Episode 338: Remembering Matt Tullis

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By Brendan O’Meara

Matt Tullis, a survivor of childhood cancer, a professor, a writer, an author, a podcaster, passed away following complications from surgery.

If you want to help the Tullis family, here is a link to their gofundme page.

He was the author of Running with Ghosts, a memoir of his experience surviving cancer. It’s a wonderful book.

And it’s a tragic loss not only to his family, but also the nonfiction community. A tumor had surfaced, no doubt a result of the treatment he endured as a teenager.

He announced on Twitter that he was having surgery, then he said how well it went.

A couple days later he passed away.

I interviewed a few people who knew Matt well and put together an audio tribute of sorts. Please enjoy.

Script for Ep. 338 (there will be typos)

IT’S PROBABLY CLICHE TO SAY THESE DAYS THAT AUDIO IS AN “INTIMATE” MEDIUM. TRITE BUT TRUE. YOU HEAR SOMEONE’S VOICE COMING THROUGH YOUR HEADPHONES OR YOUR CAR STEREO AND YOU GET A REAL SENSE THAT YOU ARE PARTNERED WITH THAT PERSON, BE IT A RADIO SHOW OR A PODCAST. COUPLE THAT WITH A PERSON’S ARTICLES, ESSAYS, AND BOOKS, AND YOU TRULY FEEL LIKE YOU KNOW A PERSON EVEN IF YOU’VE NEVER SHOOK HANDS, HUGGED, AND SLUGGED BACK A FEW BEERS.

MATT TULLIS, AUTHOR OF RUNNING WITH GHOSTS, TEACHER AT FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY, HOST OF GANGREY THE PODCAST, WAS A PERSON YOU FELT YOU KNEW. HE PASSED AWAY UNEXPECTEDLY IN SEPTEMBER DUE TO COMPLICATIONS FOLLOWING SURGERY TO REMOVE A TUMOR ON HIS BRAIN. HE WAS 46. 

YOU CAN FIND HIS OBITUARY ONLINE AND YOU CAN VISIT A GOFUNDME PAGE TO HELP SUPPORT THE TULLIS FAMILY, LINKS OF WHICH WILL BE IN THE SHOW NOTES. BUT AS A WRITER AND PODCASTER, I WANTED TO CELEBRATE MATT’S LIFE IN THE ONLY WAY THAT A WRITER AND PODCASTER CAN: BY INTERVIEWING PEOPLE WHO DEEPLY ADMIRED HIM.

I INTERVIEWED MATT A FEW YEARS BACK ABOUT HIS WONDERFUL MEMOIR RUNNING WITH GHOSTS, A BOOK ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCE SURVIVING CHILDHOOD CANCER. THAT INTERVIEW IS APPENDED TO THIS TRIBUTE IN FULL,OR YOU CAN SEEK IT OUT IN THE CNF POD BACKLOG, EPISODE 64. BECAUSE WE WERE FANS OF EACH OTHER’S SHOWS, ACTUALLY, I WAS A FAN OF HIS, I HAVE NO EVIDENCE HE WAS A FAN OF THIS ONE, WE KNEW EACH OTHER THE WAY SO MANY OF US NARRATIVE NONFICTION WEIRDOS AND PODCASTERS KNOW EACH OTHER: THROUGH THE DIGITAL WORLD AND THROUGH EACH OTHER’S WORK. THERE’S A FEELING OF KNOWING, EVEN IF YOU NEVER MET. 

FORTUNATELY, I SPOKE TO SEVERAL PEOPLE WHO KNEW MATT FAR BETTER THAN I AND HAVE SUCH WONDERFUL THINGS TO SAY ABOUT HIM AND THE LEGACY HE FORGED AS A MEMBER OF THIS COMMUNITY. 

MATT ANNOUNCED ON TWITTER, AND I ASSUME FACEBOOK AS WELL, THAT HE WAS HAVING SURGERY TO REMOVE A TUMOR ON HIS BRAIN. THE TREATMENT HE ENDURED THAT SAVED HIS LIFE AS A TEENAGER ESSENTIALLY STARTED A TIMEBOMB TO FUTURE CANCER AND THE CLOCK WAS CLOSE TO ZERO. IN THE TWITTER THEAD HE MENTIONED HOW EXCITED HE WAS TO WRITE ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE, BRINGING, NO DOUBT, HIS SIGNATURE UNDERSTATED STYLE. IT TAKES A LOT OF SKILL TO WRITE THE WAY MATT WROTE. IT SOUNDS INSULTING, LIKE CALLING A QUARTERBACK A GAME MANAGER AND NOT A PLAY MAKER, AND AS A SPORTS WRITER, I THINK MATT WOULD APPRECIATE THE PARALLEL. AFTER THE SURGERY, HE POSTED ON TWITTER, HIS FINAL TWEET, RIGHT THERE ATOP THE FEED UNTIL SOMEONE DELETES HIS ACCOUNT, “HEY ALL! YESTERDAY’S SURGERY WAS A SUCCESS AND I’M FEELING GREAT ALREADY!”

WE WERE STOKED. THEN, JUST TWO DAYS LATER, GLENN STOUT, AUTHOR OF TIGER GIRL AND THE CANDY KID, YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA, AND THE LONG-TIME SERIES EDITOR FOR BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITER, POSTED ON INSTAGRAM THAT MATT HAD PASSED. MY GUT DROPPED. ALL OF US NONFICTION FANS AND PURVEYORS OF THE CRAFT, ALL OF US WHO SOMEHOW KNEW HIM, HAD A SIMILAR REACTION. 

GLENN: when I saw him, you know, he was posting on Facebook on Wordle, his Wordle scores before surgery, and he was like, hey, my brain, still, hey, I have a brain tumor, my brain still works, and post his score. And then, you know, I’m checking. And then the day of the surgery, boy, there’s a picture of him, and he’s all wrapped up in gauze, but huge smile on his face, his Wordle score, and he says, Hey, I guess my brain still works. So you’re kind of exhaled and thought everything was fine. And then I was up in Maine for a long weekend, and at a place with very little internet or phone service. But I had some for a while, and I decided to check in let’s see how Matt’s doing. And I saw the post by his wife. So that’s how I learned about it

THERE WAS SO MUCH HE HAD LEFT TO DO: FROM TEACHING, TO INTERVIEWING, TO TURNING THE BEST NUGGETS FROM GANGREY THE PODCAST INTO A TEXTBOOK OF SORTS, TO THE ESSAYS AND ARTICLES AND BOOKS. IF THERE IS A SILVERLINING, IT’S THAT WRITERS, BY VIRTUE OF THE CRAFT, LEAVE SOMETHING AKIN TO A PAPER TRAIL.

HERE’S KIM H. CROSS, AUTHOR OF WHAT STANDS IN A STORM AND THE STAHL HOUSE AND AN AWARD-WINNING FEATURES WRITER WHOSE WORK HAS BEEN FEATURED IN BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITING AND YEAR’S BEST SPORTS WRITING. 

KIM: You know what he’s left us is this, this little bit of immortality and that, you know, we can always go and listen to His voice, talking about stories with people who love talking about stories. And that’s a pretty awesome legacy. And so I know that, you know, I really love teaching, teaching narrative nonfiction and, and I will keep assigning those podcasts. And so I think that like keeping, keeping people listening to what you did, I mean, what’s cool is that the, the podcasts and the stories are very, like, I don’t feel like they have a short shelf life, I feel like they, they’re going to be instructive for for a long time. And that’s really cool.

IN SPEAKING WITH THE HANDFUL OF PEOPLE I CORRALLED FOR THIS AUDIO OBITUARY OF SORTS, THE PREVAILING WAY OF DESCRIBING MATT WAS HOW VOID OF EGO HE WAS. LIKE, THIS IS A SUBGENRE OF WRITING THAT OFTEN CELEBRATES STYLISTS, BE IT DIDION, MAILER, AND WOLFE, RIGHT THROUGH WALLACE, ORLEAN, SULLIVAN, AND THOMPSON, AND THERE IS A DEGREE OF SHOWMANSHIP THAT COMES WITH THE TURF. TWIN THAT WITH THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA, AND YOU GET A PERFECT STORM OF PEOPLE ESPOUSING THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL GREATNESS. UNLESS IT WAS HIS POSTS ABOUT RUNNING, MATT NEVER TOOK A FIGURATIVE SELFIE; THE CAMERA ALWAYS FACED OUT. 

BEN: naturally was a lot of egos, I think, you know, everybody who, who came to the table kind of brought with them, the thing that makes some of us good, I think, which is like, you know, this strong sense of confidence that, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do a well and I’m gonna do it better than you. 

THIS IS BEN MONTGOMERY IS THE AUTHOR OF A SHOT IN THE MOONLIGHT AND THE FOUNDER OF THE GANGREY BLOG, AN OG FORUM TO SHARE AND TALK ABOUT NARRATIVE NONFICTION.

And there’s some competition rolled up in that and things like that, but, and some machismo and whatever. But Matt was like, void of ego in a way that, you know, not many people who were in that circle in the early days of Gangrey were and and not many people who are like, you know, doing long form journalism, serious, long form journalism, where he, he was a sort of a soft soul, if you will, in in that crowd, and I liked that a lot about him.

GLENN: And in a business where a lot of people are always kind of going pay attention to me, look how great I am. He wasn’t that guy.

MICHAEL GRAFF, SOUTHERN BUREAU CHIEF OF AXIOS LOCAL, HAD THIS TO SAY:

I think it’s just caring about people. I mean, it’s that was what shines through in all of his work. It was just he cared about the people. And no, I don’t. I don’t know that. him I don’t I wouldn’t say like he, he’s not like he wasn’t writing sentences like Hemingway, Matt was just writing about human beings, you know, and he was he was, he was just like, hey, look at this neat person I found or look at this neat experience I had, or this really compelling experience I had where I overcame something. And Matt was just drawing on all those human instincts and, or human conditions. And I think that’s just key for anybody who’s trying to, um, if you’re writing, whether it’s a short story, or a long story, you want people to connect with it. And Matt was just that’s one of those people who, if you talk to him, he really understood too, he would just had wide eyes about everything, you know, he was just, it was just like, I’m a part of this world. And it’s really cool to be here. And it’s so cool that all these humans want to talk to me. So I’m going to tell their stories in the best way I can. And I’m just going to be enthusiastic about it. You got the sense that he would be the greatest like hype man in the world, like if he was on, you know, if he was introducing you on stage. And he was doing that for all the people that he wrote about.

AGAIN, HERE’S KIM CROSS:

So I think that the fact that he contributed to, you know, the profession, as well as to the academic side of the teaching of the craft, I think is a pretty cool thing that not a lot of people do. And that’s, to me, that’s what sets them a little bit apart, in my mind. And, you know, there’s a lot of us who teach and, you know, we’re adjuncts, but he was he was a full time academic, but he also published and he also did this podcast, and he did all of these things, just for pure love of storytelling. And, and I think that’s, that’s a pretty amazing life. Like, he accomplished a lot. And he was a really nice guy. He didn’t have, you know, a huge ego. He was a kind person he was, you know, earnest and genuine. And he, he loved elevating the work of others, which I don’t know. I think that’s just really rare and special. And I’m, I’m gonna miss that about him.

When it came to interviewing, he was quick and to the point, something I like to call a good “shot clock.” He wasn’t a conversationalist who monopolized the mic. Did Matt maybe say, “Tell me about” or “Talk about” such and such as a quote-unquote question? Sure, but bubbling below that was a probing curiosity to unearth how the hell you stuck the landing.

AGAIN, BEN MONTGOMERY:

BEN: just to return to like what what I think he brought to the word of world pod, podcasting. So often, people ask questions to hear themselves as questions. And this speaks to the Guile is pneus of him too. He never asked a question that he wanted to sound Good, you know what I mean? We all do that we want we want folks to know what the hell we’re talking that we know what the hell we’re talking about by the question that we ask. And as a host of a podcast he often would just ask the most basic questions that that’s what young people need that’s what a lot of us need to you know to learn to learn from and he washe was really good about that and that’s what I’m that’s what I’ll miss yeah

YOU KNOW WHAT’S FUNNY? MATT NEVER PRONOUNCED GANGREY CORRECTLY. HE ALWAYS CALLED IT GANG GREE THE PODCAST.

BEN: Matt Tullis, God love him. God rest his soul. He never pronounced the name of Gangrey properly. I think he said it every single time Gang Gree the podcast he had in his head, and I swear, I tried to correct him two or three times I would like repeat it back the appropriate way. And look, I made up the word so it’s not. But in my head, I always said it Gangrey, you know, like the color gray. And he he butchered it every single time and the gang Gree and my friend Michael Cruz and Ocala snicker about that, you know, as Matt saying, Get angry again. But, but what followed after, after, that was always something that was surprising and interesting. And that speaks to Matt’s personality and his question is questioning ability. 

WE COULD TALK AD NAUSEUM ABOUT GANGREY AND MATT’S STEWARDSHIP OF THAT PODCAST FOR HOURS, BUT WE MUST TALK ABOUT HIS WRITING. GLENN STOUT, WHO, LIKE MATT, GREW UP IN RURAL OHIO, WHO ALSO BRINGS A WORKING-CLASS ETHOS TO THE WRITING, FIRST STARTED WORKING WITH MATT AT SB LONGFORM. MATT’S FIRST PIECE WAS ABOUT TWO RIVAL HORSESHOE THROWERS. THE STORY MATT WANTED TO WRITE WASN’T COMING TO FRUITION. HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, BUT GLENN SIMPLY SAID:

GLENN: write the story that is not the one that you want it to be,

SO THAT’S WHAT MATT DID, AND IT WAS A WONDERFUL PIECE AND A GREAT LESSON IN NONFICTION WRITING AND REPORTING: YOU TAKE WHAT THE FACTS GIVE YOU. WE CAN HAVE THIS VISION OF WHAT WE’D LIKE TO HAPPEN, THE TWO RIVALS SQUARING OFF, DAVID SLAYING GOLIATH, ETC, BUT WE CAN ONLY FILL OUR NOTEBOOKS UP WITH WHAT HAPPENED AND COOK WITH THE SEASONAL INGREDIENTS AVAILABLE TO US.

GLENN: He, his writing is not over the top, it’s all about arrangement, and pace and rhythm.

SO THE TWO HAD WORKED ON A COUPLE STORIES TOGETHER AND HAD BUILT A SORT OF BUCKEYE STATE RAPPORT, AND MATT, TRYING TO METABOLIZE HIS EXPERIENCE SURVIVING CHILDHOOD CANCER, SENT GLENN A MANUSCRIPT.

GLENN: And then eventually, you know, he after we’ve done a couple of stories together, he hands me, just sends me I don’t even think he pitched it. I think he just sent me You know, I’ve been trying to write this thing about growing up with childhood cancer. Take a look at this and see if there’s anything there. And what he wrote, I really liked. And I was like, oh, yeah, we can do this story. And, and then we went to work on that, that became The Ghosts I Run With which got a great deal of attention. I mean, I was hearing from people overseas about that story, because you know what he learned, which I think is kind of really big lesson and you have to be really open to get those big lessons is that he realized he’d been trying to write about himself for years. And in that story, he realized that the real story was in the other people, the other kids who were sick, the nurses and the doctors, because Matt, knowing that he might have later health issues had started to run, because he wanted his kids wanted to live long enough to see his kids become adults. And so we wanted to get healthy. And so he started to run and he realized after about a year of running, he forgot I think he forgot his his Walkman or his iPod one day, not a Walkman date. myself there, his iPod one day. And because he usually played music, he didn’t play music. And he realized that when he was by himself, what did he start thinking about? Back to that those times. But what was he thinking about? He was thinking about the other people, the other kids that he was sick with and the doctors and the nurses. And that was the key to, to write that story. And then of course, Mike Sager later turned it with turn it into running with ghosts, Matt’s memoir of that experience.

RUNNING WITH GHOSTS, PUBLISHED BY THE SAGER GROUP, WAS A RARE BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY. I’M A CRIER, I’LL JUST THROW THAT OUT THERE, BUT IT’S USUALLY TO MOVIES OR TV SHOWS BECAUSE MUSIC CAN REALLY JACK UP A MOOD. BUT BOOKS? THAT’S DIFFERENT. I’VE CRIED TO FRANK DEFORD’S BOOK ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER WHO SUFFERED FROM CYSTIC FIBROSIS, BRAD LISTI’S BE BRIEF AND TELL THEM EVERYTHING, AND MATT’S RUNNING WITH GHOSTS. THERE WAS THIS SIMPLE MOMENT OF MATT BEING IN BED, SICK AND TERRIFIED, WATCHING DUCK TALES ON TV. AND FOR SOME REASON, I SO DEEPLY FELT THE DESPERATION AND HOPELESSNESS OF A KID DEALT THIS SHITTY FUCKIN’ HAND, THAT I HAD TO CLOSE THE BOOK AND DRY MY EYES. IT WAS SO SIMPLY TOLD AND THAT’S THE MARK OF A SKILLED WORKER. 

HERE’S MIKE SAGER, A LONG TIME MAGAZINE WRITER AND FOUNDER OF THE SAGER GROUP:

SAGER: So, you know, Matt had this book. I mean, really, the only contribution I made it was, it was previously published as an article and it was called. Right, it was called the ghosts I run with and I couldn’t, I couldn’t deal with that title because of the dangling with. And so we call it running with ghosts. And, you know, all the rest was just me, enabling him. And I mean, that’s what, that’s what we kind of do. And, I mean, my, I feel a lot of times, like, this sounds really corny, but my dad was an OBGYN. And I helped start this company with a little bit of his money after he died. And I feel like I’m helping people deliver babies a lot, when that’s what I do. And so I have this intimate relationship with people where I kind of, like, I got my hands in their work, and we’re trying to make it good. And we’re, you know, we’re trying to create something that will last and, like, create legacy. And, and I think we just, we, we did great. And I think that, that Matt was able to sort of exorcise some of his own ghosts or like, learn, like, sort of place them in the right place in his life. 

THROUGH HIS 30S, MATT HAD TRIED TO WRITE THE BOOK MORE ABOUT HIMSELF, AND IT WASN’T UNTIL HE HAD GREATER DISTANCE THAT IT CLICKED, THAT IT WAS THE OTHERS. 

SAGER: You know, in basketball, they had this thing about, like, in order to get your shot off, you need to gain separation, you know, like, like, they take the giant, back step and shoot or whatever, but like, I think some people sort of their opinions become valuable because they gain separation from the rest of society. And by going through his ordeal at his age 15, I think, you know, that really shaped his life, and, and made him different. And, you know, once you go through that, you’re just not the same as everybody else.

SAGER: That was, Matt was a brave guy, and who like had looked into the face of death and learned how to be kind from that. And as a reporter, you know, he showed so much conscience his whole book was about his conscience. And, you know, as a reporter, that’s one of the things I tried to bring, which I think a lot of reporters don’t like, you’re trying so hard to get the story you forget to be a human being. And I think that’s what Matt brought, like this humanity, to everything that he did, by dint of the experiences he’d had, and the crucible, you know, he’d gone through. And so I think that’s his, really his legacy. He is, he is, he was human, and he helped others. And he was a teacher. And through his podcast, he was teaching further. And he was helping create a legacy for everyone that in turn created a legacy for him.

GLENN: And it’s a real loss. And, you know, he started the podcast, which I think was one of the first podcasts kind of focusing on this kind of work and, and gave a lot of us who had projects going a forum to talk about them. You know, it’s, it’s just, you know, you leave a mark and a lot of different ways and he left a mark and a lot of different ways, I think. I hope a lot of people go back and read some of the stories because I think they’re really good, but also just remember the way that he did it. Not calling attention to himself, not preening on Twitter, except to brag about Wordle and stuff like that and just focusing not on himself, but on everybody else. You know, who does that? Not many 

GRAFF: my friend, Michael Mooney in Texas wrote a story recently an essay for Texas highways, and he talks about his love of cemeteries. And in that his when he first met his wife, they’ve talked about death for some reason, I guess, on their first date. And she’s a she’s a wonderful thinker. And she said, you know, you there’s, there’s three deaths, there’s the one when you you know, there’s the one when you the part where you actually die. And then there’s the part where people can’t see you again. And then there’s the death when people don’t say your name anymore. And I think people are going to be saying Matt’s name for a long time. 

MATT TULLIS WILL BE MISSED AND, YES, HIS NAME WILL NOT SOON BE FORGOTTEN. HE WAS WORKING ON A BOOK OF NONFICTION CRAFT BASED ON THE INTERVIEWS HE DID AS PART OF GANGREY THE PODCAST. AS OF THIS DATE, SETH WICKERSHAM, ESPN SENIOR WRITER, MIGHT BE TAKING UP THE BATON AND TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT BOOK ENDS UP IN LIBRARIES AND BOOKSHELVES. 

IF YOU WANT TO HEAR MATT INTERVIEW SOME OF THE BEST WRITERS OF NONFICTION NARRATIVE, SUBSCRIBE TO GANGREY THE PODCAST WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS AND GO BUY HIS BOOK RUNNING WITH GHOSTS AND GOOGLE HIS STORIES THAT HE WROTE FOR SB NATION LONGFORM, AMONG OTHER PLACES. THERE WILL BE A LINK TO THE TULLIS FAMILY GOFUNDME PAGE IN THE SHOW NOTES. MATT IS SURVIVED BY HIS WIFE ALYSSA AND HIS TWO TEENAGE CHILDREN EMERY AND LILY. 

AND IF YOU WANT TO HEAR MATT AND I TALK ABOUT HIS BOOK, STAY WITH US TO HEAR OUR 2017 CONVERSATION WE HAD WHEN HIS BOOK CAME OUT. IF THE AUDIO QUALITY IS MEH, I’M SORRY, IT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO AND WE’RE ALWAYS LOOKING TO IMPROVE HERE AT CNF POD HQ. 

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING AND MAY MATT TULLIS REST IN PEACE.