“It was the stories that I woke up the next day thinking about … I want complicated stories about complicated people making difficult choices and facing real things.”

Journalist, professor, and author Jane McManus joins us this week to talk about her career, The Year’s Best Sports Writing, her new book and more.

Jane was the editor of the 2024 edition of The Year’s Best Sports Writing. She and Brian do a deep dive into what that job actually looked like. Jane describes how she got the gig, how Richard Deitsch helped her, how she leaned on a group of fellow journalists as an advisory board, and what she was looking for in picking the best sports stories. We talk about the importance of scene setting at the start of a feature story, of showing the work that the reporter has done, and the deep reporting you see in a great piece of investigative journalism.

They also talk about her introductory essay, a form Brian has studied at great length.

Jane also talks about her book, The Fast Track, and why this was the book she wrote at this stage in her career. She describes the biggest differences between writing articles and a book, and why she doesn't want her students to outsource their thinking by letting AI do any writing.

“There's no Tik Tok, there’s no short form video on YouTube, hot-take sports talk show that is going to force you to think about something the way that at a well written long form piece of journalism is.”

Links

The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2024

The Fast Track by Jane McManus

The Three-Body Problem (The best thing Jane’s read lately.)

Middlemarch (The best thing Jane’s read lately

A Gentleman in Moscow (The best thing Brian’s read lately.)

Support

Support the show at Buy Me a Coffee

Follow us on Instagram.

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

“The challenge is to make you love Lloyd and make you realize that Lloyd is extraordinary and that you realize that before Lloyd does.”

Will Leitch returns to the show to talk all about his new book, “Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride.” which is out now and you should totally buy!

Will describes how a pre-pandemic visit to a family friend helped plant the seed for the book’s premise, and how that premise allows him to address the existential angst that parents are feeling about the world they’re leaving their kids. Will also reveals the biggest challenge in writing Lloyd as a character, why he wrote the book in the present tense, and how all of his novels have clocks in one way or another.

Will and Brian talk about the action sequences in the book, how they were influenced by Will’s love of movies and how listening to The Donnas was Will’s secret for those scenes. They also talk about how Will’s excellent weekly newsletter influenced parts of this book.

“I want you to feel the entire time like this is happening right now.”

Links

Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride on Bookshop.org (to support independent bookstores.)

Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride on Amazon

All of Will’s books

Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson (The best thing Will’s read lately.)

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham (The best thing Brian’s read lately.)

Support

Support the show at Buy Me a Coffee

Follow us on Instagram.

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

“I never really thought about it as something I would ever do a story on. I didn’t even think of it in terms of a story … these were just our friends.”

Sam Borden from ESPN joins us for a deep dive into his moving feature story on the friendship between Abby Zittoun and the UConn women’s basketball team.

Sam discusses the intensely personal nature of this story for him, how he navigated being both a friend and reporter in telling Abby’s story, and why being transparent and intimate as a journalist is so vital to doing stories like this. He also talks about how he dealt with the personal pressure he felt writing this story.

Sam and Brian also discuss the writing and reporting of the story. The details make this story so memorable, but how does Sam know he has the right details, and how do you keep from overwhelming the reader with them? Sam also talks about how he avoided making an inherently sad story like this feel like a long march for the reader. This is not a story about grief, it’s the story about an amazing young girl, her family, and the connection she had with this team.

“I want Abby to be alive for as much of this story as possible.”

Links:

Love, Abby: Inside UConn basketball's eternal bond with a magical fan

Love, Abby (TV version of story)

Trump is selling Jews a dangerous lie by Michael S. Roth (The best thing Sam’s read lately)

Support:

Support the show at Buy Me a Coffee

Follow us on Instagram.

Apple Podcasts

Spotify