Origin Stories

• Bonnie Tsui on Why We Swim

  Bonnie Tsui is a veteran journalist and the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including On Muscle, American Chinatown, and Why We Swim, which was published in 2020 by Algonquin Books. In this episode, she talks with Matthew about the challenges of writing Why We Swim, which mixes rigorous scientific reporting, history, and long passages of essayistic exploration. “It’s an instinctive way of writing," Bonnie says of the latter. "I mean, you know you have to come back to the points that you’re trying to make, with the chapter or the piece or whatever, but it is not the same as going to report something, or interview a person, and get all those details in. It’s about feeling your way forward and finding your way to some truth.” To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.

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• Roy Wood Jr. on The Man of Many Fathers

  Roy Wood Jr. is a comedian, actor, and former correspondent for The Daily Show. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about his new book, "The Man of Many Fathers: Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir," which is structured as an extended letter to his young son. Early drafts, Wood recalls, were composed by voice note, while walking to the set of The Daily Show – a process that helped give the book its emotional power and irreverent humor.  "I don't believe you type the way you talk because you're constantly thinking about grammar and sentence fragments. Whereas I'm just walking down the street, and I'm like, 'This dude, he snorted cocaine, he stank, he looked like a gorilla, his shirt was sweaty, had brown teeth. He had one tooth that was more yellow than the other. How you get extra tartar on one tooth?' These are abstract, weird thoughts and if I'm in a flow of talking aloud, they're gonna come out. And I can take those, transcribe them, and then at night, really look at this story and go, 'Okay, this part should go here. This is disjointed, let's move this around.' To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.

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• Introducing Zero to Well-Read

  Part book club, part English class, Zero to Well-Read is a fun and irreverent guide to the books everyone talks about, from classics you should have read in high school to the modern hits everyone's buzzing about. In each episode, hosts Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Schinsky tell you everything you need to know about a must-read book, including its plot, what it feels like to read, why it’s important, and the key takeaways you can use at your next dinner party.

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• Introducing Bad Elizabeth

  Bad Elizabeth is a comedic true crime podcast  hosted by friends and former “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” office mates, Gideon Evans and Kathy Egan-Taylor. The premise is as simple as it sounds: each episode explores the story of an “Elizabeth” (or any derivation of that name) who is notorious, be they a murderer, a fraudster, or just a complete a-hole. These women span both past and present, in pop culture, and world history. Gideon & Kathy guide you through these sordid and outrageous tales breezily, as if you were a guest at a fun cocktail party.

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• Mitch Albom on Twice

  Mitch Albom is a journalist, playwright, and the author, most famously, of "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." Before scoring his breakout hit with "Tuesdays With Morrie," Mitch was a longtime sports reporter for The Detroit Free Press, where his column still appears every week. In this episode, he talks to Matthew about his new novel, Twice, and the importance of putting theme first. "The ideas always come before the characters and even the plot," he says of his creative process. "So I always start with, 'What theme do I want to write about?' Never what plot, or what's the story, or an idea for a character. It's, 'What do I want to tackle?' Because I know I'm going to have to live with that theme for a long time. Plots come and go. Characters can come and go. But if I'm not happy about what it is that I'm writing about, or what I'm trying to sail towards –– my North Star as I'm writing –– I can't live with it for that long." Mitch says he writes every day, for no more than three hours. "You need to fill your heart back up again. It's a regenerating thing, like blood. Like Red Smith said about sports writing: 'It's easy. You just sit down and open up a vein and bleed out a story.' But if you close the vein, you put a bandage on it, the blood eventually comes back in and you get back what you lost. I think it's the same thing with ideas and words."  To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at ⁠joinoriginstories.com⁠. You can also find us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠ & ⁠Youtube⁠.

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