{"id":1606231,"date":"2024-04-12T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecreativeindependent.com\/people\/writer-and-reporter-rachel-monroe-on-dot-dot-dot"},"modified":"2024-04-12T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T07:00:00","slug":"writer-and-reporter-rachel-monroe-on-acknowledging-the-failures-on-the-path-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/12\/writer-and-reporter-rachel-monroe-on-acknowledging-the-failures-on-the-path-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer and reporter Rachel Monroe on acknowledging the failures on the path to success"},"content":{"rendered":"

You write \u201cLetter from the Southwest<\/a>,\u201d a column for The New Yorker<\/i>. You\u2019re based in Marfa, but report from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and more. I imagine you\u2019re often traveling. Do you like being on the road?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I always prefer to drive. I had an old pickup truck and bought a new hybrid truck when I got this job, because I knew that I was going to want to be on the road, and I like having my own vehicle. I feel a little bit like a turtle. It just fills up with stuff when I\u2019m on a trip. I almost always would prefer to drive than fly.<\/p>\n\n

I am also a person who will go probably an hour out of my way to take the two lane road instead of the highway or something, just because I always like seeing what\u2019s out there. My brain churns along as I\u2019m driving, and it\u2019s just nice to be in it. There\u2019s something about flying that\u2019s very disconcerting. You just land somewhere and you\u2019re plunged into this new reality.<\/p>\n\n

How has it been going from freelancing to having this current job in which you write for a singular publication?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I think there\u2019s a lot of freedom that comes with being a freelancer. It\u2019s freedom that comes at a price. It\u2019s sort of all up to you. The generating ideas and pitching them and getting all the work done. I was working closely with editors, many of whom were really wonderful, but I felt [that] if I didn\u2019t keep it going, it wouldn\u2019t keep going, if that makes sense. All the sort of initiating energy I had to come from within.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s been something about being attached to an institution\u2014especially an institution that I really respect\u2014that has been really relieving and relaxing. And that\u2019s the trade-off for slightly less freedom. I started freelancing at The New Yorker<\/i>,<\/em> I think, in 2017. I\u2019ve worked with the same editor the whole time. We have a really great relationship.<\/p>\n\n

When I was pondering taking the job, I was afraid of the idea of writing more quickly, and more frequently. I was [also] afraid of being kind of siloed as a Texas writer, if that makes sense. There are a lot of great Texas writers, but there\u2019s a lot that I\u2019m interested in that\u2019s beyond this state. And one of the things that I like so much about reporting is that it gives me an excuse and the funds to leave.<\/p>\n\n

Honestly, this is why I\u2019m really grateful for this job. There\u2019s a lot of freedom in this job too. I think The New Yorker<\/i> is a place that really respects writers. I wasn\u2019t hired to fill a position. They\u2019re not really doing that. I feel like there\u2019s a lot of trust in me and my own instincts, and what am I drawn to, what I want to write about.<\/p>\n\n

I like that you used the word trust. To let someone go on a reporting trip is a special kind of trust. You\u2019ve written an incredible book<\/a> on women and crime and you were focused on crime for a while, and now you\u2019ve expanded your reporting world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I think earlier in my career, I was really envious of people who had a very clear beat. I write about climate, I write about sports, etc. And I think there are still a lot of writers I admire who are just deep on a subject and deep and well sourced and knowledgeable. But I\u2019ve always thought that\u2019s not the way that my brain works. I\u2019m just so all over the place and obsessed with one thing, and then once I finish a piece, I\u2019m usually pretty done with it, and then I\u2019m zipping around and obsessed with something else. A couple of years ago I did this piece for Esquire<\/a><\/i> about online sperm donors, and if you met me back then, I would somehow steer the conversation back to sperm. But then you meet me a month later and it would be about fire, or who knows what else.<\/p>\n\n

I really do think that it\u2019s important to find a kind of work that suits your own, the way that your brain functions. Rather than trying to fight or discipline your brain to be other than it is. Just to know who you are, how you work, and work with that\u2013instead of putting yourself in a position where you\u2019re constantly at war with yourself.<\/span> I have found myself with a life that allows me to have these serial obsessions that I can go really deep on and then leave behind.<\/p>\n\n

It seems like you have a lot of artist friends, and I\u2019m sure you have journalist friends, but I feel like Marfa is known for being an artist hub as well. I\u2019m curious what your relationship to art is, and also do you consider yourself an artist in some ways?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I love being around artists. I tend to like being around artists and musicians more than I like being around writers. There are many writers who I really love, but if I look at my life and who I\u2019m hanging out with, it\u2019s just who my closest friends tend to be. And I think there\u2019s something I just really admire about the kind of creativity that I don\u2019t have at all.<\/p>\n\n

I think maybe it\u2019s easier for me to just exist in admiration and not feel comparison or competition or insecurity or something. I have always found and found it really inspiring to be around people who do things that I\u2019m in such awe of, and it\u2019s fun.<\/span> In Marfa, I can absorb all kinds of gossip about the art world. A lot of it passes through Marfa in one way or another, and I just sort of get to enjoy it. It doesn\u2019t make me feel anxious about my own career in any way. I can just be a pure voyeur. So there\u2019s pleasure in it in that way.<\/p>\n\n

My dad\u2019s really into art, so I grew up with a lot of art around. I think there\u2019s something in me that has just always found it stimulating, slightly beyond my grasp.<\/p>\n\n

Are there times that you\u2019ve started an article that didn\u2019t end up going in a direction that you wanted to, and then abandoned it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I try not to have too many preconceptions at the beginning, so they always go in all sorts of directions. But I\u2019ve definitely had pieces that have been killed. I think to me, it\u2019s very important to talk about it. I wish we could talk about it more because when you\u2019re looking at somebody\u2019s career from the outside, you only see the things that worked. Right?<\/span><\/p>\n\n

That\u2019s true.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

You don\u2019t see the 10 pitches that nobody responded to or said no to. You just see the one that made it through the process intact.<\/span> I remember talking to a friend of mine who is a journalist and had just gotten a piece killed. She was feeling so much shame about it, and I was like, \u201cDude, that just happened to me last month. This is so normal.\u201d She also didn\u2019t have that many friends who were journalists and maybe didn\u2019t know how normal it was. It felt like she had failed. And I was like, \u201cNo, this is often, it\u2019s a failure of the editorial process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

I think it\u2019s also really a useful thing to go through because it\u2019s made me think much more. It\u2019s really useful to have the experience of failure. It makes me, at least, stress-test my ideas and be wary of getting too caught up in that enthusiasm of what something could be and just really force myself to ask, \u201cDo I have the sources? Is this really here?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m grateful for it, and I think everybody should make sure there are kill fees in their contracts so it doesn\u2019t become financially ruinous.<\/p>\n\n

I did a piece that was supposed to be for The New York Times Magazine<\/i> about\u2013this was years ago\u2013about vacant row houses in Baltimore. It didn\u2019t end up working for The New York Times Magazine<\/i>. In one way, it was too big. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. It got killed, but then I ended up writing it for The New Republic<\/a><\/i>. We sort of edited it way down. It was much clearer and better. Somebody reading that in The New Republic<\/i> would have no idea that it was months of torture.<\/p>\n\n

Definitely. I do think that learning to fail in that way, or even getting rejected, has its own importance.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Otherwise, you feel like you\u2019re just guessing or making it up. There\u2019s something about getting a no or getting an edit, even a harsh edit, that somehow brings you in touch with reality in a way that I think is really useful. You can always work with reality. You just have to know what the reality is.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Is there something you wish someone had told you when you first started becoming a journalist?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It took me a long time to figure out how to trust my own observations and reactions and instincts, because I didn\u2019t go to journalism school. I think if I could go back and talk to myself, I think I would just give myself that permission in a way.<\/p>\n\n

Writing nonfiction is so scary because you\u2019re sort of describing what you see, your perspective, even if you\u2019re trying to do the most objective newsy thing in the world, your perspective is always there. Who do you choose to talk to? What do you choose to include or not include? And that was very hard for me for a long time.<\/p>\n\n

I think just the whole point of it, if somebody\u2019s asking you to write something or publishing something that you\u2019re writing, they are investing in your perspective. They want to hear from you. I think I spent a long time trying to sound like what I thought a journalist was<\/span>. I think that was the problem with that piece that didn\u2019t work for The New York Times Magazine<\/i> is I was trying to sound like a New York Times Magazine<\/i> writer, instead of just trying to trust myself.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s hard to do, but trusting your own instincts and your own perspective and your own perceptions, and finding the right partnerships for that\u2013if that makes sense\u2013finding the editor who gets you, finding the publication that\u2019s interested, not trying to totally rewrite or reshape what you\u2019ve done, but where that kind of alignment is\u2026 That\u2019s where my best work has come out of. And so I think just being on the lookout for that and finding that. Once you find it, hold onto it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

One of my favorite pieces you wrote last year was a difficult one about your relationship to guns and how that\u2019s changed<\/a>. It was surprising because I felt like it was one of the most personal things I\u2019ve read of yours, but in a really beautiful way. It can also be scary to write personal essays because it\u2019s your own life on the page.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I wrote a couple non-fiction pieces for the Believer<\/a><\/i> and for the dear departed Awl<\/i>, and I\u2019ve been thinking about how nice it would be to get back to that. I think in some ways those more personal pieces came out of, on the one hand, my fear of, or my insecurity maybe of, \u201cI\u2019m not a reporter. I didn\u2019t go to journalism school. Who\u2019s going to pay me to go to the Trump rally and write about that? That\u2019s for a real reporter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Now that I feel more confident in that realm, I think I\u2019ve become, in some ways, more timid writing about myself. But I miss it. It\u2019s also, that\u2019s a very slow kind of writing for me to really think and reflect and sort of try to accurately capture it. So it\u2019s hard for me to prioritize it. That was a gratifying thing about writing that gun essay is getting back into that mode of slowing down and finding something where that\u2019s not driven by a narrative. The momentum of it isn\u2019t necessarily a narrative, it\u2019s a progression of an idea or an emotion, or circling around something and seeing it from different angles. It\u2019s a richer, slower process for me.<\/p>\n\n

Definitely. It\u2019s only recently that I\u2019m really trusting in the slow process. It\u2019s easy to be caught up in what older people ahead of you have accomplished. It\u2019s through a slow process of, like you were saying, finding your editor, finding your voice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I didn\u2019t really start doing this kind of writing until I was almost 30. I do think it\u2019s harder now. I was sort of insulated from the careerist aspects of it, partially because all my friends were artists and musicians and theater people. I didn\u2019t even know enough to sort of have the sense that, \u201cOh, no, I\u2019m behind. I need to be pitching.\u201d I had no idea, I didn\u2019t know about any of it. And so yeah, that feeling of being behind, I think can be really insidious. But, if you\u2019re on your own path, you\u2019re never behind. Easier said like that.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I have the same impulses in me as everybody else. I\u2019m always measuring against whoever there\u2019s around to measure against. It\u2019s just about protecting the part of you that knows what it\u2019s interested in and loves the work for the work\u2019s sake. And that has nothing to do with careerism. It\u2019s just finding a way to protect and nurture that part and keep feeding and watering it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Rachel Monroe recommends:<\/b>
<\/p>\n\n

Marion Milner, A Life of One\u2019s Own<\/i> & On Not Being Able to Paint<\/i><\/a>. Marion Milner was the pen name of Joanna Field, a midcentury feminist and psychoanalyst. These books were recommended to me when I was in my twenties by my therapist, and I still return to them. They\u2019re books about what it feels like to think and create and exist in the world \u2013 the glory and the struggle of all that dailiness.
<\/p>\n\n

Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness<\/a><\/i>. A German journalist visits the commandant of Treblinka in prison, where he attempts to explain and exonerate himself, and she wrestles with her own pity and disgust. One of the great books about what it feels like to be a reporter (although it\u2019s usually not QUITE this intense).
<\/p>\n\n

Liberty Puzzles<\/a>. This Boulder-based company sells amazing wooden jigsaw puzzles that make every cardboard puzzle just feel like trash. Perfect when you want to mute your brain for a little while and not look at a screen.
<\/p>\n\n

My Own Private Idaho<\/a>. Just rewatched this for probably the tenth time. A shaggy, rambling movie held together by River Phoenix\u2019s tender, intense charisma.
<\/p>\n\n

Going for a walk. It makes almost everything better!
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This post was originally published on The Creative Independent<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You write \u201cLetter from the Southwest,\u201d a column for The New Yorker. You\u2019re based in Marfa, but report from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and more. I imagine you\u2019re often traveling. Do you like being on the road?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1606232,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606231\/revisions\/1606232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}