Zoe Francesca's Blog
March 3, 2012
Author Interviews
Getting to interview Barbara Ehrenreich and Ira Glass in 2001 was a highlight of my early freelance career.
I spoke with Barbara Ehrenreich only days after 9/11 occurred. I first came across her work in 1990 when she published the book "The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverant Notes from a Decade of Greed," and ever since then she was a hero of mine. The theme of the magazine issue I was working on in 2001 was "Failure." I remember at the time hearing the word "failure" often in the news as it related to 9/11, and I was curious to know Ehrenreich's take on it: who or what had gone so wrong? Her book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" had just come out, and I asked her about that, too. Read the interview here:
http://www.onthepage.org/failure/inte...
Speaking to Ira Glass felt like speaking with an old friend. I had been listening to "This American Life" for a while and it was my favorite radio show. Instead of feeling nervous about interviewing him, I decided to try and interact with him as if he were an old classmate or neighborhood friend of mine, since the theme of the magazine issue was "Adolescence," and I think it worked. My one mistake: I spent quite a while listening to the archives, and probably blasted him with too many references to past shows. Read the interview here:
http://www.onthepage.org/adolescence/...
I spoke with Barbara Ehrenreich only days after 9/11 occurred. I first came across her work in 1990 when she published the book "The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverant Notes from a Decade of Greed," and ever since then she was a hero of mine. The theme of the magazine issue I was working on in 2001 was "Failure." I remember at the time hearing the word "failure" often in the news as it related to 9/11, and I was curious to know Ehrenreich's take on it: who or what had gone so wrong? Her book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" had just come out, and I asked her about that, too. Read the interview here:
http://www.onthepage.org/failure/inte...
Speaking to Ira Glass felt like speaking with an old friend. I had been listening to "This American Life" for a while and it was my favorite radio show. Instead of feeling nervous about interviewing him, I decided to try and interact with him as if he were an old classmate or neighborhood friend of mine, since the theme of the magazine issue was "Adolescence," and I think it worked. My one mistake: I spent quite a while listening to the archives, and probably blasted him with too many references to past shows. Read the interview here:
http://www.onthepage.org/adolescence/...
