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Episode 362: Svati Kirsten Narula
1.1k Plays2 years ago
Svati Kirsten Narula (@svatikirsten) is an editor and journalist whose "A Mountain Called Her Home" is a wonderful feature that ran in Outside Magazine about the life and death of Nanda Devi Unsoeld.
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Social: @CNFPod
Substack: rageagainstthealgorithm.substack.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, here's my requisite shout out to Athletic Brewing, my favorite non-alcoholic beer out there. Not a paid plug, but I am a brand ambassador, and I want to celebrate what I consider an amazing product, and a great way to keep the good times rolling without getting too hammered.
00:00:15
Speaker
If you head to athleticbrewing.com, use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout. You have a nice little discount on your first order. I don't get any money, and they are not an official sponsor of the podcast. I just get a few points towards swag and beer. Give it a shot. Try the Athletic Light or the Free Wave. They're my personal favorites right now. The actual writing process is terrible. I mean, I do not enjoy writing. I don't understand people who say that writing is fun. I don't find it fun.
00:00:46
Speaker
Oh hey CNFers, it's CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast, the show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Meara, how's it going? Hey, thanks for all the podcast birthday wishes I got this past week.
00:01:01
Speaker
that I got primarily from Instagram, but also some on Twitter. Very nice of you to do that. I'm glad you got to get some birthday cake, cone hat, some party favors. It was a good time. It's nice to know that the show means something to you out there. And I hope this podcast
Switch to Zencastr
00:01:26
Speaker
finds you well. I switched hosting, which is always a terrifying moment.
00:01:31
Speaker
I'm told it won't interrupt how you receive it in whatever podcast app you use but there could be an issue and if there is I'll work on it with the new host and get it up and running so it's seamless so you still get the juice every Friday so I'm using Zencaster now they're looking to do hosting and they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse
00:01:55
Speaker
They come to me free hosting and it has great analytics and in such and good recording interfaces and the potential to do some video stuff. I'm sort of one of those podcasters who's against video but you never know you might have to get with the times, am I right? I've used them for calls for years and I always love how they go about calls and the audio is really nice
00:02:23
Speaker
But now I don't have to pay for hosting. And that's $20 a month in my pocket. The interface and the embed player aren't quite as pretty yet, and not as flexible and customizable as it was with Libsyn. But right now, small price to pay. And since I'm something of an early adopter, they might listen to my input and make things better. Maybe, who knows.
00:02:51
Speaker
They also want to help grow the show and monetize it, which helps both of us. If ads start to populate the show in any capacity, that might sweeten the pot for Patreon, as I'd make sure to include ad-free episodes over there so you don't have to listen to me blather on about, I don't know, athletic greens. Though I would try to veto athletic greens.
00:03:14
Speaker
I don't think it matters to this show. I don't have like a million followers where there's a swath who would probably get some juice from Athletic Greens.
00:03:23
Speaker
Nothing against athletic rings, but there's a writing podcast, not like a human performance one.
Introducing Svadhi Kirsten Narula
00:03:29
Speaker
Anyway, Svadi Kirsten Narula is here. She had a great feature a few weeks ago in Outside Magazine about the death of Nanda Devi Unseld, the daughter of legendary alpinist Willy Unseld. She passed in 1976, and Svadi had been working on this feature for about 10 years.
00:03:50
Speaker
It started as a project for a course she took with the writer, Jeff Charlotte, while she was at Dartmouth College as an undergrad. She stuck with it over the years, and what came of it is a wonderful tribute to a beast of an athlete.
00:04:06
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We talk about why it's important to tell these stories, to keep these stories alive, even when it feels like all it's doing is causing pain for the survivors or family members or friends of the dearly departed, if you will.
00:04:22
Speaker
Spoddy is the digital editor of Dartmouth Alumni magazine, a contributing editor for Outside, and a former fellow at The Atlantic, where she really kind of cut her teeth and maybe was a bit spoiled by the atmosphere there as a young budding journo.
00:04:39
Speaker
Make sure you're heading over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. It's now moving to Substack. April 1st will be the first dispatch going from Substack. Just click the lightning bolt on my website or visit RageAgainstTheAlgorithm.Substack.com. Still, first of the month, no spam, can't beat it. And if you take the show, consider sharing it with your networks so we can grow the pie and get this CNFing thing into the brains of other CNFers.
00:05:09
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who need the juice. Don't we all need the juice? You can also leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts so the wayward CNF'er might say, shit, I'll give that a shot. Also, show's free, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. So, if you have a few bucks at your disposal, consider heading to patreon.com slash cnfpod and consider dropping a few bucks into the hat if you glean some value from what we churn and burn here at CNF Pod HQ.
Svadhi's College Reflections
00:05:36
Speaker
That
00:05:37
Speaker
so far as I can tell, is enough housekeeping. So let's get after it. Here is Svete Kirsten Narua.
00:05:58
Speaker
Oh, definitely. And there's so much I didn't know. I mean, I think I would love to go back and do college all over again. And I actually I have too many stress dreams about this. Like I have a lot. I had one just last week, again, where I was like, am I gonna get into Dartmouth? Am I gonna get into Yale, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then I have other stress dreams where
00:06:17
Speaker
I've finally gotten into Yale or I've gotten into Dartmouth again and I'm like going and about to start freshman year but I'm doing it as someone who already went to Dartmouth and has a bachelor's degree and I'm going for my second bachelor's degree and somewhere like during that first day I'm like wait a minute.
00:06:35
Speaker
Who's paying for this? And wait a minute. No one needs two bachelor's degrees. I can't be here. What's going on? But I have the stream a lot. And I think it's because I have this desire to like redo college and make different choices. Yeah. What what might some of those choices be? Is it more regret or just like you've ran out of time to exercise certain things that you wanted to do?
00:07:02
Speaker
gets a little bit of regret, honestly, I think, you know, if I could go back, I would major in something different, and make better relationships with professors and just have more options open to me. I mean, I think things have worked out pretty well. And I'm happy with where I am, you know, in career and
00:07:20
Speaker
in my career and in my life, there's just a lot that I should have taken advantage of that I didn't because I didn't know any better. You know, I didn't know that it's better to get a 4.0 in like a major that nobody cares about. Like being a 4.0 English major is a lot better than being like a 3.0 economics major, even if economics seems like it's going to lead to better jobs than majoring in English. Do you know what I mean?
00:07:46
Speaker
And I didn't know that then. And my dad didn't know that either. And my dad cared a lot about what I majored in. And I just wish I could go back and change that or maybe have made better connections socially, maybe joined a sorority, which is something I didn't do. All sorts of things. And now the poor kids that I interview who are applying to Dartmouth, I'm like an admissions interviewer person, they hear about all my regrets. And I'm like, make sure that you just do these things and don't do what I did.
00:08:17
Speaker
Anyway, I could talk about it. What did you end up majoring in?
Choosing Journalism Over Law
00:08:22
Speaker
I majored in government because I convinced my dad that I was going to go and I convinced myself. I mean, I did want to be a lawyer and I was interested in going to law school. The thing that my dad didn't know and that I also didn't really know but should have known is that it doesn't matter what you major in. You can go to law school.
00:08:41
Speaker
with any major. They don't care. But my dad was like, no, you have to major in something practical. And I convinced him that government was practical because it meant I was going to go to law school. But I really do think if I'd majored in English, my grades would have been stronger. And I think I would have had more opportunities post-graduation with better grades and maybe better relationships with professors than in the government department.
00:09:08
Speaker
What was the conversation like with your dad when you opted not to go to law school, assuming you didn't go? Yeah, he didn't mind that because I got really, really lucky as a senior in college where I landed an editorial fellowship at the Atlantic.
00:09:24
Speaker
as a senior so that was my first job out of college and my dad was really proud of that you know because the Atlantic is such a prestigious place and he was like okay well if you're not going to law school at least you're working at one of the best magazines and you're going to be successful in journalism you know that was just luck though I mean truly that was a that was a lucky break for me and then it sort of made it like once you've worked at the Atlantic you really do have your foot in the door in journalism in a really great way and it's sort of like okay well
00:09:54
Speaker
Now I'm stuck. I'm definitely a journalist. So that's how that happened. What were some key lessons or even growing pains you got once you arrived at the Atlantic and saw how the sausage was getting made?
00:10:09
Speaker
I don't know if there were growing pains there. I mean, I had a really fantastic year in my fellowship. It was really, it was the best job I could have had out of college but in some ways it was the worst one because it set me up to be really disappointed at all the other publications I worked at after.
00:10:28
Speaker
Because when I was at the Atlantic, I was on the online team. So I was working for an editor who edited a particular section of their website. But I worked with all the other editors on their website and they were all really open to pitches for me.
00:10:45
Speaker
Um, and so I ended up writing for, you know, their politics section and their entertainment section and their science section and all these different things. Um, and every editor I worked with was so smart. Everything just made sense the way they did it. I mean, from the fact, like the way the morning meetings went and the way everyone went around and talked about what they were planning on publishing that day to the way pitches were discussed to the way my stories were edited to
00:11:13
Speaker
you know the way fact checking was done on the print magazine which I only got to like see a little bit of because some of my fellow editorial fellows were working on that. Everything made sense and was rigorous and was smart and I was like you know I was so proud to work there and everything that I saw I thought was really brilliant.
00:11:34
Speaker
That became a problem when I moved on, and I worked at Quartz for several years, which was a bit more of a startup atmosphere. It was related to the Atlantic. They had the same owner at the time, but Quartz did things differently. I unfortunately was that really annoying 23-year-old at the beginning who was like, well, at the Atlantic, we did it this way, which didn't make me super popular. It was just a different experience there.
00:12:02
Speaker
In my mind, a lot more mistakes being made, but also there was a lot more experimentation. I just missed the Atlantic. And then of course, even when I went to work at outside and I joined the outside staff where I was for a couple of years, you know, nothing compared to how they did it at the Atlantic. So yeah, I didn't really like, I don't know about growing pains. It just sort of set me up for disappointment for the rest of my career.
00:12:26
Speaker
Maybe I'm being a little too honest. I love outside, I love courts, but there's nothing like the Atlantic. And when the editors were open to pitches while you were at the Atlantic, what did you learn about the fundamentals of pitching an idea and a story? Let's see. This is really, that year at the Atlantic is really the only time in my career I've pitched anything.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I think what I've learned overall is just it's so easy to pitch when you're on staff versus being outside I mean I I also when I was on staff there I fielded the pitch inbox like the slush pile Email inbox that we had from like, you know anyone who was outside the organization could pitch I learned that connections mean a lot, you know if they have
00:13:15
Speaker
an idea of your track record and how you write. They are a lot more willing to consider what you have to say. You can be a lot more spitball-y when you're within the organization. If you're coming with a pitch and you're outside the organization and you don't know who you're pitching to,
00:13:30
Speaker
You can't be spitball-y, you know? You have to be really thoroughly prepared and sort of lay out all of your ammo in that email or in that pitch. I think it's really hard. I don't think I've ever done it. Like I've never pitched, I've never successfully pitched an outlet that I am not already a part of. I think it's really, really difficult.
00:13:54
Speaker
That's one of the hard lessons I think everybody starts to learn is that it is kind of a who you know kind of business too to get yourself at least up the chain, higher in the slush pile. You'd like to think that you can just solely do it on your merits and that you're going to be discovered like this little diamond in the rough of the slush pile, but so often it's like
00:14:17
Speaker
Who knows like maybe yours is in the bottom quarter of that pile and by the time anybody gets to that their eyes are bleeding and they don't even care anymore and it's like it's it's it can be it can be really dispiriting it but then the longer you stick with it you kind of make a friend here and there and they can they show you kind of show you the way and it's it can be really dispiriting but it's yes one of those things where you just kind of have to persevere
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And it does happen. I mean, I did see it happen sometimes where something would get picked out of the slush pile and they'd be like, Oh, this is a really good pitch. Okay, we don't know this writer, but they've written for the Washington Post and that looks like decent work and okay, you know, we're gonna take a chance on this and then something great would happen, right? But it is just so relationship dependent.
00:15:04
Speaker
And what I've learned over the last few years of my career since then is just being someone that people like working with is almost more important than having good ideas because all of my freelance work comes from editors having ideas on their own and sending them to me and being like, hey, here's an idea. Can you execute it for me?
00:15:23
Speaker
And that's just a really nice way to work. I can, you know, probably I can only afford to do that because I have full time jobs and I'm not a full time freelancer. Not probably, definitely. Right. If I was a full time freelancer, I would have to get better at pitching and I would have to deal with that.
00:15:39
Speaker
Um, but I, I know too, when I'm an editor, uh, sometimes as an editor, it's a lot nicer to come up with a story idea on your own and then reach out to a writer who you know can handle it rather than putting out a pitch call and then dealing with pitches because so many pitches are just, they're not focused or it's a great idea, but you don't know, you don't have any proof that the writer can pull it off, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So.
00:16:07
Speaker
What are the day jobs or day jobs you have that you're able to thread around your freelancing and not rely on that solely? Yeah, so I'm a full-time editor at Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, which is actually where I had my very first job in journalism, which is funny. When I was a senior at Dartmouth, I had an internship
00:16:28
Speaker
at the alumni magazine. And this was when I was just starting to think I might want to work in the magazine world. And it was great. And my boss there was great, taught me a lot. I think he gave me the recommendation that helped me get the job at the Atlantic. And then a few years ago, they were looking for someone. And I thought Dartmouth alumni magazine is a great place to work. I like my boss. He's still there. It's been great.
00:16:56
Speaker
People, yeah, people sometimes when they hear that I work there are not super impressed and it doesn't feel as good as telling someone I work at outside, right? Because, you know, you think that an alumni magazine is smaller league than national magazines, but I'm really proud of the work that we do. And yeah, it's a stable full-time job. So it's pretty good.
00:17:18
Speaker
So I understand that Jeff Charlotte played some sort of a role in this great feature that you wrote for Outside that came out recently.
The Nanda Devi Unseld Feature
00:17:27
Speaker
So tell me a little bit about the backstory of your piece here that we're about to talk about. Sure. So I said that I wish I had majored in English in college. And the truth is I only took one English class in college. And it was the spring of my junior year
00:17:46
Speaker
And it was taught by Jeff Charlotte. I think it was called Raising the Dead, and it was a creative nonfiction class. I had heard for a while from other people that Jeff Charlotte was this great professor. And if you can take a class with him, you should take it. And I don't remember the English department offering that many creative nonfiction classes, but at the time I had just started getting like
00:18:09
Speaker
I was procrastinating on my schoolwork a lot by reading long form magazine articles. I was just spending a lot of time reading old outside articles and old GQ and Vanity Fair articles and starting to think like, wow, being a long form magazine writer seems pretty incredible.
00:18:27
Speaker
So this class was kind of the closest I could get to that. And it was called Raising the Dead, so we were learning how to write about dead people. And he gave us an assignment that was to find an old photograph and write a thousand words about it.
00:18:45
Speaker
And at this time, as a junior in college, I was also starting to think, hey, Outside Magazine is like my ideal magazine to write for. What if I try and find an outdoorsy photograph and write something that would be kind of in the realm of what Outside Magazine would do?
00:19:02
Speaker
And I remembered my mom telling me about this mountain climber named Willie Unsold, who was one of the first Americans to climb Mount Everest. He directed the Peace Corps in Nepal in the 1960s, which was also when my mom lived in Nepal for a couple of years with her parents because they worked for the State Department. And so my mom, as a little girl, had crossed paths with Willie Unsold.
00:19:26
Speaker
and she had seen his jar of toes because he lost nine toes to frostbite on Mount Everest and then he kept those toes in a jar with formaldehyde ever after and apparently he liked showing those to people at dinner parties. So my mom had told me this story and I thought that my mom had had a picture of him somewhere.
00:19:48
Speaker
You know, I thought from like a family picnic or something in Nepal, my mom had a picture of Willie Unsold. So I thought, Willie Unsold doesn't seem to be a well-known guy. Maybe I can find this picture that my mom has of him and I can write a thousand words about him.
00:20:04
Speaker
And so I called my mom and my mom didn't have any pictures of him. She's like, yeah, yeah, Willie Unsold's great, but I don't have any pictures. So then I just went to Google and I thought, all right, we're allowed. It doesn't need to be a personal picture. We're allowed to use any picture for this assignment. So I went online to find pictures of Willie Unsold.
00:20:22
Speaker
And one thing that caught my eye was a picture that actually is in this story. If you read my story and outside, there's a picture of Willie and his daughter, Debbie, and it's this beautiful black and white portrait of the two of them. And I think it's in the University of Washington Special Collections Library. And I saw that picture and I was like, wow, who is this, you know, next to Willie? And the caption really explains it all. The caption on, if you find that picture online, the caption tells you this is
00:20:52
Speaker
Willy Unsouled and his daughter Nanda Devi Unsouled and this is March of 1976 and a few months later they went to climb the mountain she was named after and then she died and I was like whoa what? And in this picture of Devi you know she's just like got this beautiful smile. I don't know if it's a cliche to say that she looks radiant but she really looked radiant
00:21:17
Speaker
She had this long blonde hair that kind of reminded me of how my mom looked when she was that age. And she's very much an American girl, but she had this Indian name, right? And I was like, wow, like it's so cool that there's like, you know, this all American looking person with an Indian name. Because that's something that, you know, I'm half American and I'm half Indian and growing up with an Indian name.
00:21:39
Speaker
Like I told you earlier, that's been hard for me. I have not forgiven my parents for my name. I spent many years wanting to be named Samantha. So it was just cool to see this person who looked very confident and had that kind of unique name, but was so clearly American.
00:21:58
Speaker
And obviously the fact that she went and climbed the mountain she was named after and then died was intriguing and I'd never heard of that. And so I started to do some research about it and that ended up being my 1000 word assignment for this class was just writing a thousand words about Willie and Devi and how they went on an expedition together to climb her mountain and she died.
00:22:23
Speaker
Um, this was in June of 2012 or no, the class ended in June of 2012. I think this was probably in March of 2012 when we had that assignment. But then later in the semester, uh, professor Charlotte asked us to take one of our short assignments we had done and turn it into something bigger. So I chose that one and I expanded it into like a 3000 word story.
00:22:47
Speaker
And I started contacting people who had actually been on the expedition where she died. And it turned out that one of them lived in Hanover, New Hampshire and was also a Dartmouth alum. So I was able to actually meet with him at the town library and talk to him about this and use that for my longer piece. And I just really got sucked into it. And I think what I wrote in the end and turned in, you know, in my mind at the time, it was something that was like fit to be published by outside.
00:23:15
Speaker
Um, which was my goal. You know, that was a dream. I was like, how cool would it be if I grew up and got to be a writer for outside magazine? As far as what happened between then and then getting the story actually published, I mean, I sort of thought that was the end of it and I, I moved on and, you know, went into my journalism career, but kept that in the back of my mind. The thing that's interesting about this story is like, I'm not the first person to write about it at all.
00:23:42
Speaker
The long story that I wrote for Jeff Charlotte's class leaned heavily on two books as sources. There was a book that a man named John Raskelli wrote, and John Raskelli was actually a member of the expedition, and then he wrote a whole book about the expedition that was published in 1987, so 11 years after the expedition. I leaned on that really heavily, and then there was another book
00:24:10
Speaker
that was a biography of William Zold that got in depth. And that was called Fatal Mountaineer by Robert Roper. Both of those books had a lot of good info and details that I sort of, you know, referenced to write my story.
00:24:26
Speaker
And I think because of that, I didn't think it was actually something that could turn into a magazine article because you can't write a magazine article just by paraphrasing other people's books. Yeah, just regurgitating what's already been said. Yeah, you can't do that.
00:24:44
Speaker
You know, what I wrote for that class had a little bit of something new to it because I had called Debbie's mother, Jolene, and I had gotten a quote from her. And I talked to Andy who had been on the expedition and had actually fallen in love with her and was engaged to her. And I've gotten to know him and I got his side of the story and I put that in there a little bit, but it just wasn't, it wasn't a lot. So I didn't really think it could ever be
00:25:09
Speaker
a real magazine story. But then when I was on staff at Outside, I joined Outside in 2017 as a social media editor. And in 2018, I actually realized, you know what? Debbie's family is still out there. You know, her brothers are still alive, her sister's still alive, her mom's still alive. And I realized that, you know, when it comes to this story, their voices had really not been heard.
00:25:37
Speaker
And I thought it was just kind of like, I didn't expect the pitch to really go anywhere. And like I said, I'm not experienced at pitching. I don't, I don't pitch stories. I'd never really, I had pitched a feature once before in my career, but this was not something I was used to doing, but it was easy because I was on staff and I was going to be in the pitch meeting anyway. Right. We had a features meeting every month.
00:26:00
Speaker
at outside and I thought, you know what, why don't I just like excerpt some of this stuff that I wrote for this college paper and why don't I make a proposal that I go travel to Olympia, Washington where the Unsold family lives and see if outside wants me to go interview Debbie's surviving family members and try and put kind of a new spin on this and like freshen it up and retell the story, but do it more as like a profile of Debbie.
00:26:27
Speaker
And the reason that I was thinking that way was because what I had always wondered ever since I learned about this story and, you know, the two books that I had read and everyone I had talked to, it just felt like Devi was this unrealistic person. Like, it didn't seem like anyone could actually be that cheerful and that radiant and that lovely. And I think now in hindsight, you know, people are reluctant to talk about a dead person in any other way.
00:26:58
Speaker
But I still thought maybe I could get some more depth. Maybe I could learn a little bit more about her and what she was really like and what she wanted to do with her life and things like that. It didn't seem like there was a really good, clear picture of who she was as a person and anything I had read. So that was kind of the angle that I proposed.
00:27:18
Speaker
And to my surprise, you know, the editor-in-chief of Outside and all the other editors in the room that day were like, yeah, this is a great pitch. Go for it. Do it. It was really exciting. I remember some people, you know, on staff giving me like high fives after that pitch meeting. And I was like, wow, like, I'm gonna write a feature for Outside and it's gonna be about this. Like, this story that I've been thinking about for years and, you know, it's just, you know, it gave me shivers.
00:27:46
Speaker
And I you know had time and Expenses paid for me to travel to Olympia meet with the unsold family and talk to them that was interesting because they Have how do I say this? I think
00:28:04
Speaker
Since Debbie's death, the Unsold family has really been hounded by journalists and not just journalists but storytellers of all stripes because their family is so interesting and this in particular, this event
00:28:19
Speaker
was so dramatic that Robert Redford wanted to make a movie about Willie and they wanted to have this play heavily into it. All the books that were written about Willie had this event heavily emphasized. And I think the unsold were just a little bit...
00:28:34
Speaker
You know, they had been burned in the past. Yeah. So getting them to talk to me felt like a big win. I think part of the reason they agreed to talk to me was because I showed up clutching this flyer that they had sent out to their close friends and family after Debbie's death.
00:28:54
Speaker
And it was this lovely memorial flyer that I referenced in the story. And they had sent it to my grandparents because they had known my grandparents all those years ago in Nepal. And I think me showing up and being like, hey, like you knew my grandparents.
00:29:09
Speaker
I'm holding this, you know, these beautiful pictures of Debbie. I just want to know about Debbie. I think that made them willing to talk to me. They still, I don't think they opened up to me or trusted me, but they let me into their home and they talked to me for several days and gave me some more info about Debbie's childhood that I really appreciated and was able to bring into the story.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah, getting that access given that they had been burned in the past is really, really tricky. And so you attribute that that you had this flyer and then that gave you a leg up against anybody else who's trying to in some way benefit from telling that story. I think so. I wonder too if it helps that I was a young woman and not like
00:29:58
Speaker
a man in his 40s and that's traditionally been the identity of people who've been writing about this. I don't think they've had many young women come to them wanting to write about it. What sucks is they still felt burned by this. I did not want that to happen, but I've since heard from Debbie's sister and she's very upset about the story.
00:30:21
Speaker
other people who are in the story are very upset about it. And I think that's been hard. That's been sad. I understand why. I mean, I think there's a lot I can say about why everyone who's in the story is upset about it. I hate it when that happens. And I think, for me, something that has guided me as a journalist my whole career is, you know, if the people you're writing about
00:30:43
Speaker
tell you when they see the story like, yeah, you got this right. That's the highest compliment you can get. I'm used to getting that feedback from scientists. One of the most rewarding parts of my career has been science writing and getting a scientist to say, yeah, you explained this to the public in exactly the right way. That's wonderful.
00:31:04
Speaker
But I also realize that if you're writing about people in power, you know, who need to be held accountable for their actions, you can't expect them to love what you write. And I also think sometimes when you're writing about private individuals and their private lives,
00:31:19
Speaker
They're not going to be happy, not necessarily because you did anything wrong, but rather because all of us as humans, we don't see ourselves clearly. And so the journalist's job is to write about you as they see you. And that's never going to look like what you see when you look in the mirror, you know? And I think that can be really hard. And I think that can be upsetting for people, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the journalist did anything wrong. Does that make sense?
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what were some things that they took issue with?
Challenges in Story Representation
00:31:55
Speaker
So John Raskelli, who's in the story, was upset because he thought the story painted him as a misogynist. That was the feedback I got from him. I don't think the story did that at all. I think that is an accusation that has been leveled at him by other people over the years, and maybe he's so used to hearing it that it was all he could see in my story.
00:32:19
Speaker
I'm curious what you thought, because you read it and you know who I'm talking about. How do you think he came off? Let's see. It's been a little while since I read it. Was he the one who did not like the idea of women coming along on a mountaineering expedition? But we didn't say.
00:32:44
Speaker
I mean, I didn't say in the story that he thought women couldn't climb or anything like that. He had a very specific reason for not wanting a specific woman, Marty, to be on this expedition. And it was because she was in a relationship or had been in a relationship with someone else who was supposed to come. And he thought their emotions were going to be all muddled. That's what he said. And that's what I wrote.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. To me, he did kind of come off a little bit, but I understood the logic in a sense that in what you're saying that because of the couple dynamic could throw into danger the expedition, which is very, obviously just very inherently dangerous.
00:33:34
Speaker
So I can see where he's coming from, but I also see what you're saying too. And I think, you know, you can take that fact, right, which we checked with him and which we know to be pretty true, that he felt this way about it endangering the expedition. And you can read into it however you want. Like, I think there are readers who saw that and thought, oh my God, what a misogynist.
00:33:57
Speaker
but i think that's a matter of debate and that's definitely not something i wrote you know and so for him to say like oh you're you know you painted me this way i don't know i wasn't but you know i i feel bad about that i feel bad if he's regretting
00:34:13
Speaker
being interviewed by me, you know, I couldn't have written the story without him agreeing to an interview and he provided the photos for the story too. So it wouldn't have been possible without him. And I think, you know, we have a crisis in journalism right now around the world of people not trusting journalists and you
00:34:33
Speaker
interview someone for a story, if they cooperate with you, and then when that story comes out, if they feel betrayed in some way, I think that's really bad for everyone. And so I mean, I think it was unavoidable in this case, but I feel bad about it. And then if you look at Debbie's family, the person I've heard from is her sister, who told me that her takeaway from my story was that women don't belong on Mountaineering expeditions.
00:34:57
Speaker
Uh, which really surprised me and is not my takeaway at all and was not something that I, uh, implied or I thought anyone implied, but I didn't get that at all either. But I think, I think that's colored by her, you know, as Debbie's sister, she has been living with this story.
00:35:15
Speaker
for decades. And she and her whole family, I think, have endured judgment from people and rumors from people and all sorts of stuff that has made them feel like, okay, everyone looks at the story this way.
00:35:29
Speaker
And I think that really colored her perception of what was actually written. I don't think she looked at what was on the page and took it as it was. I think she interpreted it with that lens of, okay, this was written by someone who's attacking me and my family because that's all that it's ever been.
00:35:47
Speaker
The way you profiled, Devi, I found her to be an incredibly skilled mountaineer, someone who was almost born to do this, and she just got sick. Yeah. That's it. It sucks, but she just got sick and she died up there. Yeah, and it wasn't anyone's fault, and I don't think it makes anyone look bad. I don't think she did anything wrong. I don't think her father did anything wrong.
00:36:15
Speaker
I think maybe people who are very close to this are so used to other people looking at it and trying to point fingers that that was all they could see. So. But. Right. And I can see how like maybe if you view it through the wrong prism or the wrong lens, you might be like, oh, this is like cautionary tale. Women should not be mountaineering or or her father was reckless. Why would you take your young daughter up this very dangerous mountain that hasn't really been summited from
00:36:43
Speaker
you know, a particular path or whatever. And so it's like, I can see, I can understand where people might be coming from, but as someone totally detached from either camp that might view it a certain way, I saw it for what it is, which I thought you told a wonderful story. And I thought you gave Devi a tremendous amount of respect. And really, there's no one in this story that I would blame or find unlikable. I thought it was handled extremely well.
00:37:11
Speaker
Thank you so much. I mean, that was the goal, right? But I think, I think it's really important to acknowledge that it caused pain to these people. And I do feel bad about that. And I think also now some of them are asking, well, why did you have to write it anyway? And I think that's a valid question too, right? Because this wasn't like some amazing piece of investigative journalism that's going to affect anyone's life, really.
00:37:36
Speaker
But something I've been thinking about is, you know, why is it valuable to tell people that Debbie existed? Not just Debbie, but Willie, right? Why is it valuable to know that they existed and that they did this and that this is how it turned out? And for me, the thing that just keeps coming back to me is like this documentary called Free Solo. Did you see that movie?
00:37:57
Speaker
Okay. So for me, what I hope people get from this story is kind of what I got from Free Solo, which is like, Oh my God, it is invigorating to know that there are people on this planet who do these things. You know, like that's how I feel about Alex Honnold. I would never in a million years try and climb anything without a rope.
00:38:16
Speaker
Right? That's not me. I think what he's doing, you know, and people judged him and his life very harshly after that movie came out. But that movie was really inspiring to me. And I think invigorating is the big word. Like, for me, it makes me feel more alive to know about other people who are taking risks and doing things that I wouldn't do.
00:38:38
Speaker
and are just different from me. And Debbie was one of those people. I mean, Debbie took risks and Debbie was brave and really different from me. You know, I'm the type of person who would not be able to climb if I was feeling sick. You know, I would have gone down very early.
00:38:57
Speaker
But it's good to know that there are other people who are different. That's what's exciting to me. And that is where I think the value comes from in this story. And I think that's why it's such an outside story. I think other people in outside's audience feel the same way. And that's why they were happy to read it and happy to learn about this.
00:39:18
Speaker
Along this theme, I just want to maybe hear you keep talking about why it is important to tell these stories and even if it gets painful for the family to dredge up these stories. I know you're watching Free Solo and you're very inspired by that, but why is it so ingrained in us that it is important for us to continually tell these kind of stories?
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I think, I mean, for me, I find value in knowing like what's possible in the world, right? I mean, I think of another great story that I loved, which outside magazine published probably more than a decade now about freediving. And I remember when I read that and learning that there are people who are, you know, use it just holding their breath for so long that they can dive a hundred feet under the ocean or, you know, more than a hundred feet in many cases.
00:40:16
Speaker
It expands your knowledge of what humans are capable of. That's how we learn about the world and I think also how we learn about ourselves. Yeah, I think that's important. What was the, as you were reporting and writing the story, what were some of the big challenges that you encountered over the course of, let's say even you're reporting and interviewing on a very sensitive subject?
00:40:42
Speaker
I think really the toughest thing, which doesn't have as much to do with the sensitivity of the subject, but rather just how long ago the events happened, a lot of people didn't remember things.
00:40:53
Speaker
Um, and even worse, you know, I reported the story in 2019. Well, I reported some of it in 2012 and then I reported some of it in 2019. And then we fact checked it in 2022. And so in between all of those years, people's memories degraded.
00:41:15
Speaker
And there were things that I thought I got crystal clear in 2019 and put in my draft that then in 2022 during the fact checking process, people didn't remember. And it wasn't just people I'd interviewed who didn't remember there were things I didn't remember, you know, I
00:41:32
Speaker
Uh, had to annotate every single line in the story and have a source for it. And there were some lines in the story that I loved. Like there was a great quote I had in there from Willie and I could not find my source for it. And I know I never would have put it in there in the first place if it hadn't been backed up by, you know, a good source. Couldn't find it anywhere.
00:41:53
Speaker
It was just gone, totally gone. And then there was someone we interviewed who, he had told me something pretty clearly on the phone in 2019, but then in the fact checking process in 2022, he said he didn't remember anymore and we had to go with that. So people's memories just over the years, that was really hard.
00:42:19
Speaker
I like that, granted you have the steady job over the years that lets you take your time with things. But I do like that this story really took essentially 10 years, 11 years for you to fully realize and synthesize. And I know in an email you said you were a little self-conscious about that. But I think it really speaks to how patient sometimes you have to be with work like this and that it can take a long time.
00:42:48
Speaker
So I just maybe you can speak to just sometimes the the patience it takes and you know and maybe also a piggybacking on that is just what. Obviously it's stuck in your crop for so long like is story truly had to tell that really carried you through a you know a decade's worth of time between conception and realization.
00:43:10
Speaker
It was hard at times because what happened, part of the reason for the big delay here was I pitched it when I was still on staff at outside and then I turned it in in 2019 months after I had quit outside and gone to work for Dartmouth. So when I turned it in, my editors at outside had kind of forgotten about me a little bit and had maybe thought that the story wasn't coming in and I turned it in and I was like, here it is. And they were like, oh,
00:43:38
Speaker
Great. We don't have time to edit this right now, but it's great. We're still crazy about it. Thank you. Uh, by the way, when you were on staff, we weren't going to pay you for it because you were on staff and now you're not on staff. And I guess now we have to pay you something. So let's work that out, you know? Um, and you know, it was an evergreen story. There was no real time hook here. The reason we published it now was because I had gotten access to the family.
00:44:04
Speaker
and other people who were sort of looking back on it, you know, looking back on it with that foggier lens of here's what we remember all these years later. That was part of the angle too, but really it wasn't super time sensitive. So it didn't need to be published in 2019. So I think what happened was, you know, I filed it, my editor started working on it and then the pandemic hit and then everyone at outside, just like everyone everywhere was just overwhelmed and sort of barely functioning.
00:44:34
Speaker
And this story, because it was evergreen, got put to the side. And I at first was very understanding about that. And then I started checking in like every three months to be like, hey, what's happening? Do you need anything more from me on this? And I know every freelancer can relate to that, right? Like emailing an editor and hearing nothing back.
00:44:55
Speaker
And it got to the point where I started trying to ask other people on staff who I was still in touch with like, Hey, have you heard anything? Do you know what's happening with this story? And people kept saying, Yeah, I mean, it's like, we know that Chris likes it. And we know he's going to publish it. We just, he's not getting to it right now, for whatever reason, we don't know why.
00:45:17
Speaker
I gave up on it after about a year. I was like, this is never getting published. I don't know what happened, but you know, whatever. And I think something that I learned in this process and that I'm proud of is I didn't burn any bridges over this. I think there are freelancers out there who would have
00:45:39
Speaker
And I don't blame them, but I think there are freelancers out there who would have gone put outside on blast and been like, oh my God, they're holding this story and they're not publishing it and it's terrible, yada, yada, yada. I didn't feel like I could do that because I wanted to keep the door open.
00:45:57
Speaker
I wanted to work with them again, but also they paid me for it. They paid me for it way before, like in a sense, I felt like I was being ghosted, but they also paid me for it. And I was like, okay, well, at least I've been paid. I don't really know what more I can do. I guess it's just kind of sit there and maybe I should let this go. And, you know, this is a story that, you know, has been told before and
00:46:20
Speaker
I just maybe need to let it go. But I maintained good relationships with everyone at Outside. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. And I thought, I don't know. And I just kept asking every six months. I asked a different person. And finally, there was some reshuffling at Outside. And I think people were able to breathe a little bit. And then they were like, we do want to publish this story. Let's get working on it again.
00:46:50
Speaker
And I was able to work on it with Alex Heard, who's now the editor-in-chief, and it got carried over the finish line. It just, yeah, it was good to be patient. It was good to maintain those relationships. I don't know if they would have still picked it up after all those years if I hadn't stayed in touch with everyone and stayed on good terms and been doing other freelance work for them.
00:47:13
Speaker
I think staying in the orbit and maintaining good relationships is just really, really important. And I do think part of the reason that they finally got around to publishing it was because they liked me, honestly. I think, you know, in this industry being liked is really important and I don't want to be on here, you know, saying that everyone likes me. I don't think everyone likes me, but I think if the right people like you, it helps a lot. That's just been my experience.
00:47:42
Speaker
Yeah, it would have been really easy for you to go on Twitter and just like, like, this is fucking bullshit, you know, and take this person down. Yeah. You know, they killed my story without killing it. Yeah. Yeah. And look, I understand why people do that. And I know with outside in particular, I've seen people do that. I just I think because I had worked there and I knew what it was like on the inside and I knew that the people who are making these decisions behind the scenes and, you know,
00:48:12
Speaker
Everyone has good intentions. They're good people. I didn't feel like I wanted to do that, but I understand how different it is. When you're a freelancer, you don't have those relationships and you just feel like you're being taken advantage of. I understand. Now with this story under your belt, what other things are peaking your taste and what are things you want to pursue in this vein?
Future Aspirations and Writing Struggles
00:48:39
Speaker
I mean, I love writing about mountaineering. I have written a lot of stuff about Mount Everest, which is great. You know, I recently read a story about this mountaineer in Nepal by another guy who used to work for outside named Grayson Shafer. And while I was reading this story, all I could think about was, wow, what a cool reporting trip he got to go on.
00:49:00
Speaker
because he had to go to Nepal and Everest Base Camp and go on all these helicopters to follow that guy. So I think for me, any more adventure stories where I get to go on location with someone and then, you know, write a big profile would be great. I wrote a profile of a running coach actually for Runner's World.
00:49:17
Speaker
earlier in 2022 and that was really gratifying. I think what I'm trying to say is I would like the opportunity to travel and shadow someone and then write about them. That's like really what brings me alive and makes me happy when I'm writing is getting to see someone at work in their environment and then translate that into a long profile that's rich in details. But I don't have anything in particular in my radar right now. I'm just kind of
00:49:45
Speaker
trying to breathe and you know I'm still talking about this story with a lot of people and you know managing my full-time job so we'll see yeah we'll see who are some writers that you really admire and light you up and write the kind of profiles and features that you want to continue to do
00:50:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think the guy I just mentioned, Grayson Shafer is one of them. She written a lot of great stuff for outside. This profile that I just mentioned was actually in GQ, but he's one of those writers who, you know, I can go back to where I was on campus in college my junior year, before I signed up for that Jeff Charlotte class, when I read one of Grayson's stories in outside and I thought,
00:50:29
Speaker
Ooh, this might be something I want to do. This is awesome. And it was a story about a whitewater kayaker who was killed by a crocodile. And in some ways, I hate that I'm so into stories like this, where people die.
00:50:45
Speaker
I think it's really, again, going back to the impact of this story I just wrote, I think it's really, really hard to be close to something bad happening and then see that turned into entertainment. But I think it's a good challenge to be the writer who's taking that story and trying to turn it into entertainment in a way that's sensitive and decent and respectful.
00:51:08
Speaker
So yeah, I think pretty much everything Grayson has written has been really inspiring and something that I want to do. Taffy Ackner is another person, Taffy Brodesser Ackner, who has written amazing celebrity profiles for a number of magazines, you know, pretty much any time she writes something and like, you got to jump on this and you got to really appreciate the detail she throws in there and the scenes that she puts together with her subjects.
00:51:37
Speaker
I love finding models of that nature and you try to get into the bones of what they're working on. Is there a particular aspect of writing and synthesizing a story that lights you up a little more than others, be it the reporting or the writing or rewriting? I think I'm big on the reporting aspect. I really like sitting with people and listening to them.
00:52:03
Speaker
A lot of people have told me I should be a therapist, which sometimes sounds easier than being a writer. The actual writing process is terrible. I mean, I do not enjoy writing. I don't understand people who say that writing is fun. I don't find it fun at all. Yeah, I read a blog post from a former literary agent, Nathan Bransford, and his post was like, basically, if you find writing easy, you're not good enough. That's so funny. I think that's like...
00:52:32
Speaker
I think Thomas Mann also said that. It was something like a true writer is like the person for whom it is hard to write or something. And I like saw that quote when I was in high school and sort of like secretly held on to it all this time. But, you know, I don't know. If you if you think writing is easy, you're probably not very good at it. But we're not supposed to say that because we don't want to offend the people who actually have fun writing like willpower to you.
00:53:01
Speaker
Has any part of it, be it the writing or rewriting, has anything gotten a little bit easier for you where you can start focusing on higher level stuff? Or is it all hell? Yeah, I mean, it really is all hell. I mean, I think it's great once you get into a groove, once you get past the first paragraph. The revising process, I think, in theory should be fun because I really do enjoy editing.
00:53:29
Speaker
But revising feels very painful as well, too. And I think something I experienced with this story, which I would love to hear from more experienced writers if it always feels this way, is when I finally saw the story laid out in print, I read it and I was kind of like, oh, this prose is not very good. I think because when you go from your first draft, when you have turns of phrase and you have sentences that you're really proud of,
00:53:58
Speaker
And then they get cut or edited necessarily for the sake of the story. And then in the end, you're like, wow, this has all been chopped up and reorganized so much that it's just, it's just not pretty anymore. Does everyone feel that way when they finally read, you know, the last copy after like 20 revisions?
00:54:16
Speaker
I think I haven't been rigorously edited at a major magazine, but there have been some instances where I've had things edited. I'm like, oh wow, I really thought that sentence I wrote was kind of funny, or it just had a really nice snap crackle and pop to it, and it got cut. And I was like, hmm.
00:54:37
Speaker
like I always defer and like to the editor I'm like alright you guys know better but like there are some lines I'm like I've been writing long enough for like I know it can sound good every now and again and I'm like yeah that sounds good like damn you cut it and then one person like like
00:54:53
Speaker
Wrote in like a joke. I did not write and I was like, that's not okay Yeah, cuz like like I'm like that's gotta come out because you know, whatever I'm all for a good pun But like that's I did not write that you know, so that's gotta come out so like that's happened to me before but I totally see like it's like Unrecognizable and you're like why and and it's your name. That's all And that's not I mean
00:55:15
Speaker
I don't want to accuse anyone of making my story unrecognizable in this particular case, because it wasn't. I mean, really, Alex, who ultimately did the line editing, only touched what he needed to touch, which was great. But in the fact checking process, too, we had to make so many little adjustments, because my draft would have a statement. And then in the fact checking process, we would be like, oh, we need to hedge this. And then you hedge it. And then the sentence isn't pretty anymore.
00:55:43
Speaker
But it's funny, it goes back to I had such a great experience being edited at the Atlantic that first year of my career, because those editors never like, they hardly ever killed my darlings. Really, they just like, they only made my writing better.
00:56:00
Speaker
you know like every single one of them who touched my writing they just made it better um and I think sometimes when editors make your writing worse it's because they're just overworked and they find it easier to rewrite your stuff rather than working with it if that makes sense and I do that as an editor too sometimes like I will
00:56:21
Speaker
maybe be halfway through editing a piece and then I'll realize, oh crap, I have just taken this writer's voice out and I've put it all in my own voice and that's not fair. I did that because it was easier than actually dealing with what was on the page. It's a balance. Sometimes some editors are better at it and some are worse and sometimes they're just overworked and that's what happens.
00:56:48
Speaker
Very nice. Well, I want to give you one more question here, and it's usually how I end these conversations, and it's asking you the guest for a recommendation for the listener out there, and that can be anything that you're excited about that you want to just share and see if other people can glean the same kind of joy you're getting from it.
Podcast Recommendation
00:57:08
Speaker
Okay, I have one. I can't believe I have one. This is great. And you know what? It's a podcast and I do not, I hope you don't mind me saying this. I'm not really a podcast person. Don't listen to a lot of podcasts. I listened to a couple of your episodes before I came on. But the reason I'm gonna give this recommendation is because this is the only podcast that I have listened to like every episode of and like I'm actually psyched about. It's called Tooth and Claw.
00:57:36
Speaker
And it's done by three guys. One of them is a wildlife biologist. And every episode they go into like an animal attack story from real life and they sort of break down you know from the animals perspective what happened and
00:57:51
Speaker
you know, what did the human do wrong to get attacked by the grizzly bear and what else went on and all these things. And it's just so informative and entertaining at the same time and really just enjoy. Like I love those guys. I love that podcast. So I think everyone should listen to Tooth and Claw.
00:58:11
Speaker
Cool, and I think you might enjoy Ologies with Allie Ward. Have you heard of that one? I haven't. She's been doing it for five or six years. There's probably close to 300 episodes at this point, but they're all great. You could go all the way back to number one. They sound great. She interviews just scientists about whatever it is, like the first one with Jess Phoenix on volcanology. Oh, sweet. And so they just talk about volcanoes.
00:58:39
Speaker
And Ali is super funny and charming. And so yeah, they'll talk about like, you know, whales or fruit flies or making cider, you know, like, so all these ologies. And it's, I think you dig it, given that you have a propensity for science and an understanding for it. I think you'd, you'd, you'd kind of dig it in that sense, because given that tooth and claw as a wildlife biologist at the helm, too.
00:59:06
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Brendan. I will go look it up and I'll start listening. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for carving out an hour and talking shop here about the wonderful feature that ran it outside. I just want to commend you on a job well done and thanks for coming on the show to talk about it. Thank you so much for wanting me to come talk about it. It was really flattering and it was a pleasure.
00:59:31
Speaker
Hey, thanks for listening to Ian Evers and make this body. That was a good time. Those are toe-tapping good time. When we stopped recording, I was telling her about the pre-Fontaine story and how I relate to how hard it is to talk about a dead icon with family and friends of that person when they've been badgered for 40 or 50 years by writers and storytellers and how tough it is to lobby for access. Because a lot of times you're like, I've already spoken about that, or I don't have anything new to add.
01:00:01
Speaker
and to continue to lobby yourself and to say you're different than the others when they've been burned for years, if they've been burned. And I know in the pre-Fontaine story, many have been burned or gotten the story wrong. And so here I am coming through and be like, hey, I want to talk about this. And they'd be like, go fuck yourself. How do you work around that?
01:00:22
Speaker
I'm still trying to figure it out. If you like this conversation as much as I did, consider sharing it and tagging me in the show at CNFpod on Twitter or at Creative Nonfiction Podcasts on Instagram. This show will only grow because of you. As you know, I'm something of a nobody, so it's the validation of your endorsements that make the needle move.
01:00:41
Speaker
So, you know, there's just so much content out there. So many shows, many more new shows cropping up all the time. And this show will only survive the pod fade if you celebrate it and share it so long as it's worth sharing and celebrating. Also, there's patreon.com slash CNF pod. If you feel like throwing a few bucks in the tip jar, show is free. Sure, that ain't cheap.
01:01:07
Speaker
And so here, for the parting shot, I think I've shared this analogy before, but I think it bears repeating. So as you know, the show just turned 10 this week, which is amazing that it's stuck around that long, or that I'd stuck with anything longer than, you know.
01:01:22
Speaker
a day, or like five episodes, which is kind of the case the first four years of the show, but that's neither here nor there. I still want to grow the pie, as it'll help me celebrate more writers, inspire writers, and maybe make a little bit of scratch. I'm less concerned with the latter, but whatever. Not going to turn my nose up and actually making a few bucks on the show.
01:01:48
Speaker
Anyway, many of us kind of hope to just be discovered, be it a viral blog post or maybe the newspaper runs a feature on us or people randomly come across us and all we have to do is create, create, create. And maybe that happens for the tiniest sliver of people. Here's where the farmer's market metaphor comes in.
01:02:12
Speaker
It just makes so much sense to me and I repeat it to myself all the time. You might own an apple orchard and grow delicious organic apples. Everyone who dries your apples loves them. And they're like, how have I not heard of these apples before? And it's because you didn't take your apples to the farmer's market where your customers are actually hanging out.
01:02:34
Speaker
Some people might drive by your orchard and be like, hey, that looks appetizing. Let's try them apples. Or you can meet your readers or your listeners or your customers where they're already congregating. You need to bring your apples to the market. And so it is with the podcast.
01:02:51
Speaker
You know, I'm working on similar things like I did with Long Reads last year. It was that Atavus Long Reads partnership where I bring the show to the people who would benefit from it. You know, be it for craft insights or to be inspired or entertained by working writers doing the thing. You know, mid-level and on the rise writers like an Elizabeth Rush or very well-established like famous writers like a Mitchell S. Jackson or David Grant.
01:03:20
Speaker
Bottom line, you can't hashtag your way to an audience. Social media is like a 1980s mega mall. There's too much going on, too much glut. And you can only hope someone stumbles into your shop.
01:03:34
Speaker
yet only social media algorithms may or may not show your link to your audience. But if you head to where they're at and go to the administrator and say, hey, I've got these apples I think your people will really like, how about I package them nicely and they get some value and some nutrition and I get some awareness for the show.
01:03:56
Speaker
I can't tell you how many times people say of this podcast in particular, and I imagine others out there too, that I can't believe I haven't heard of it before. And you hope they stick around and tell the others. And that's a failure on my part not to find that people get promoted and get it into the right hands. There's just so much out there vying for our attention. So you pick your audience and say, I'm going to serve them.
01:04:23
Speaker
Find out where they hang out. Maybe it's brevity or the rumpets or long reads. And you say, how do you like these apples? Stay wild. See you in Evers. And if you can do interviews, see ya.
01:04:57
Speaker
you