"I feel like before I have the confidence to write in the way that I want to write, where I really own the material, I have to spend so much time with people. I will say at the outset, once I walk someone through what it's going to involve after they say yes to talking to me, I'll say I'm going to be around a lot and you're going to get sick of me," says Pamela Colloff, author of Catch the Devil.

Today’s guest, I mean, wow, from the bottom of the diaphragm up, wow. It’s Pamela Colloff. You know her from her National Magazine Award winning work for Texas Monthly and ProPublica/The New York Times Magazine. She’s THE premier investigative reporter in the country and she’s now the author of Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast. It’s published by Knopf.

This book upends what you think a true crime story is about where the true villain isn’t a person at all. It chronicles, among others, Paul Skalnik, a jailhouse snitch, whose non-credible testimony places numerous men on death row, Jim Dailey, in particular, and Pamela takes us through this riveting narrative and punishing commentary on capital punishment and why Florida seems hellbent on being No. 1 in executions.

Here’s just a slice of what Pam is about: She is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, once for reporting and once for feature writing. Her work has been adapted for narrative and documentary films including Tower, which was short-listed in 2016 for an Oscar. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Reporting, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists. She joined ProPublica/The New York Times Magazine in 2017 after many years at Texas Monthly. Listen, I could go on. You get the gist.

In this episode, we talk about:

What drew her to Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson
Speaking with Tom Junod
The Boys Club of longform writing
Her start at Texas Monthly
Being a journalism dork
The elation and despair
How every story is a Rubix cube
The Skip Hollandsworth Method
Owning the material
Knowing when to quote and when not to
Idea generation
Writing is hard
How magazine writing and book writing are different animals
Why Catch the Devil is her now-or-never moment
Beginnings are the worst
Being more disciplined with a book vs. magazine writing
Writing in this attention economy

Pair this episode with Ep. 255 with Maddy Crowell and Ep. 414 with John Rosengren, and many other Atavist true crimey pods, too many to mention here. I’d also chuck in Ep. 224 with Patrick Radden Keefe. He’ll be back on the show for the paperback run of London Calling.

Episode 537: Pamela Colloff's Now-or-Never Moment with 'Catch the Devil'

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara

Episode 537: Pamela Colloff's Now-or-Never Moment with 'Catch the Devil'