Longform

Mark Bowden is a journalist and the author of 13 books, including Black Hawk Down and his latest, Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam. “My goal is never to condemn someone that I’m writing about. It’s always to understand them. And t

Brian Reed, a senior producer at This American Life, is the host of S-Town. “It’s a story about the remarkableness of what could be called an unremarkable life.” Thanks to MailChimp, Babbel, and Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. @brihreed Reed'

Ginger Thompson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior reporter at ProPublica. Her most recent article is "How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico." “How many times have I written the phrase ‘a town that was controlled by drug traffickers?' I had no idea

Patricia Lockwood is a poet and essayist. Her new book is Priestdaddy: A Memoir. “[Prose writing is] strange to me as a poet. I’m like, ‘Well I guess I’ll tell you just what happened then.’ But the humor has to be there as well. Because in my family hous

John Grisham is the author of 38 books, including his latest novel, Camino Island. “A Time to Kill didn’t sell. It just didn’t sell. There was never any talk of going back for a second printing. No talk of paper back. No foreign deal. It was a flop. And

Erin Lee Carr is a documentary filmmaker and writer. Her new film is Mommy Dead and Dearest. “I feel like I’ve always had the story down—that’s not been really difficult for me. So the difficult thing, I think, for me, has always been access. Can I get t

Ariel Levy, a New Yorker staff writer, is the author of The Rules Do Not Apply. “I don’t believe in ‘would this’ and ‘would that.’ There’s no ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Everything happens, and then you just fucking deal. I mean we could play that

Jeffrey Gettleman is the East Africa Bureau Chief for the New York Times and the author of Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival. “I’m not an adventure-seeking adrenaline junky. I like to explore new worlds, but I’m not one of these chain-

Rafe Bartholomew is the former features editor at Grantland and the author of Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me. “I never saw it as something negative because [my dad] comes out, to me, at the end, extremely heroic. … He becomes this dad who I idol

Nick Bilton is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and the author of American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road. “I’ve been covering tech for a long, long time. And the thing I’ve always tried to do is cover the