Dear Past Episode 3 In Hindi

[Manlio Chowdhury]

Could you use some advice or inspiration from a fellow writer about creativity, motivation, and the writing life? Submit your question for consideration for a future advice column by leaving it in the comments below.

We asked Alicia Kennedy to share her advice on interviewing. She calls From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy Podcast, her weekly podcast that\u2019s part of her food newsletter, \u201Ca curated conversation series.\u201D She recently wrote about her belief in unscripted, unedited interviews here. Read on for her advice, or listen to her read it aloud above.

My podcast always begins with the same question: \u201CCan you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?\u201D This establishes the conversation in some straightforward biography, while also grounding it in the flavors and food philosophies that have shaped the guest\u2019s life. From there, the audience and I will get to go deeper, but the guest sets the terms of the conversation by choosing what and how much to share. Do they become wistful and nostalgic, or do these memories seem painful? Are they tinged by grief and loss, or by joy and whimsy? The question sets the tone and tenor of the rest of the conversation.

To me, a good interview is governed by the same thing as good nonfiction writing: curiosity. I\u2019ve made mistakes before by doing interviews with people whose work I, frankly, was not curious about, and that means I\u2019m just going through the motions. But what makes an interview good for the audience\u2014whether a listener or reader\u2014is that the people having the conversation are actively engaged with each other, and ideally with each other\u2019s work. As an interviewer, I want the people listening to feel like they\u2019re overhearing a natural conversation, something that would happen spontaneously after the plates are cleared away from the dinner table and all that\u2019s left is some wine and cake.

There also needs to be a spirit of generosity on the part of the person being interviewed. When people come on who\u2019ve never bothered to listen to a past episode and don\u2019t respond generously to good-faith questions, it can feel like pulling teeth. I\u2019ve learned for myself, whether I\u2019m the host or the guest, that I shouldn\u2019t show up unless I can get locked into having a generous conversation. This means being curious and being engaged, of course, but also believing that every question is a good question, a worthwhile question, and if I think perhaps it hasn\u2019t been phrased well, that I can reframe it in my response.

In order to facilitate better conversations, I send my guests the questions a week ahead of time. This provides not too much time to overprepare and thus kill spontaneity, but it does allow them to get a sense of the trajectory of the conversation and tell me whether they\u2019d prefer to go in another direction. I want guests to be comfortable and know that it will be a safe space for anything they wish to talk about, and I like to establish their boundaries ahead of time.

I try to ask big, open questions, too, so that the guest feels free to take their response in any direction. Specific questions, I\u2019ve found, lend themselves too easily to simple answers. The worst feeling is to receive a \u201Cyes\u201D or \u201Cno\u201D in response. Though sometimes one can want to flex just how deep they\u2019ve researched in their questions, I find it better to be looser and to let the guest guide the conversation a bit, because their spontaneity will also be more compelling to the listener.

In writing these bigger, more open questions, I dive into all the person\u2019s work and also try to listen to or read past interviews. I want to honor the subjects that drive the guest\u2019s life while also bringing something different to it, something less anticipated. My questions that I ask to everyone are very important for this reason, such as in how I begin, but also in how I finish, which is with the same two questions. Each guest responds to the same questions in new ways.

I used to ask just, \u201CFor you, is cooking a political act?\u201D but I change it up based on whether the guest has told me they like to cook or not. If they don\u2019t, I ask about writing or bartending or whatever it is they put all their soul into. I\u2019ve begun to add the question \u201CHow do you define abundance?\u201D because the concept of \u201Cabundance\u201D keeps working its way into my own writing\u2014how we define it, yes, as well as how to cultivate it and how to reframe it in a world that tries to tell us abundance looks one way, means one thing.

My podcast is, in this way, an extension of my writing, a way to engage with its themes with folks who\u2019ve done different kinds of work in food and culture, who can bring new perspectives to themes I work with consistently. We all eat and engage with food differently, and I want to honor that diversity through generous, curious conversation.

This is the fourth in a recurring series of longform writer advice, following Embedded\u2019s Kate Lindsay\u2019s advice on creating trust with your readers, Lance\u2019s Anna Codrea-Rado\u2019s advice on learning to celebrate just how far you\u2019ve come, and Mason Currey\u2019s advice on creative growth.

If you read #1, please send an email to ninab...@gmail.com describing your episode idea. The most successful pitches also include title options. You can see past episodes titles here.

To celebrate(?) the coming season, I\u2019m firing up another post here that is going to rely on all of you for your questions. It\u2019s an advice column!!! Before you worry too much about me giving advice, my idea behind this will be to reach out to people with more brains than myself for answers to your questions. So don\u2019t worry, unless I really know the answer, I\u2019ll make sure I reach out to someone who does ;)

I\u2019ve had such a blast with all of you as this community grows. This seems like an easy post that we can all benefit from. If you have a question, you\u2019re probably not the only one who\u2019s thought of it, so this will be a great resource for many! Perhaps you\u2019re wondering about strength training, nutrition, coaching, or something similar. Maybe you\u2019re just wondering how others fit all the training in with life, or even simpler, how to run downhill. Heck, maybe you\u2019re just curious about the process behind creating a podcast or past episodes. Whatever you\u2019re wondering, submit it, and we will get to the bottom of it. Just don\u2019t ask what Bluetooth speaker is recommended for the trails\u2026 \uD83E\uDD23

I\u2019m really looking forward to this! I can\u2019t wait to see what people want to know. I also can\u2019t wait to reach out to all the knowledgeable friends of the newsletter and read their responses and share them here with everyone. I\u2019m going to keep submissions open until mid-October and will send out a reminder.

If you enjoy my newsletter, I would really appreciate it if you could like, share, subscribe, or comment! I\u2019m trying to make this the best trail running newsletter it can be and I certainly appreciate your time. Thank you all and happy trails.

For me \u2018Dear Mama\u2019 has been an intense, fullfilling journey that began in 2019 and concludes with the airing of episode five tonight at 10pm. When I signed on in the fall of 2019 I was just a consultant on the series, but director Allen Hughes, who\u2019ve known since before he and his brother Albert shot \u2018Menace II Society,\u2019 invited me to have a bigger role on the project. In the middle of the horrible pandemic this project sustained me. I\u2019ve worked on a lot of projects as a director and producer the past four years, but none were quite as all consuming as being part of a gifted production team on this series and being given an executive producer role. Whether it wins awards or not is immaterial. \u2018Dear Mama\u2019 has altready made a mark on the culture, not simply as the story of a famous MC, but as a window into the life of the black revolutionaries of the \u201870s who risked their lives for the liberation of oppressed people. Special shout outs to the late Thomas \u2018Blood\u2019 McCreary, who was ailing when we spoke with him in North Carolina, but still gave a spirited and insightful interview. Blood, along with Shaba Om, Watani and Jamal Joseph, all commited activists, gave eloquent testimony to the majesty of Afeni Shakur. It was a priviledge to speak with them all.

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.

It would be nice to get a follow-up blog post detailing what you recommend measuring during the year, especially since what to measure is just as important as what not to measure. I think most problems occur from this lack of clarity because not many people are talking about it and we all know that majoring in minor things is not quite useful.

This reply is obviously years later, but I would like to suggest that no one is exactly perfect, and no one is exactly like another. Mentors are people to get valuable insights and information from, not people to emulate exactly. I would also like to suggest that you take the bits and pieces (from any mentor) that you get value from and utilize them. Anything outside of that, let it be. Live and let live. We are here to help each other. We are not here to judge each other on every aspect of our beliefs and thoughts. There are likely things that you believe in that Tim (and others) disagree with, but he (and they) choose not to cut you from their lives because of those differences. Embrace uniqueness and unique thoughts, for those are the nuggets of wisdom that Tim (and others) have shared in order to help someone else. And different perspectives are often worth listening to, if only to see if there are possible solutions within those perspectives to solve a piece of the problem. Again, we are here to help each other in whatever way it happens that we can.

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