3 interviews: ICYMI, Part 2
Happy Friday, Deezers! We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday, but for now, here are three of my fave old Q&As from the archives:
1. The Cut’s Adrienne Green on the importance of scheduling a check-in with yourself!
My most important tool is my calendar. I try to block off consistent times every week to do all the admin things that I'd otherwise never get around to like responding to pitches, paying people, reviewing traffic, etc.
Also, when I attended Poynter's women and leadership training a couple years ago, one of the instructors did a presentation about carving out regular time to check in with yourself and being ruthless about defending that time. So, I have that scheduled as a weekly standing meeting, and try to make it a priority so I'm constantly checking in on my big goals.
2. The Atlantic’s Yasmeen Serhan on how she went from being editorial fellow to one of the first correspondents for the magazine’s London bureau:
One of the first long-term stories I did for The Atlantic was a scandal that erupted in France over the burqini (full-body swimwear sort of akin to a wetsuit), and whether it should be allowed on French beaches.
The story let me dive into topics I was already interested in — secularism in France, the country’s complicated relationship with its Muslim population, the French far-right, etc — but it also set a perfect foundation for me to start digging into the French election, which kicked off just a few months later. It all really snowballed from there.
3. Longform Podcast’s Max Linsky on what keeps him inspired about the industry:
I think one of the most powerful experiences of doing the show for me is talking to people who are just at the absolute apex of this craft, who are just incredible incredible writers, and hearing them express their own sort of anxieties and doubts. I can’t tell you how many times the best writers in the world have said that, as soon as they finish a story, they panic and think they’ll never find another one.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily like, hope for the future, but it does make me feel like you can reach great heights writing and still have some self doubt, you know? I think that, at least for me, is kind of inspiring.
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