this year’s top Deez Interviews
What none of us want to admit is that putting together an end-of-year roundup is almost always WAY easier than trying to construct Original Content from the remaining dregs of your brain; in totally unrelated news, here are the 10 most widely-read Q&As from Deez Links this year (and our fave quotes from ‘em!):
1. The Longform Podcast’s Max Linsky, on what gives him hope in 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, you know, 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.
2. NYT Styles’ Taylor Lorenz, on where she finds all those good tech stories:
I've missed out on several scoops because I sort of thought everyone knew about something or I just didn't recognize the right angle. So having the right editor to talk things over and help refine ideas is key. But long story short, I think it just comes down to talking to people. I keep my DMs open and try to respond to everyone that's not harassing me or messaging me dick pics.
3. Freelance illustrator Joan Wong, on her year traveling and working abroad:
I started the year with a program called Remote Year. They help you find a place to live and a co-working space for a fee. They also provide a community of people to travel with. Working in different locations, as well as different time zones, started off a bit challenging, but like most things, you just get to used to it. I used to worry about the self-discipline of freelancing, but deadlines exist even if you don’t have the 9 to 5 hours, so that pressure to finish in time is still there.
4. Men’s Health’s Brett Williams on his absolute batshit daily schedule:
So a normal busy day: wake up at 5:45 a.m. to get up to Columbus Circle to lift in the Hearst gym by 7:10ish. My work at MH is mostly on the digital side, and content never sleeps, so we're starting the day around 9 a.m. I like to get in slightly before that to plan the day, then it's work til 6 p.m. Quick break to commute home, then it's Muay Thai at 8:30 pm until around 10. I cook every night, so dinner is later, usually done around 11 or 11:30 if I'm slow. Then go to sleep and do it again.
5. MEL Magazine’s Alana Hope Levinson, on working for maybe the only good example of “brand-supported storytelling” out there:
I’ve never worked at a legacy brand, because I always figured it’d be better to go down and get laid off trying something new than to do hospice care and slowly buy my time watching something die.
6. WSJ’s Julia Carpenter, on how to get your Day 1 at a new job off to the best start:
You know that lunch you always have on the first day? The one with your immediate boss/supervisor/editor? I always ask them one question: “Who should I ask out to coffee?” Then I make a list and start the chain, asking everyone else the same question. You end up meeting people on other teams, other beats, other areas of the room.
7. WIRED’s Nicholas Thompson, on balancing professional-level marathon running with, ya know, running WIRED:
I think they are complementary in ways. I work every night, after I run home and spend time with my kids, and I think that the process of running allows me the energy to work the late evenings.
8. Pop-Up Magazine’s Anita Badejo, on describing what Pop-Up really is:
I always tell people who have never been that it's like a concert, play, podcast, comedy show, and documentary film all wrapped into one. We've paired an actor with a journalist to play the subject of a story who was in prison and thus couldn't be recorded onstage. We've paired an opera singer with a radio producer to embody the great opera diva Maria Callais. We've visualized a reported story about memory loss through shadow puppetry.
9. New York magazine’s Jessica Pressler, on chronicling the most notorious Hustlers and scammers for our current moment:
I don’t know that it actually is the scam or the scandal that’s the main draw for me. I think the stories I find reliably interesting are the ones in which people who are basically ordinary relatable people stumble into a world where the atmosphere has been made toxic by larger cultural forces — strip clubs, Wall Street, Rich New Yorkers, Pre-Election Facebook, Preschool — and they like, breathe too much of that poisonous air (I am going somewhere with this metaphor, hang on), and it like, goes to their head, and they end up making bad decisions and ultimately find themselves in a bad situation.
8. And finally, author R.O. Kwon, on the day-to-day of writing for a living:
The real joy’s in the writing, in the words, in the act of pushing up against the limits of what we can do. Not everyone gets to have a calling, let alone to follow it. If writing’s your calling, it’s terrible, it’s hard, it’s a pain in the ass, but also: what a joy. What a gift.
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Deez Links is a dailyish media newsletter from @delia_cai. There are PA-LENTY more of these at deezlinks.substack.com.