15 / The Go-Slow Approach

Explicit content warning

02/27/18 • 39 min

My interview today is with Melissa Ludtke, a journalist who has reported for Sports Illustrated, been a correspondent for Time, worked at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and is also the creator of a transmedia project called Touching Home in China. But in today's interview we're talking about life in her twenties, and Melissa's was marked by the famous 1978 court case Ludtke v. Kuhn in which she, a young journalist backed by her employers, Sports Illustrated and Time Inc., sued the Major League Baseball Commissioner for the right to report from players' locker rooms. Melissa is at work writing a memoir about this experience, and I can't. Wait. To. Read. It.
Melissa didn't fall into sports reporting so easily. She had graduated and wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do next when she had a chance encounter with football player and commentator Frank Gifford, who told her she knew a lot about sports—for a girl. Melissa decided that sports journalism was going to be it, and Gifford invited her to New York City to tour ABC Sports.
Despite having a foot in the door, Melissa didn't get a job at ABC Sports right away because—twist!—the women's movement had started, and companies were coming under fire for putting women who had college degrees in administrative work. First she had to pay her dues as a secretary for Harper's Bazaar (which, I guess, didn't care about that). But when Melissa wasn't working, she'd shadow at ABC, absorbing as much as she could.
Melissa ended up at Sports Illustrated as a researcher/reporter, and using her press pass, spent night after night at the ballpark. There was just one problem: Because she was a woman, Melissa wasn't allowed to go into the players' locker room for interviews before the game started (this was after batting practice—no one was naked!). If one of her male cohorts couldn't persuade a player to step outside and do an interview with Melissa, she didn't get any work done that day.
But Melissa didn't make waves—it wasn't her style—and she didn't stop showing up. And then, a breakthrough that signaled her go-slow approach was working: Mickey Morabito, the Yankees' PR director, asked her if she'd like to join the men reporters in Yankees manager Billy Martin's office after games to do interviews. And for the 1977 World Series, both teams—the Yankees and Dodgers—agreed to allow Melissa access to their locker rooms to report.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't come to pass. The baseball commissioner banned Melissa from the locker rooms during the World Series because she was a woman.
And so, Melissa became the face of a lawsuit against Major League Baseball for equal rights. To find out how the judge in her court case ruled, listen below, or subscribe in Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

This episode was produced by Erin McKinstry. Our music, from Blue Dot Sessions, is called The Zeppelin. This interview was recorded with the help of Google Hangouts.

This episode was produced by Erin McKinstry. Our music, from Blue Dot Sessions, is called The Zeppelin. This interview was recorded with the help of Google Hangouts.

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14 / Waiting for Life to Start

My interview today is with Mandy Len Catron, author of How to Fall in Love with Anyone, a memoir in essays, and a professor of English and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. You might be familiar with Mandy's name because she wrote one of the most popular Modern Love columns of all time: "To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This."

As her book's title might let on, Mandy studies love—what makes love work? What makes it last? Does it really work the way we see it working in the movies?—so not only is this interview appropriate for Galentine's Day, but also, as Mandy tells me, a lot of the decisions she made in her twenties were because of a relationship she was in.
"When I was in my twenties, and I was trying to figure out how to be a person in the world, I had this idea that if I attached myself to other interesting people, then suddenly I would become interesting, and I could count somehow," she says. "My primary way to do that was through my romantic relationship. If I could go back and do it differently, I would invest more seriously in my own interests. I wish I had just said, 'F*** it, I'm going to be a writer,' and writing is a legitimate way to spend my time."
Mandy and I discuss struggling with the belief that the only path to writing legitimacy is getting an MFA...and the downside to starting an MFA program when you're 22: You might not have as much life experience as your older cohorts. Actually, make that the downside of your twenties in full: no life experience, zero patience, and, as Mandy says, "I was constantly waiting for my life to start."

Mandy also talks about jobs she held while writing (competitive barista-ing to interning at National Geographic Kids), the best thing she did for her writing career (pushing through the fear of sharing unpolished work via a blog), and what Day 1 of Writing a Book looks like (a lot like Day 10).

I asked Mandy if, in the years she spent shaping her book manuscript, she ever felt like giving up—and she remembers a time when she, well, did. Mandy went to a retreat where Cheryl Strayed was speaking, and asked the famous memoirist if she had any advice for someone who was writing and just felt grossed out by her own voice. Mandy's fix was to take a year off, and in that time, she read a book by Queen Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby, that gave her an idea on how to structure her own. What she ended up publishing didn't follow that structure, but it moved the needle.

For more, listen below, or subscribe in Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

This episode was produced by Erin McKinstry. Our music, from Blue Dot Sessions, is called The Zeppelin. This interview was recorded with the help of Skype.

Next Episode

16 / The Anti–Five Year Plan

A first for Life TK—we're dipping into engagement this week with Rubina Madan Fillion, the director of audience engagement at The Intercept. There, Rubina runs social media; works on SEO, analytics, newsletters, membership, and more; and is charged with not only growing the number of people who are engaging with The Intercept but also making its content more shareable.

Rubina pretty much always knew she wanted to be a journalist, but it took her a little while to figure out just what type of journalist she was going to be. After a couple of impressive internships, she landed a job as an education reporter at a small newspaper in Georgia—but it didn't feel quite right. She didn't like the daily grind of churning out words and words and words, and was more interested in alternative storytelling. "When I was reporting in Georgia," she says, "I read the book called Quarterlife Crisis, and I was convinced I was going through one because I could not figure things out. I was so unhappy, but I couldn't really figure out why. I knew I needed to leave my job." Sound familiar? Listen here for Rubina's surprising anecdote about which Comedy Central TV show inspired her to get a master's degree from Columbia University's journalism school.

Once at Columbia, Rubina took a graphics class—alternative storytelling!—that set her on the path to the career she has now. Her professor liked her final project so much that she asked Rubina if she'd be interested in freelancing for the graphics department of The New. York. Times.

But before she ended up at the Times, Rubina faced another career challenge. She interned at the Associated Press and hoped for a job there...but they weren't hiring. However, it only freed her up to permalance at the Times, which led to a full-time job at The Wall Street Journal, where she spent most of her twenties.

I assumed that someone who ticked off the New York Times and WSJ boxes—places where journalists dream of working—before turning 30 must have had an intense vision board, but that wasn't necessarily the case for Rubina, and she lets me in on the perk of not making a five-year plan. "If I had a five-year plan, I would have always been a little bit unhappy with what I was doing then, and thinking about what I would do in the future," she says. "Whereas I feel like for most of my life and most of my career, I've been really appreciative of what I have and been able to go with the flow with whatever the next step would be."

In this episode, Rubina also talks about the toughest career decision she ever made: leaving her job at WSJ, a place so comfortable it felt like home, for one at The Intercept...when she was five months' pregnant. Job uncertainty—my favorite subject, and I share a little bit on this, too. Oh, but one happy update: My job situation is not as precarious now as it was at the time of this recording, and, in fact, things are improving for me. This is journalism, folks. Listen below, or subscribe in Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

This episode was produced by Erin McKinstry. Our music, from Blue Dot Sessions, is called The Zeppelin. This interview was recorded with the help of Google Hangouts.