Longform

Latest Episodes:

Introducing "Origin Stories" Sep 12, 2025

Show notes

Have you ever wondered how your favorite movie or book—or podcast, TV series, documentary, or article—got made? Origin Stories has you covered. Each week, veteran journalist Matthew Shaer talks to a different writer or director about the creation of a work close to their own hearts. Nothing is off the table: not the frustrations and the joys, not the setbacks and the successes. Intimate and incisive, instructive and eye-opening, Origin Stories is the ultimate podcast for anyone curious about the workings of the creative mind. Among the early guests are Noah Hawley, creator of the new Alien show on FX; Mimi Leder, director of The Morning Show; New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe; and Evan Ratliff, of Longform and Atavist fame. Hosted by Matthew Shaer, co-founder of Campside Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 585: John Jeremiah Sullivan Jun 26, 2024

Show notes

John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and has written for Harper's, The New Yorker, and GQ. He is the author of Pulphead and the forthcoming The Prime Minister of Paradise: The True Story of a Lost American History.

“I love making pieces of writing and trying to find the right language to say what I mean. It's such a wonderful way of being alive in the world. I mean, your material is all around you. ... I'm lucky that it has stayed interesting for me. It hasn't faded. The challenges of writing, they still glow.”

Show notes:

Sullivan on Longform
Sullivan’s GQ archive
Sullivan’s New York Times Magazine archive
10:00 “Uhtceare” (Paris Review • May 2021)
28:00 Pulphead (FSG Originals • 2011)
30:00 The Best American Essays 2014 (Mariner Books • 2014)
30:00 “The Ill-Defined Plot” (New Yorker • Oct 2014)
50:00 “Man Called Fran” (Harper’s • Sept 2023)
50:00 “The Final Comeback of Axl Rose” (GQ • Aug 2006)
50:00 “Upon This Rock” (GQ • Jan 2004)
50:00 “Peyton’s Place” (GQ • Oct 2011)
50:00 “Leaving Reality” (GQ • Oct 2011)
54:00 “Pulp Fever” (Daniel Riley • GQ • Nov 2011)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonus: Mailbag Jun 26, 2024

Show notes

The hosts answer a few listener questions.

Evan’s picks for some podcasts to try:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 584: Ta-Nehisi Coates Jun 19, 2024

Show notes

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author and journalist. His next book is The Message.

“I don’t think we have the luxury as journalists of avoiding things because people might say bad things about us. I don’t even think we have the luxury of avoiding things because we might get fired. I don’t think we have the luxury of avoiding them because somebody might cancel some sort of public speech that we have. I then have to ask you, what are you in it for? Like, why did you come here? Did you come here just to make a living? Because there are many other things where you could make more money.”

Show notes:

ta-nehisicoates.com
Coates on Longform
Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #97: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #168: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #225: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #360: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Chris Jackson
Longform Podcast #408: Ta-Nehisi Coates
04:00 "Fear of a Black President" (The Atlantic • Sep 2012)
05:00 The Beautiful Struggle (One World • 2009)
12:00 "The Case for Reparations" (The Atlantic • Jun 2014)
13:00 Between the World and Me (One World • 2015)
36:00 "The Mask of Doom" (New Yorker • Sep 2009)
40:00 "How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I." (Cade Metz, Cecilia Kang, Sheera Frenkel, Stuart A. Thompson and Nic Grant • New York Times • Apr 2024)
42:00 Shell Game (Evan Ratliff • 2024)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 583: Jay Caspian Kang Jun 12, 2024

Show notes

Jay Caspian Kang is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a co-host of Time to Say Goodbye.

“At some point, you have to kick it out the door, and it’s never finished to the degree that you would finish a magazine piece. But it, in some ways, is more interesting because it is produced in a short amount of time, and it’s read as something that is not supposed to be complete. It’s just meant to provoke or to provide thought or whatever, to provide some sort of context on a certain issue or not. And I actually like that a lot better than the magazine writing. I respect the magazine writers—obviously, I was one—but for my disposition now, in my lifestyle, I actually enjoy having to produce this thing every week.”

Have a question for the mailbag? Email the show or leave a voicemail at (929) 333-2908.

Show notes:

@jaycaspiankang
Kang on Longform
Kang on Longform Podcast (Oct 2021)
Kang on Longform Podcast (Aug 2017)
Kang on Longform Podcast (Apr 2013)
Kang’s New Yorker archive
06:00 Coin Talk
08:00 Tyler Austin Harper’s Atlantic archive
10:00 Serial
12:00 The Daily
20:00 “The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High” (The Morning News • Oct 2010)
28:00 James (Percival Everett • Doubleday • 2024)
34:00 “American Son” (ESPN • July 2024)
35:00 Kang’s VICE archive
42:00 “Mike Francesa Still Believes in the Power of Radio” (New York Times • Aug 2018)
43:00 Kang’s Grantland archive
43:00 Kang’s New York Times archive

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 582: Joseph Cox Jun 05, 2024

Show notes

Joseph Cox is a cybersecurity journalist and co-founder of 404 Media. His new book is Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever.

“In the not too distant future, I will be a very old man, and maybe I won't be able to spend all day talking to drug traffickers. I will be mentally and physically exhausted. So I will doggedly pursue the story right now while I can.”

Show notes:

@josephfcox
Cox's 404 Media archive
Cox's Vice archive
Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever (PublicAffairs • 2024)
08:00 "FBI’s Encrypted Phone Platform Infiltrated Hundreds of Criminal Syndicates; Result is Massive Worldwide Takedown" (U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California • Jun 2021)
10:00 Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World (Bradley Hope and Tom Wright • Hachette • 2018)
19:00 "Revealed: The Country that Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI" (404 Media • Sep 2023)
38:00 "Follow The Bitcoins: How We Got Busted Buying Drugs on Silk Road’s Black Market" (Andy Greenberg • Forbes • Sep 2013)
41:00 "Hundreds of Bounty Hunters Had Access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint Customer Location Data for Years" (Motherboard • Feb 2019)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 581: Tavi Gevinson May 29, 2024

Show notes

Tavi Gevinson is a writer, actor, and the founder of Rookie. Her new zine is Fan Fiction.

“Stories are unstable, and memory is unstable, and identity is unstable. All of these things that I've tried to make permanent in writing, they're actually unstable. So even though it's tempting to go, Oh, that was fake, it's more like, No, it was just temporary.”

Show notes:

@tavitulle
tavigevinson.world
Gevinson on Longform
Gevinson on Longform Podcast
Gevinson’s Rookie archive
10:00 Operation Shylock (Philip Roth • Simon & Schuster • 1993)
10:00 Erasure (Percival Everett • Graywolf Press • 2011)
14:00 “Taylor Swift Has No Regrets” (Elle • June 2015)
20:00 I Love Dick (Chris Kraus • Semiotext(e) • 1997)
24:00 “Who Would Tavi Gevinson Be Without Instagram?” (New York • Sept 2019)
40:00 “Editor’s Letter” (Rookie • Nov 2018)
50:00 “The Special Panic of Singing Sondheim” (New Yorker • Dec 2021)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 580: Rachel Khong May 22, 2024

Show notes

Rachel Khong is a journalist and author whose latest novel is Real Americans.

“It's about the ways in which we miss each other as human beings and can't fully communicate what it is like to be ourselves. … And I think that's what makes it so interesting to me, to work on a novel and to spend so much time trying to get down on the page what it feels like to be a human being who's alive. … I think the effort itself is what human relationships are.”

Show notes:

rachelkhong.com
01:00 Real Americans (Knopf • 2024)
01:00 Goodbye, Vitamin (Picador • 2017)
01:00 Lucky Peach archive
01:00 "Would Limitlessness Make Us Better Writers?" (The Atlantic • Apr 2024)
01:00 "Dust to Dust" (Eater • May 2024)
05:00 "New Pornographers + Stars, 6/25 Prospect Park Summer Stage" (Village Voice • Jun 2005)
09:00 Same Bed Different Dreams (Ed Park • Random House • 2023)
12:00 "Inside My Days as a Content Bot" (Esquire • Apr 2024)
24:00 "The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Gilbert" (Rumpus • Oct 2012)
24:00 Eat Pray Love (Elizabeth Gilbert • Riverhead • 2007)
24:00 Elizabeth Gilbert's GQ archive
54:00 "The Great Pacific Oyster Trail" (Eater • Jun 2017)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 579: Kelsey McKinney May 15, 2024

Show notes

Kelsey McKinney is a features writer and co-owner at Defector.com. She hosts the podcast Normal Gossip and is the author of the upcoming book You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip.

“I was always very interested in how you strategize a creative career. And I think that that is an unsexy thing to talk about, right? It's much sexier to be like, Oh, I love working on my sentence-level craft, which is not true for me. But I think that a lot of a creative career is understanding it is still a job, and then understanding how you make sure that within the container of the job you can do the work that you want to do. That is a really difficult balance to make. So if you can understand how people who have done it before you, you can copy them.”

Show notes:

@mckinneykelsey
kelseymckinney.com
McKinney on Longform
McKinney’s Defector archive
04:00 “Why Doesn’t Mrs. Dalloway Get a Day of Her Own?” (Slate • Jan 2000)
13:00 “Chris Evans: American Marvel” (Edith Zimmerman • GQ • July 2011)
23:00 McKinney’s Deadspin archive
31:00 God Spare the Girls (Harper Collins • 2022)
39:00 “Gossip Is Not a Sin” (New York Times • July 2021)
43:00 You Didn’t Hear This From Me (Viking • 2025)
58:00 “Learning To Play Piano When There Is No Recital” (Defector • Dec 2023)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 578: Lissa Soep May 08, 2024

Show notes

Lissa Soep is an audio producer, editor and author whose latest book is Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations That Never End.

“I am so keenly aware of how much my own voice is a product of editing relationships and co-producing relationships with other people's words. … I will forever feel indebted to those then young people who are now writers and educators and therapists. … I feel like my voice is sort of a product of that time.”

Show notes:

00:00 Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations that Never End (Spiegel & Grau • 2024)
00:00 YR Media
33:00 "Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans" (Sam Anderson • New York Times Magazine • Oct 2021)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected