Death of a copy desk

I had three hometown newspapers when I was growing up. The Janesville Argus was the most literal representation, its small offices located on Main Street one block from our house. The quality of the Argus was totally dependent on the quality of the paper’s publisher. As a kid the paper was blessed with great publishers and editors, making the weekly Argus a great read. That quality declined over the years until the main question about the Argus wasn’t “What’s in it this week?”  but “Is it still alive?”

The Waseca County News was a bit bigger, but still a weekly. Twice-a-week when I was a kid and was a paperboy raking in the big quarters while lugging my heavy bag around Janesville, avoiding angry dogs and grouchy widows.

The professional writer

Eight years ago I was trying to write my book Keeping the Faith and was struggling with…how to write my book Keeping the Faith. Having spent my career in newspapers,expanding a story beyond 25 inches seemed daunting. I had all this great information and all these colorful characters, but how do you take that and create a narrative? Around the time I started with the actual writing, I received a copy of the St. John’s alumni magazine and it included a note about a 1986 graduate named John Rosengren, who was an author in the Twin Cities.

Rosengren…I knew the name. A year earlier I read his book Blades of Glory, about the powerhouse Bloomington Jefferson hockey team. I’m not even a hockey guy but I enjoyed the book and recommended it to the hockey guys I knew. When I read it I didn’t know Rosengren had been a Johnnie. A connection!

The Tapes: April 19

As I type this parts of South Dakota and Minnesota are under a severe winter storm warning. Yes, on April 19. Sometimes I really miss Minnesota. Other times…

This week’s links:

* So many stories from a horrific week, but S.L. Price wrote about the Boston Bruins’ first game at home after the Marathon bombing.

* Patton Oswalt delivers an impassioned Star Wars filibuster for an episode of Parks & Rec.

* And if you didn’t read Oswalt’s Facebook post after the bombings, check it out.

* For you morning TV fans, read how Matt Lauer was a mean person and got Ann Curry kicked off Today.

* From The Onion: Internet comes up with 8.5 million leads on potential Boston bombing suspect.

* Check out the comments on Deadspin where people share their favorite Rasheed Wallace moments.

* A longread from Mark Bowden in Vanity Fair about a murder mystery in Texas. 

* Legendary Division III coach Frosty Westering died and Chuck Culpepper writes a great tribute on Sports on Earth. Westering’s Pacific Lutheran teams won the 1999 title and faced John Gagliardi’s St. John’s Johnnies four straight years in the playoffs, great battles between two of the country’s unique programs.

* The San Diego Padres president blames Zack Greinke for the big brawl between his team and Greinke’s Dodgers. Includes Rain Man reference.

* This might merit a longer post at a later date: A list of 40 workspaces that inspired famously creative people. I think I speak for all (middling) writers when I say that place is one of the most important and underrated part of the process.
One of my latest go-to spots: The gym. Seriously.

* This week’s podcast of the week: The Will Leitch Experience. The former Deadspin writer (and guest on The Fury Files) has started a daily pod in conjunction with longform project Sports on Earth. To be honest, I haven’t had time to listen to it yet. But that didn’t stop me from adding it to my iPhone podcast library – a meaningful sign that I expect it to be good.

The Fury Files: Peter Richmond

Welcome to the latest edition of the Fury Files, which are currently defending themselves in a million dollar lawsuit brought by Rockford. Check out all the previous editions with Tom Linnemann, John Millea, David Brauer, Joe Posnanski, Pat Coleman, Kevin Van Valkenburg, Michael Kruse, Chris Jones, Chris Ballard, Roland Lazenby, Will Leitch and Patrick Reusse.

This week’s guest is Peter Richmond, a former newspaper reporter who went on to become one of the country’s best magazine writers at GQ and is now a best-selling author. He’s also been a planning board member in a small village in New York.

Richmond graduated from Yale, where he studied under the legendary John Hersey and David Milch. I’d say more about that but I’ve already given away too much and Richmond talks all about it below. Richmond’s been honored numerous times in the Best American Sports Writing series and his 1992 story about Tommy Lasorda’s son, Tommy Jr., who died of AIDS, earned a spot in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. If anyone ever produces a book called The Best American Sports Writing of the Millennium, the Lasorda piece will find its way there as well (the story is now available online on the Stacks section of Deadspin and has been anthologized in the BASW series and in the book Fathers & Sons & Sports).

The author of numerous books, Richmond is currently working on a biography of Phil Jackson. Previous efforts include My Father’s War: A Son’s Journey, a book that detailed Richmond’s efforts to discover just what it meant when he heard his late father (who died when Richmond was a young boy and had won two Silver Stars in World War II) described as a war hero. In 2010, Richmond wrote Badasses: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden’s Oakland Raiders. Among his other works? Ballpark: Camden Yards and the Building of an American Dream, and Fever: The Life and Music of Peggy Lee.

Richmond has a style that makes writing look easy, which disguises the fact his stories only read like that because of his talent and the exhaustive work that went into reporting his pieces and books. While he spends most of his time these days working on books, his words still pop up elsewhere. Check out his Grantland piece about how America can’t build a decent sports stadium. Or his story for SB Nation Longform about the world championship of blind baseball. And here’s his 1990 piece about Bill Murray. This past week he wrote on Bronx Banter about Hall of Famer Bernard King and his forgotten arrests, and I can only imagine the angry letters he received from Knicks fans. A devoted New York Giants fan — he also wrote a best-selling book with Frank Gifford about the famous 1958 title game — Richmond hosts a radio show about Big Blue, which was the subject of a New York Times story. And be sure to check out Richmond’s website.

Here, Richmond talks about studying under legends, the badass Raiders, the mysterious Phil Jackson, Phish, his writing style, why Cincinnati hated him, why Tommy Lasorda stopped talking to him, his evolution as a writer and much more. Thanks a lot for your time, Peter.

Real movies, fake stories

In my free time I watch a lot of sports. I watch a lot of movies. I read a lot of books. I read a lot of newspapers and magazines. Sometimes, thanks to our three laptops, iPad, two televisions, Netflix subscriptions, HBO Go access and NBA League Pass, I might do all of those things at once.

And often times as I watch a movie, I sometimes wonder: What if this story was happening in the real world? This isn’t about based on true life movies or inspired by real events movies or anything like that. It’s wondering about movies based on nothing but a screenwriter’s imagination, and wondering how real-life writers would handle the chaos, crime, love story, thrills, action, bravery and cowardice that takes place in the films. To break it down a bit more, how would a feature writer at a newspaper or a longform writer at a magazine handle the tales we see once on the big screen and then a hundred times on a small one?

The Fury Files: Will Leitch

Welcome to the latest edition of the Fury Files, the favorite Q&A of people who think the world really is ending on December 21. Check out previous editions with Tom Linnemann, John Millea, David Brauer, Joe Posnanski, Pat Coleman, Kevin Van Valkenburg, Michael Kruse, Chris Jones, Chris Ballard and Roland Lazenby.

This week’s guest is writer Will Leitch. I’d put a magazine or website name in front of writer, but Leitch works for such a wide variety of publications, it’d be impossible to put just one title there. Leitch is a contributing editor at New York Magazine, where he usually writes about sports but displays his versatility on a regular basis, like when he interviewed Spike Lee. Earlier this year he became a contributing writer for the new website Sports on Earth, a fun site that includes contributions from writers like Joe Posnanski, Chuck Culpeppper and Gwen Knapp. There he writes about a variety of topics. A defense of Joe Buck? A story on the Nets-Knicks game? A piece on the beleaguered Arizona Cardinals? They’re all on Sports on Earth.

Leitch is a regular contributor to GQ, where he’s written in-depth profiles of Michael Vick, Derrick Rose and Jeremy Lin. It’s not all about sports, though. With longtime friend Tim Grierson, Leitch regularly reviews movies for Deadspin. Leitch is the founding editor of the Gawker empire’s sports site, which he left for New York magazine in 2008.

A native of Mattoon, Illinois, Leitch is a passionate fan of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team and the Arizona Cardinals football team, who earned his undying loyalty when they were losing games in bewildering fashion in the Midwest instead of the Southwest. Leitch graduated from the University of Illinois and is still in love with the football teams and basketball teams. He might still have a Kenny Battle poster hanging in his bedroom and at some point in his career — either for Slate or a weekly paper in Illinois — he’s likely written 3,500 words about why Jack Trudeau to David Williams was the most underrated quarterback-receiver combo in NCAA history.

His enthusiasm for his favorite sports — for the players, the teams, the games, the moments — remains one of his greatest strength as a writer, but he’s also great at writing. And he can handle it any form, from long magazine profiles to short opinion pieces on the web. In addition to all of his other work, Leitch is the author of four books, including his most recent, Are We Winning? Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball. If you need more of his writing? There’s always his Tumblr page. Or Twitter.

Here, Leitch talks about Spike Lee and Woody Allen, the 1987 World Series (Twins!), Letterman, the difference between magazines, websites and books, what motivates him as a writer and a lot more. Thanks a lot for your time, Will.

A Day at The New Yorker Festival

October is about playoff baseball, preseason basketball and regular season college football. And each year October is also the time for the three-day New Yorker festival, which I attended for a third time on Saturday, hitting a pair of events at the Director’s Guild Theatre on 57th Street.

In the morning I attended a 90-minute panel consisting of four authors who have written presidential biographies and in the afternoon spent another 90 minutes watching a panel with four top writers and creators of television comedies. For each one I manned a seat in the front row, on the left side of the theater. The two events couldn’t have been more different in many ways. Authors at one event spoke about the Oval Office while those at the second event spoke about the primal nature of writers’ rooms. The first panelists were well-dressed, the second group wandered out in jeans. But both proved fascinating and equally entertaining, partly because as different as they were, they both shared insights on writing and the creative process.

TVFury turns 1! TVFury turns 1!

Terry came up with the idea. Terry dreamed up the name. Terry designed a logo. Terry secured the address. Terry solicited the first guest pieces. Terry created the Facebook and Twitter pages. Terry came up with early ideas. Terry wrote the first post. Terry remains the driving force.

So I guess it’s time I drop my lawsuit to get the name changed to FuryTV.

TVFury was born a year ago today, when Terry wrote a short, somewhat cryptic message that included a picture of a headless torso wearing a shirt emblazoned with his name. Since then we’ve published something every weekday, haven’t missed a one. We’ve written a lot about the St. John’s football team and even more about the Lakers (well, I’ve written about those things). We’ve written about technology and the future and school reading programs. We’ve written about life in New York City and life at a modern newspaper. We’ve welcomed numerous guest writers and attempted to make them feel at home, even while reminding them to use coasters and take their shoes off before entering. We’ve conducted podcasts with each other that ones of people have listened to and done pods with business owners that hundreds have listened to. We’ve conducted interviews with some of the best writers in the country.

It’s been a fun year.

The Fury Files: Chris Ballard

Back by popular demand, it’s The Fury Files, the seventh-most downloaded Q&A on Kindle. As always, I will shamelessly plug previous editions, so check out my interviews with Tom Linnemann, John Millea, David Brauer, Joe Posnanski, Pat Coleman, Kevin Van Valkenburg, Michael Kruse and Chris Jones.

When Ballard talks about writing or hoops, you’ll want to listen.

This week’s guest is Chris Ballard, a Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated. Ballard joined SI in 2000 and has been a Senior Writer for about eight years. All he’s done during that time is become one of the best writers in the magazine, not to mention one of the most versatile. Ballard is best-known for his superb NBA writing. And while it’s a well-deserved reputation — as these stories on the dunk and Kevin Durant prove — it would be unfortunate if his skills as a hoops wordsmith overshadowed the fact he’s put together a series of features at SI that stack up against anyone’s.

This year, Ballard was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in profile writing for a November 2011 story about Dewayne Dedmon, a Jehovah’s Witness who went against his mother’s beliefs and eventually became a Division I basketball player. Twice Ballard has earned inclusion in the Best American Sports Writing series. The first time was for his 2006 story on an insane high school football game in Arkansas. The 2011 anthology honored Ballard’s story on Cal crew member Jill Costello and her inspiring fight against cancer. Some of Ballard’s other memorable features include his piece on retired quarterback Jake Plummer, the story of the kissing couple from the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots and a piece from this past February, which you very well might find in next year’s BASW book. The feature focused on Chicago-area high school wrestling coach Mike Powell and his fight against a draining, potentially deadly illness. Ballard did an interview with freelance writer Brandon Sneed and the pair dissected the story on Powell. Make sure to check it out. In the most recent Sports Illustrated — the May 14 issue — Ballard examines Kobe Bryant, his dad, Jellybean, and mom, Pam. The story is “Where Does Greatness Come From?” and is another superb piece by Ballard.

Ballard has also written four books, with the newest one hitting bookstores next week. His first, Hoops Nation, chronicled his half-year-long trip across the country playing pickup basketball. The Butterfly Hunter: Adventures of People Who Found Their True Calling Way Off The Beaten Path came out in 2006. And in 2009, he wrote one of my favorite basketball books ever, The Art of a Beautiful Game.

His latest effort, which is already receiving a lot of praise, is One Shot at Forever: A small town, an unlikely coach and a magical baseball season, the story of a high school baseball team in Illinois that accomplished great things back in the early 1970s. Hoosiers on the diamond. Ballard first told the story of the Macon Ironmen in a 2010 Sports Illustrated story. The book will be released on May 15.

Back to hoops. Ballard was a good high school player who played a year for Division III Pomona College in California. He’s still pretty tough and if you watch the video in this story Ballard wrote about some magical shoes, you can watch a sports writer dunk.

Below, Ballard talks about the inner editorial workings of Sports Illustrated, playing hoops with his dad, an interesting piece about a boring Tiger Woods, column writing vs. longform, finding your voice as a writer, writing about Kobe, his new book, Hoosiers, and a whole lot more. Thanks a lot for your time, Chris.

Stephen King’s best, what do ya got?

My mom got me started reading Stephen King, years after she gave up on him.

She read all his early books. Night Shift. The Shining. The Stand. The Dead Zone. Carrie. But her reading of King ended with Cujo, as she swore off his books when the horror master killed off the little boy at the end. Maybe she pictured her own young son succumbing to dehydration while hiding out from a rabid St. Bernard or maybe the whole cruelty of the book — which King later said was written during his alcoholic years – was just too much. But she stopped reading him for years. Still, those old books remained in our house. Dusty hardcovers of The Shining and the original version of The Stand. Tattered paperback versions of Night Shift and Christine.