Origin Stories

Clint Smith is a celebrated poet, essayist, and staff writer at The Atlantic. In addition to his two poetry collections, Counting Descent and Above Ground, he is the author of the award-winning nonfiction bestseller How the Word Is Passed. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about the reporting of How the Word is Passed, and how he made it accessible without losing rigor. “When I was writing the book, I wrote about eight places, but I could have written about 1,008, because the scars of slavery are etched into the landscape all around us,” he says. “I also don’t want a young person, or anybody, to look at this book and be physically overwhelmed or intimidated by the prospect of even picking it up.” To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joincampside.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gilbert King is a writer, photographer, and author of several books, including Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about the creation of Bone Valley, his hit podcast about the 1987 murder of Michelle Schofield. You can preorder the novel about his experience here Working in audio was a new experience for King, who relied on his producer, Kelsey Decker, to show him the ropes. "I was just ruining the tape left and right," he jokes. "And I remember Kelsey passed me this note on an in index card. It said 'Shut up.' Point taken. So I found myself having to nod a lot and make wide eyes and stuff like that. But I do believe it made me a better interviewer. Just learning to work with the silence, which is something I never really knew." To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joincampside.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Evan Ratliff, magazine writer, podcaster, and author who founded Longform and The Atavist, discusses creating Shell Game, an independently funded narrative series. He describes using AI voice experiments, testing believability on strangers, and shaping emotional arcs. He also talks about production workflow, collaborating with a small team including his wife, and the risks of going independent.

Bonnie Tsui is a veteran journalist and the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including On Muscle, American Chinatown, and Why We Swim, which was published in 2020 by Algonquin Books. In this episode, she talks with Matthew about the challenges of writing Why We Swim, which mixes rigorous scientific reporting, history, and long passages of essayistic exploration. “It’s an instinctive way of writing," Bonnie says of the latter. "I mean, you know you have to come back to the points that you’re trying to make, with the chapter or the piece or whatever, but it is not the same as going to report something, or interview a person, and get all those details in. It’s about feeling your way forward and finding your way to some truth.” To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Roy Wood Jr. is a comedian, actor, and former correspondent for The Daily Show. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about his new book, "The Man of Many Fathers: Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir," which is structured as an extended letter to his young son. Early drafts, Wood recalls, were composed by voice note, while walking to the set of The Daily Show – a process that helped give the book its emotional power and irreverent humor.  "I don't believe you type the way you talk because you're constantly thinking about grammar and sentence fragments. Whereas I'm just walking down the street, and I'm like, 'This dude, he snorted cocaine, he stank, he looked like a gorilla, his shirt was sweaty, had brown teeth. He had one tooth that was more yellow than the other. How you get extra tartar on one tooth?' These are abstract, weird thoughts and if I'm in a flow of talking aloud, they're gonna come out. And I can take those, transcribe them, and then at night, really look at this story and go, 'Okay, this part should go here. This is disjointed, let's move this around.' To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Part book club, part English class, Zero to Well-Read is a fun and irreverent guide to the books everyone talks about, from classics you should have read in high school to the modern hits everyone's buzzing about. In each episode, hosts Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Schinsky tell you everything you need to know about a must-read book, including its plot, what it feels like to read, why it’s important, and the key takeaways you can use at your next dinner party.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bad Elizabeth is a comedic true crime podcast  hosted by friends and former “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” office mates, Gideon Evans and Kathy Egan-Taylor. The premise is as simple as it sounds: each episode explores the story of an “Elizabeth” (or any derivation of that name) who is notorious, be they a murderer, a fraudster, or just a complete a-hole. These women span both past and present, in pop culture, and world history. Gideon & Kathy guide you through these sordid and outrageous tales breezily, as if you were a guest at a fun cocktail party.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mitch Albom is a journalist, playwright, and the author, most famously, of "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." Before scoring his breakout hit with "Tuesdays With Morrie," Mitch was a longtime sports reporter for The Detroit Free Press, where his column still appears every week. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about his new novel, Twice, and the importance of putting theme first. "The ideas always come before the characters and even the plot," he says of his creative process. "So I always start with, 'What theme do I want to write about?' Never what plot, or what's the story, or an idea for a character. It's, 'What do I want to tackle?' Because I know I'm going to have to live with that theme for a long time. Plots come and go. Characters can come and go. But if I'm not happy about what it is that I'm writing about, or what I'm trying to sail towards –– my North Star as I'm writing –– I can't live with it for that long." Mitch says he writes every day, for no more than three hours. "You need to fill your heart back up again. It's a regenerating thing, like blood. Like Red Smith said about sports writing: 'It's easy. You just sit down and open up a vein and bleed out a story.' But if you close the vein, you put a bandage on it, the blood eventually comes back in and you get back what you lost. I think it's the same thing with ideas and words."  To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Steve Burns is best known as the first host of the groundbreaking kids TV show Blue's Clues, which debuted nearly three decades ago, in 1996. After leaving Blue's Clues, Steve worked as a voiceover actor and a musician; his song "Mighty Little Man" became the theme song for "Young Sheldon." In this episode, he talks to Matthew about the creation of his new hit podcast, "Alive With Steve Burns," and the learning curve involved in experimenting with a new medium.  "I watched like 40 hours of Dick Cavett and then I realized that was not useful to this forum in any way," he says. "And that I'd probably be better off taking some improv classes and understanding what journalism is. Right now, it seems like it's improvisational journalism if it's anything. But I'm still flailing around in a sea of fear when I'm here." To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Debora Cahn is a television writer, producer, and showrunner. Debora launched her career as a scribe on The West Wing and Grey’s Anatomy; later, she served as a writer and executive producer on Homeland. In this episode, she talks to Matthew about The Diplomat, the hit drama series she created for Netflix. “The game that we're trying to win is to stay in a viewer's life for years,” she says of The Diplomat, which is now entering its third season. “Make this story interesting to people for years. And to do that, you plant all of these things in the garden, to use a simple metaphor. And some of them grow and some of them don't. And some of them are just sort of sitting there waiting for you to take advantage of them somewhere down the line.” To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.