contributing writer @wearemel, @ringer, & @splicetoday. seen in @theatlantic, @parisreview, &c. repped by @inkwellmgmt. co-host of @whatisleftpod 
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I've written some decent features, but my ceiling as a writer of features will always be a) the publications that publish my work aren't the ones publicists and celebs want to see their names appearing in (i.e., not "legacy media"), and b) I don't put people over in my work
With regard to point b, not putting people over ... I got that from Ralph Wiley, an ex college athlete and very underrated SI feature writer who tried to understand his subjects, to distill their essence, but never to act as their admirer or hype man.
Ralph Wiley talked about that a lot in his memoir "Serenity," which focused on his analyses of various beaten-up boxers in the context of his own life. I read the book back when I was an undergrad at UNC, and it shaped my approach to this type of journalism
I'm interested in talking to strength athletes and wrestlers and so on, but I'm not some naive fan or novice learning what they do. I don't approach the work that way. I know what it is like to execute a whizzer on a 285 lb person or pause 405 on my chest
I was nothing special at any of that, of course, but I understand what it is to do those things, or to be knocked unconscious, or to even be physically tortured. So I'm not there to convey wonderment or awe, only a sense of where these folks are at a certain pt in their lives
Am I to be excited by interviewing some Instagram powerlifter who is somewhat stronger than I am, but much more popular for strength than I am? Of course not. And I make sure I convey that. What I need to explain is their experience, and my own experience helps with that
Which is why I don't do many profiles of musicians. That is not an area I know much about, relatively speaking. Staying in my lane is an obsession, but also a necessity in 2019, when writers "hot take out of their asses" in order to push paper and make a few buckeroos
I rarely profile "creatives," either, because why should I waste my shot in a magazine putting over some other "creative," doing their hype work for them, when I have to maximize my own revenue. I'll make an exception when the person is a true legend, like Ben Katchor
And if I single out a writer as an inspiration, like Ralph Wiley or CLR James or George Schuyler, that is because I have studied their sentences in such detail that I am shamelessly paraphrasing them nonstop. Whole "heart punch" paragraphs of mine are homages to other work
In fact, if you bother to read the stuff I write, the easter egg is I'm constantly referencing every prior story and many prior sentences or sentiments, which are in turn derived from intense study of the "commonplace book" or "vade mecum" I've been compiling since '96
In a marketplace of pushing paper or selling takes or whatever we might call this last gasp of for-pay writing, this is my concession to art, to my personal aesthetic, to the life I've lived as exemplified in what I've created (however poorly, hastily, etc.)
The people who makethe best interview subjects are the ones who have nothing to lose or gain by talking to me, and thus can answer the questions readers might want to see addressed. All too often, these interview subjects are eccentric older people who have left the marketplace
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