240. 35-year feature writer and book author John Glionna

On this episode we're joined by a great longform feature writer, John Glionna. John is a longtime journalist – older than most of our guests (he's in his 60s). He spent 35 years in newspapers including 26 at the Los Angeles Times. He's been based in different places around the world, including Seoul, South Korea and Las Vegas.

This interview is intended to pick John's brain on what goes into writing features about some of the most interesting and unusual people you'll ever encounter. We discuss several of his past features, which are excerpted in his new book, Rebels and Outliers, Real Stories of the American West. There are a lot of good lessons for aspiring journalists on everything from writing ledes to what can be gained from reading your work aloud.

John's blog: https://www.johnglionna.com/blog

Article examples:

The Bridge Jumper –

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-may-23-me-jumper23-story.html

The Lonesome Phone Booth

https://www.mediafire.com/file/xnr8uqryadrdt3b/19960223_OC_Register_Lonesome_Phone_has_the_ring_of_a_Desert_Landmark.pdf/file

John's salute: The current staff of the Los Angeles Times

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