remember Aaron Brockovich. Same thing with ah Civil Action. Great book by Jonathan Harr in a so-so movie with ah John Travolta. But that that lawyer in that book is also compelling. People remember him. John Gershon prints money writing writing law, thriller. So part of me is like people, I know people like these kind of stories, so I'm going to do something similar and hope in doing so I can get them to care about this big disaster.
00:45:33
Speaker
and coal ash, this toxic waste that sickened all these workers. So that was kind of like a near ah what you call a narrative decision from from the beginning. And Jim just ended up being, you know you never really want to be the subject of the book. Because if you're the subject of a book, it means something terribly wrong is has and gone something terribly wrong has happened to you in in most cases. And Jim, God bless him. He had a lot of stuff go wrong.
00:45:59
Speaker
It was, he took the, yeah, he, like as you said, he took this case for no fee took on, on basically he wouldn't get paid unless they won. And he wrecked his whole life. He went through a horrible divorce. He worked way too hard. He ended up having some stress related health issues that ah almost killed him. I don't want to be too specific, but so because it's to give away stuff, but yeah, it's a, it's a brutal, brutal process. How, how these environmental cases are are handled.
00:46:29
Speaker
You know, the the courts have to space, like how would how we decide and better environmental policy in this country is very messed up. The EPA, I think has been undercut by Congress and by the courts, how we handle, how we make environmental policies through lawsuits. And that means people like these sit Kingston workers have to, in many cases, wait decades as they, as they kind of fight to prove that a chemical or or whatever it is has, has harmed them. There's a lot of parallels between the sick workers I write about and also the Exxon Valdez, uh, plaintiffs, you know, big oil spill back in the the late eighties. It's a very similar story. ah Exxon spewed a bunch of oil into this fishery in Alaska, wreck these commercial fishermen's livelihoods, and they had to wait.
00:47:27
Speaker
more than a decade to get any semblance of of recovery of of money for their, for the damage that Exxon caused them. And it's just, it is just a brutal, brutal process. And in with the Exxon Valdez case, I know there's been studies or newspaper reports about how most of those plaintiffs involved in that, in that case, which they wouldn't have, would have stayed away, which, which they would never got involved. I have the suspicion that many of the the Kingston workers I write about my book feel set similarly, you know,
00:47:56
Speaker
they They end up getting some money at the at the very end, spoiler, but in my view, far, far south of what they actually deserve. Well, yeah, what your book painfully illustrates is how these exploitative industries will just, with almost and unlimited resources, can just drag it out until everyone just has to kind of give up and settle to get anything. And then little lesson is learned for the or a little they're not held to as high account as they should and then you know business as usual just just keeps on going on and they'll just drag you out until you give up which is it's just an injustice that is so gross to the people who are on the ground and just used.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, so my my book concentrates on this contractor of TVA called Jacobs Engineering, who I should say disputes like most of my book and takes great issue with my book. So there's that.
00:48:57
Speaker
but they're a publicly traded company. And yeah if you're a publicly traded company, you have to disclose to shareholders lawsuits against you. So in an SEC filing, I found they basically say there's this lawsuit against us, but it will have no material impact on our business or cash flows. So it was something into that effect. Basically meaning like this case doesn't really matter to us. Yes, yes we made hundreds of people sick, workers,
00:49:26
Speaker
Dozens of workers have had died after working on this on this at this disaster site. But at the end of the day, these lawsuits against us don't really matter. So yes, I find it very, very bleak. We feel like we as a country can do can do better from this do better than this. I like to think that we as a country should not tolerate the sort of sort of behavior we should demand more from industry.
00:49:48
Speaker
yeah well in what is Yeah, the reasoning behind not giving the workers the protective equipment is they didn't want the the public to see how disastrous it could be or harmful. It's like if we give our workers masks or hazmat suits, it's going to cause this public uproar. so we're gonna Well, we're going to make these extendable expendable workers. We're going to basically just put them under chemical threat ah just so we can avoid a public outcry, which is all the more tragic. Yeah, that's definitely part of it. I think also part of it was if they gave these workers dust master hazmat suits, they would need more breaks. Tennessee is and very, very hot in the summer, right? So OSHA, the federal agency, worker safety agency,
00:50:34
Speaker
they have They have guidelines of how long you can work in the heat wearing protective equipment. So I think if these workers had protective equipment, they would need more breaks. That was slid up a project down TVA and was under the gun to get all this coal sludge cleaned up fast. So they had a lot of incentive not to give these workers.
00:50:55
Speaker
not to protect them basically. And with respect to the totality of your reporting and the court transcripts and all of that stuff, how did you just keep all that stuff straight? So when it came time to write, you were like, okay, I can kinda i can start to knock this out.
00:51:11
Speaker
That's a great question. I'll never forget. So I'm not a terribly organized person. Knopf asked me to do, yeah, Knopf asked me to do like a, like a desk photo for like their Instagram page. They want me to take a picture of my desk, like what my work and write a little captions about. And I'm like, y'all do not want to see my, like, it is like, I have three jugs of water next to my desk in case there's my water goes out. I have like my, my kids' art projects. I have.
00:51:38
Speaker
I mean, it's just junky. I'm not a terribly organized person, but I had to learn how to be terribly organized for this book's sake, right? I'll never forget where I was. I was with a fellow journalist. I was at the, um, I was at the Trader Joe's on court street in Brooklyn, which any New York person would know it's, uh, uh, we were pushing the groceries down the aisle. I was trying to explain to her, her name is Hannah, Margaret Allen. She's a long time journalist. I was trying to deal with all this material and she's basically here's how you do it. You create it. You create a word doc.
00:52:11
Speaker
for each topic you're going to write about, whether it's, my in my case, it was like getting sick on the job, create a word doc. For each character, create a word doc. um my can't One of my characters is a guy named Ansel, so I create a word doc for him. You kind of go down the line and create one for each subject you know you're going to hit at some point in your reporting, right? I create a word doc and also like a corresponding folder so I could save material. So then as you're reading and you're reading through transcripts, you're reading through research,
00:52:39
Speaker
You basically take the best bits from whatever you find and you drop that into that Word doc whatever on whatever the topic is, right? And you cite your source clearly with the chunk of text that you found. So then then when it comes time to write, in my case, I like i had a had a Word doc about the day this big mountain of sludge basically exploded over the landscape. I like a 50 page dot Word document by that point after years of reporting and research,
00:53:08
Speaker
So when it's time to write, I just pulled up that Word doc and all of my information was in one place. And I basically just wove it together. And I use i use Google Docs. some I know people use the Scrivener or some other things. I would just use footnotes in Google Docs to like for my sources. that And then when I finished those footnotes, I converted them to end notes. So it's those two things really. It's like having long long running documents where I can pull stuff. i can pull stuff from other writing and then using footnotes to kind of keep track of everything.
00:53:40
Speaker
and I think I did a pretty good job of staying, staying organized. It's just a lot of reading. I mean, I haven't read like a real book and I mean, just started like reading real books again, you know, books actually want to read, right? Cause I, every time I've had free opportunity, I'm like, I was reading for these, I took me five years to finish my book. Well, that's five years. Almost every time I had a moment of free reading, I was reading some history book about TVA or some deposition or, or, or some transcripts. So.
Storytelling vs. Factual Reporting
00:54:07
Speaker
It's been nice to read i beautifully written books again, not documents. So ah that's kind of how I did it. And I wrote out of order, totally out of order, which maybe was a mistake.
00:54:19
Speaker
But I, but in my mind, I was like, I'm just going to write the things I'm most excited to write first and try and like give those the space, the intention I need and trust that the reader will also find those sections the most compelling. So there's, I don't get too much away, but there's right before the trial, there's this fiasco that happens to the attorneys that threatens to derail the whole, their whole case, right? It's a near catastrophe. Something that happens to their office.
00:54:45
Speaker
I won't go too much in detail, but that was to me, it was like a very compelling scene. I guess you've got like a set piece scene if you were writing a movie. So I think it's what Hollywood, the Hollywood folks call that, call it. So like, this is a very, very compelling moment. I'm just gonna write this first, cause I think it's fun. That's kind of what I it did. I took the whole book. I think the next scene, well, I had the 7,000 word magazines.
00:55:08
Speaker
an internal story about the case. So I had like i had like the basic structure, I guess, of of the book. But from there, yeah, I was just picking scenes like this is this is compelling, then weaving them together with exposition. And that's kind of how I did it. And just moving pieces around to make it fit and try not to be repetitive and trying to keep the good balance between Scenes and exposition, you know, I what I realized kind of works best is if you do big and listen for me you do bit I did bit some big sweeping Chapters or sections I guess of exposition or like I got it a big history of the Tennessee Valley Authority that runs maybe not big history runs ah six or seven pages and
00:55:51
Speaker
I think it works well to go from these big sweeping overviews to really tight, specific scenes. like I found myself, I think it's easy to kind of plot along in middle ground where you're you're not exactly in scene. You're kind of in scene, how do I say this? There's like this awkward middle ground. I found myself getting stuck in where I was kind of in scene, but kind of not. It's like summarizing things, but nothing was really happening. I felt like the zooming in and zooming back out is really effective for nonfiction books. Zoom into a specific moment, zoom back out,
00:56:20
Speaker
give a big sweeping overview, yeah history or whatever it is, and or character exposition or whatever it is, and zoom back into it to a specific scene. That's why I try to think about that a lot, just to help with pacing and to help with, I don't know, not being boring, right? I just, at the end of the day, I just want to be boring, so I tried to do what whatever I could not to be boring while also conveying what times can be pretty dense information.
00:56:47
Speaker
How did you deal with, you know, the inevitable Dark Knights of the Soul when it came to writing the book or even reporting the book? I didn't have Dark—what do you mean, Dark Knights of the Soul? Like, is this thing gonna be any good?
00:57:00
Speaker
Yeah. and Well, anything that that gave you just anxiety. I have things that keep that wake me up at three in the morning. I'm like, oh, fuck like it. And so ah for for you, that that is different for every person. So I imagine that, you know, there might have been moments of of doubt or or just nerves or anxiety around the around the project. And I mean, if you handle that, if that experience you had that experience, ah how did that manifest?
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I had, that's a great question. So I had two kids, I had two children while I was reporting and writing this. I did not have much spare time to think about feel the feelings of, I mean, I did doubt.
00:57:43
Speaker
But it's also just so under the gun and life was so, I was unemployed for a year. I had one kid in 2019 when I started reporting that I had another kid in 20, another beautiful daughter in 2022, as I was trying to finish my first draft for Knopf. I mean, I treated every spare moment as a, as a gift. I got to sit down and and write. I did not, finishing was the goal.
00:58:08
Speaker
above all, i I guess, if I did, if I did doubt anything, I, yeah, I wanted my pros to be the sparkle and to, and to be readable. I really, I worried about, you know, I listened to Robert Caro interviews and Robert Caro at the power broker and all these big ass LBJ books, right? yeah Yeah. I would hear what he would do to report. and You know, he spent years on each of his books and I think, okay, am I, in my channel in my inner Robert Caro today, i I want to, I want to be Robert Caro in this, in the sense of like,
00:58:39
Speaker
digging deeper than anyone else. Yeah. Have I turned every page? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Have I turned, have I found the rule, have I found that transcript that's really, or that document, I was really gonna like make this book just a little better than it would have been otherwise, or a lot better maybe than it would have been otherwise. So I worried about not being as thorough as I could have been, but all the reviews of the the time and the times that we wrote, they called me a maximalist. So maybe I've actually put too much stuff in. Maybe I should have pulled back it here and there. And it's complimented my reporting. So maybe I could, I don't know.
00:59:17
Speaker
isn't that like the the best thing that you can read it's like you know a reader reading the review is not going to care about that but you as a reporter seem like someone saying like you know the complimenting the reporting it's like yes like that that's the stuff well i was doing yeah yeah as a reporter i'm like okay that's good i guess i got i guess i got the whole story in there yeah i wish it would have made it maybe complimented my stylish prose or whatnot because i feel like i've tried to really Tell I really tried to have some nice instances there at least some vivid and memorable images or scenes or or what-have-you ah But I'll take maximalist. I guess that I guess that's pretty good In terms of good writing he just of the many passages I highlighted, you know this one from early in the book You you how you describe the the disaster itself, you know, you write, you know then shortly before one o'clock the north section of the coal ash dike suddenly and almost wholly collapsed and When it did more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry, about 1500 times the volume of the liquid that flows over Niagara Falls each second broke forth. A black wave at least 50 feet high rushed northward with the power and violence of water punching through a dam.
01:00:25
Speaker
but you You know, that's that's compelling and very kinetic and so yeah I can commend your writing on this in this book and that that little passage right there. Well next time Next time in your New York Times reviews my book. I'm gonna suggest that you do it and and instead of Thank you. Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Yeah, I wanted to I'm not gonna pretend like the most stylish writer but I tried to I tried to try to have some style I kind of, di back to editing, I think one thing that editing has maybe, it maybe has made me a little too conservative with my prose and not as, not as voicey and stylish as I maybe have, maybe I would be otherwise, but it's kind of hard to untrain my brain that way. Anyway, so it goes.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, that it that is tough. and you know on the one you know When you have the editor hat on and you're trying to coach the best possible story out of people and not make the pros distracting, then it's it's hard to then give yourself license and agency to then let it loose as a writer, because you can't totally divorce the two skill sets. Exactly. You just you said it perfectly. I mean, that's why I struggle with it. I really had to think, like ah so but with specific factors,
01:01:42
Speaker
passage, I would say like, okay, this, I'm gonna make this as beautiful as I can. I would really try to slow down and have interesting rhythms or interesting, uh, good alliteration or what have you. So there was some style stylish, I guess, flourishes to the pros. So it was not just, uh, I did not want to read just like a boring newspaper account of the disaster of the lawsuit. So.
Perseverance in Writing Industry
01:02:06
Speaker
ah yeah well Well Jared, this was you know a great conversation just on just the the mechanics of this kind of this kind of work and yeah and the the book, it is a gripping read and it to me it struck me as ah in the in the same vein of horror civil action. I read that 15 years ago or so.
01:02:24
Speaker
and um Yeah, it slots alongside that one perfectly and belongs in that class. So it just I'm just happy that we were in touch, that I got a chance to read this amazing book and celebrate it with you here on the show. So just so thanks for making the time and thanks for the work. Yeah, well dream come true. You've had you've had many of my ah ah hear ah my heroes on this podcast. This is very brainy.
01:02:53
Speaker
Sweet. Awesome. Thanks Jared for coming on the show and for Jessica Camille Aguirre for putting us in touch. She was on episode 104, 104, 401, talking about an out of his story. She wrote and she put us in touch and that's how this happened.
01:03:15
Speaker
Thanks to the Power of Narrative Conference as well for promotional support. Don't be shy about going to combeyond.bu.edu. Use that promo code CNF15 at checkout, say 15%, some good burrito money, or buy some books from the people who are there, or pre-order books. Speaking of that, you could pre-order the front runner, Lincoln's show notes,
01:03:43
Speaker
Pre-orders are, sadly, the name of the game. And if you've been on this journey with me for the past two years or so, this is your chance to get in on that action. If you pre-order five or more for your book club or your reading group, I'll make sure to join you for our virtual meetup. It's the least I could do for you spending hundreds of dollars on a few books. Send that receipt my way and we'll get it on the calendar. We'll figure something out. Pick you swear.
01:04:14
Speaker
I had a way less savory parting shot about something and someone that bugged the hell out of me that I saw online today. But I decided in the off chance that they hear this, but let's be real, they won't. i But I just don't want to chance it. so So instead, I wanted to talk about this notion of being able to stay in the game. you know I'm 20 years into this weird career path and 14 years between books, a dozen years into this podcast.
01:04:44
Speaker
Some people have commented on my ability to grind it out and endure the perseverance of it all, usually with the twinge of like, wow, I can't believe you haven't quit yet, this is kind of sad. In fact, I tried quitting and it didn't stick. I've had so many meanie old day jobs over the last,
01:05:01
Speaker
15 years or so ever, you know, yeah ah even like since my last staff reporter job, you know, fired from it from getting mouthy with the publisher, his name was Michael Sullivan and fuck that guy. Seriously, fuck that guy.
01:05:18
Speaker
But what really kept me in the game was a dogged dedication to this podcast and this podcast community and more so my wife bringing in a steady paycheck. Her bringing in the health insurance and us not having children. Like that's pretty much the only reason that I'm not, that I haven't pivoted to something, let's just say not.
01:05:40
Speaker
what I'm doing now. That's the only reason. The podcast makes 600 bucks a year from generous patrons, but that's 12 months, 50 some odd episodes. How do you do the math?
01:05:55
Speaker
But sticking with the podcast led to $150,000 book advance, of which I've received, after commissions and taxes, $36,000 nearly two years ago. And then I paid this year about $8,000 of estimated taxes on no income. So you do the math. ah But I'm able to stay in the game to achieve this dream only because of my wife's job, which is killing her.
01:06:24
Speaker
I deserve absolutely, and I mean this, like zero credit. I got lucky. I wonder how many talented people are out there who aren't up to their neck in privilege who've just had to give up for logistics. Anyway, kind of a short parting shot, but I'm just thinking about those people and how I wish They weren't ripped from the game, you know? And yet I've been able to play it. And still are am playing it. For how long? I don't know. But at least I'm in it for now. So stay wild, CNFers. Stay in the game. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.