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Jessica Camille Aguirre (@jessicacaquirre) is a freelance journalist based out of Berlin, Germany, and she’s got a ripping piece for this month’s Atavist, “Watch It Burn.” Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe’s fraud of the century.
It deals with carbon credits and the scammers were quick to pounce on this upstart industry.
William Ralston is a freelancer journalist and he comes on the show to talk about “Mayday,” his long feature about a harrowing rescue of four children after a deadly plane crash for The Atavist.
Right from the start, William grabs the reader and doesn’t let you go, man. Maybe you’ll consider subscribing to The Atavist Magazine. I don’t get any kickbacks, so I do it out of the goodness of Grinch-sized heart (before he serves up the roast beast).
William’s work has appeared all over the place. He’s a dogged reporter, so we get into that quite a bit.
This conversation gets into trust, as well as learning how to write before you’re ready. Jonah Ogles also stops by to give some of those valuable insights into the editor side of the table.
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Katya Cengel (@kcengel) is a journalist and author, and she’s the journalist behind “The Truth is Out There” for The Atavist Magazine. A father’s disappearance, dark family secrets, and the hunt for Bigfoot.
It’s a touching story on “searching for elusive truths,” that weaves together cryptozoology and a family in search of their father.
So in this episode we unpack who Katya dug up this story, earning trust, and getting comfortable with untidy endings.
We also speak with editor Jonah Ogles about getting pitches over the hump and the value in pitching again and again.
Tom Donaghy, a playwright and screenwriter, needed to find out.
Harry Anglemeyer was a fixture of Ocean City with a fudge empire on the Jersey Shore, The Copper Kettle. He wanted to lift up and move forward the ocean-side city. He was openly queer in a time that wasn’t as accepting. In 1964, he was murdered and the case was never solved.
Hidden Valley Road was recommended not only by Oprah, but also Barrack Obama
His features have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Wired, and Oprah Magazine, among others.
His latest is “Dead Reckoning” for The Atavist Magazine, and it chronicles the greatest peacetime nautical disaster in U.S. history. It deals with skepticism over technology, honor, fathers and sons, hubris, and many other juicy themes.
This is one’s a gut punch. And, as Seyward Darby, editor-in-chief of The Atavist, says in this interview, she pushes against the gimmicky. This piece delivers a brutal punch, takes us on a journey around an abusive marriage, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, Tony Robbins-esque self-help, and more.
How Eric kept it all together is a testament to his skill as a reporter and a writer.
“In the waning days of the Iron Curtain, Rainier Sonntag helped fuel the neo-Nazi movement that still plagues Germany today. He was also a Communist spy—and he was working for Vladimir Putin.”
It’s that Atavistian time of the of month and I get to welcome the journalist Bill Donahue to the podcast to talk about his new piece “The Voyagers.”
Naturally, it’s an incredible piece that is a voyage across the Bering Strait, but, as Bill notes, a voyage across the Cold War.
I also speak with Jonah Ogles, the lead editor of this piece, about what makes for great profile writing and how an editor can help a writer get to “that good place.”
Lot’s of great rawhide to gnaw on in this podcast.
