Jason Fagone's Blog

Here are the four things I wrote in 2014 that I liked the best. Many thanks to the editors and fact-checkers who worked with me this year.

4. How a Squad of Ex-Cops Fights Police Abuses, Mother Jones

A few years ago I came across a short article in a Florida newspaper about a guy named Al Smith, who had won an award for “Public Defense Investigator of the Year.” I wasn’t even aware that “public defense investigator” was a job that someone could have, so I called Al Smith, and he told me his sto...

Some quick thoughts on the New Yorker’s big Chris Christie story by Ryan Lizza:

It’s a great Christie profile. I’ve been interested in Christie since I wrote about him for Philly mag in 2010, and I’ve been waiting for someone to go back over his early career, 1993 to 1997, when he first began building a reputation as a corruption fighter and trampling opponents. He won his first campaign, for instance, by smearing a 62-year-old grandmother and former schoolteacher named Cecelia Laureys, along...

I’ve wanted to write books and stories since I was a kid. That’s always been my dream. But I never had any idea that making a living this way would give me access to such a wonderful and talented group of people. So, thank you to thefriends and colleagues who supported me this year — the ones who shared or published my work, invited me to speak, made me laugh, and/or forgave me when I was an asshole on Twitter:Elon Green, Jeff Sharlet, David Epstein, Jen Miller, Alex Heard, Joel Mathis, James...

@jfagone A punch in the groin silences all but the most hardy.

— Stephen Rodrick (@stephenrodrick) December 28, 2013

I hesitate to post this because it’s kind of downbeat. But my tweet about book sales generated some interesting responses, and I want to preserve them here.

So: There are a few reasons why you shouldn’t ask an author about his/her book sales.

1. The writer doesn’t know.

@jfagone And no one outside the industry believes you when you tell them you don't know.

— Jen A. Miller (@byJenAMi...

The nine-day INGENIOUS road trip and book tour, featuring me and Kevin Smith ofIlluminati Motor Works, is over. Thank you to all who spread the word on Twitter and Facebook, to those who hosted us, and to those who attended the events. Thanks as well to Crown Publishers for supporting us. Some of the positives:

we reconnected with old friends

we saw Twitter friends in real life

we met many kind and interesting strangers

we spoke with passion about projects we’re proud of (the book, Ingenious,andt...

“There is nothing in the history of technology in the past century and a half to suggest that infallible methods of invention have been discovered or are, in fact, discoverable…. As with most other human activities, the monotony and sheer physical labor in research can be relieved by the use of expensive equipment and tasks can thereby be attempted which would otherwise be wholly impossible. But it does not appear that new mysteries will only be solved and new applications of natural forces m...

So INGENIOUS is out now, and people are reading it. Most seem to like it, which is gratifying. If you’re reading INGENIOUS, please shoot me a note and let me know what you think.

I wanted to gather a couple of links to nice things that have happened since the pub date.

1. I gave a 5-minute talk at Ignite Philly, an event where people are invited to share their passions with a supportive and increasingly drunk audience at Johnny Brenda’s, a bar in Philadelphia. Here’s the audio of all 15 Ignite...

I’m trying to set up a mini book tour / road trip for INGENIOUS and I need your help.

Here’s what I’d like to do. Kevin Smith, the man who built a 207-MPG electric car in an Illinois barn with his friends and family and his own bare hands, is willing to take a week off work and haul the car to the East Coast on the week of November 18 or the week of December 2. Either one. I’d like to visit some East Coast cities with Kevin and talk about the book. We’ll go as far north as Boston, as far south...

Hi. So it’s Sunday morning and I thought I’d take a few minutes to let you know what’s going on with me. The big thing is that the publication of my book, Ingenious, is one month away now. Books start shipping (or escaping electronically) on November 5. I’m excited. I’ve been thinking about the people in the book and trying to write their story for more than three years. Now others will read and respond, I hope, which is fun to think about.

Ingenious in a couple sentences: It’s about inventors...

From John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Good-By:

“I’m a darling girl.”

I didn’t want to be within fifteen hundred miles of this darling girl. I didn’t want to be in this October city. I wanted to be back aboard my Busted Flush moored in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale, my 52 feet of custom houseboat which I could fill with my favorite brand of darling girls, the brown untroubled ones, eager galley slaves, the hair-salty, rump-sandy, beer-opening, fish-catching, happy-making girls in sun-faded f...