Sean Flynn is a GQ correspondent and National Magazine Award winner. "I find it satisfying to be able to give a voice to people that sort of get lost…You know, when these big horrible things happen, and the spotlight is very briefly on them, and then it

For the first time, Janet Reitman discusses her Rolling Stone cover story on accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. "My editors, myself, a lot of people who work for the magazine — we lived through an act of terrorism. We know what it feels li

Kelley Benham is a writer and editor at the Tampa Bay Times. "People connect with this story in a really visceral kind of way, usually because of some experience they've had or someone close to them has had. I've had 90-year-old women crying into my phon

Robert Kolker is the author of Lost Girls and a contributing editor at New York. "For better or for worse, my heart's not in the mystery. I want [the killer] to be caught—he's obviously a predator and he's unstable. But they all are. They're all messed u

Edith Zimmerman is the founding editor of The Hairpin and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. "I never wrote anything myself or ran anything from other people that was needlessly negative. It wasn't some false grin plastered all over it

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and the author of The Skies Belong to Us. "It was this big review in The New York Times and I was terrified that it was going to say something awful about the book or about me as a writer. And my son s

Evan Ratliff, a co-host of the Longform Podcast, discusses "The Oilman's Daughter," his new story in The Atavist. "This woman was given the opportunity to take on a new identity. And it was a mistake. She never should've done it. If there was a way for h

Steve Kandell is the longfom editor at BuzzFeed. "What would be the sort of longer, narrative nonfiction, journalistic equivalent of something that would have the same effect on you as a bunch of cat GIFs? And not because it's cute, but it's the kind of

Nicholas Schmidle is a staff writer at The New Yorker. "I was in a taxi, leaving Karachi to go attend this festival, and we started getting these very disturbing phone calls from newspaper reporters that didn't exist, all of them asking me to meet them a

Chris Heath, winner of the 2013 National Magazine Award for Reporting, is a staff writer at GQ. "I present myself as someone who is going to be rigorous and honest. And if you can engage in the way I'm asking you to engage, then I hope you will recognize

Abrams covers the NBA for Grantland. "Players know that with the stories I do I'm not trying to burn anybody. I'm trying to tell a story for what it's worth and be honest to that person… That's one of my main goals, that you know why this person is [a ce

Margalit Fox is a senior obituary writer for The New York Times and the author of The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code. "You do get emotionally involved with people, even though as a journalist you're not supposed to. But as a

Mat Honan is a senior writer at Wired. "[The tech] industry — especially as it relates to a lot the silly apps and the silly websites and the silly shit that we put up with — is ridiculous. It's just such a hype fest, people living off of jargon and nons

Jonathan Shainin, senior editor at The Caravan.   "Working in an environment that's foreign, where you have to kind of think through a lot of things from the ground up...I find it to be really stimulating to have to interrogate the assumptions that you

Vanessa Grigoriadis, contributing editor at New York and Vanity Fair. On the art of the celebrity interview: "People are smart. Particularly these people. They're sitting there thinking, "When is she going to drop that question?" They know what you're do

Natasha Vargas-Cooper, writer. Show notes: @natashavc natashavc.com Vargas-Cooper on Longform [2:30] "Jesse James Hollywood: On Trial" (The Awl • May-July 2009) [11:00] Mad Men Unbuttoned (2010) [18:30] "The Day-Care Threat" (Brad Schrade, Jeremy Ols

Ted Conover, author of five books and the recent Harper's article "The Way of All Flesh." Show notes: tedconover.com Interview Transcript Personal Archive [1:00] "The Way of All Flesh" (Harper's • April 2013) [3:30] "Power Steer" (Michael Pollan • Ne

Ann Friedman, writer, editor and co-founder of Tomorrow. Show notes: @annfriedman annfriedman.com Personal Archive [5:45] Pie Charts Archive (The Hairpin) [7:15] #realtalk Column (CJR) [15:00] "The Ann Friedman Weekly" [22:00] "Minimum Rage" (Nona Wi

Patrick Symmes, foreign correspondent and contributor to Outside and Harper's.  Show notes: @patricksymmes patricksymmes.com Symmes's Outside archive Symmes's Harper's archive [2:30] Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend (

Jay Caspian Kang, writer and editor at Grantland. Show notes: @jaycaspiankang [2:00] "Online Poker's Big Winner" (New York Times Magazine • 2011) [4:30] The Dead Do Not Improve (2012) [8:00] "The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the Hig

Molly Young, freelance writer for GQ and New York. Show notes: @rolfpotts rolfpotts.com [2:00] Murder of football player in Kansas shakes town (Sports Illustrated • Feb 2013) [15:00] Salon travel column (1999-2000) [16:30] "Storming the Beach" (Salon

Rolf Potts, travel writer. Show notes: @rolfpotts rolfpotts.com [2:00] Murder of football player in Kansas shakes town (Sports Illustrated • Feb 2013) [15:00] Salon travel column (1999-2000) [16:30] "Storming the Beach" (Salon • Jan 1999) [19:30] "Va

Jake Silverstein, editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly. Show notes: @jakesilverstein Silverstein's Texas Monthly archive [5:00] Welcome to the New National Homepage of Texas (Texas Monthly • Jan 2013) [14:00] "The Innocent Man, Part 1" (Pamela Colloff •

Emily Nussbaum, television critic at The New Yorker. Show notes: @emilynussbaum emilynussbaum.com Nussbaum's New Yorker archive Nussbaum's New York archive [1:30] Tina Fey at the Paley Center for Media [5:45] "Shark Week: House of Cards, Scandal, and

Keith Gessen, founding editor of n+1 and contributor to The New Yorker. Show notes: Gessen's Personal Archive Gessen's n+1 archive Gessen's New Yorker archive [5:15] Money (n+1 • Mar 2006) [6:15] Ugly Duckling Presse [13:15] "Stuck" (New Yorker • Aug