Episode 236 with John Glionna: Author of Buy No Friday Night Lights: Reservation Football on the Edge of America and Keen Observer of Rural Life, Dynamic Real-Life Characters, and the Underdog

Notes and Links to John Glionna’s Work

 

   For Episode 236, Pete welcomes John Glionna, and the two discuss, among other topics, his journalistic awakenings and the writers who influenced him, his kinship with renegades and underdogs, what it was like embedding with a small town football team, the interesting characters and rich lives lived in rural areas, and salient themes like Native traumas, pride, declining enrollments in schools and on sports teams and the rises and falls of life in small-town América. 

 

   John M. Glionna is an award-winning journalist who has traveled the world as a newspaper and magazine writer. After twenty-six years at the Los Angeles Times he now works as a freelance writer. He is the author of Outback Nevada: Real Stories from the Silver State. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, and Outside and has been included in Best American Sports Writing and Best Los Angeles Times Foreign Reporting.

 

Buy No Friday Night Lights: Reservation Football on the Edge of America

 

John's Website

At about 2:20, John talks about his winding road to becoming a big reader-a “lover of the word,” and some inspirational words that put him on the path to journalism 

At about 9:00, John talks about formative and transformative writers for him, including Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, and Rick Bass

At about 13:00, John gives some tips on clever title choices

At about 14:10, John details connections to Ernest Hemingway and lessons learned 

At about 16:10, John explains the greatness of Hunter Thompson, and talks about “being in the mind” of the great writers

At about 17:30-don’t follow the Hunter S. Thompson diet!

At about 18:55, John charts his viewing of Brown Buffalo and his own “Gonzo Journalism”

At about 20:00, John charts his time at The Los Angeles Times, including what made a “Glionna story”

At about 24:00, Pete lays out the book’s Preface and the two discuss Glenn Stout’s influence and support for John

At about 28:40, John talks about seeds for the book

At about 31:20, Pete and John discuss McDermitt, Nevada, and John’s connections to it and how the book developed

At about 35:00, John highlights Coach Egan and Coach Smith and his admiration for them that led him to continue embedding with the McDermitt High School Football Team

At about 37:40, John quotes Jane Smiley in talking about the vagaries of small town America-, including its true isolation and “Shakespearean” likeness

At about 40:00, John charts how his book progressed, including real-time blogs and controversy that followed in the town

At about 41:45, Pete and John lay out some of the book’s plotline and exposition and complicating factors

At about 47:15, Pete and John talk about some dynamic characters in the book: real-life coaches and players

At about 48:30, John responds to Pete’s question about writing about winners 

At about 51:10, Pete and John discuss the ways in which the football team coaches had to be accommodating 

At about 56:10, Herman Herford is discussed as an early chronicler of McDermitt, which helped John in his work,

At about 58:50, “Cowboy Bob” is discussed

At about 1:01:20, Jack Smith, coach, is discussed

At about 1:02:25, Pete and John talk about the book’s Epilogue and Native sites and the fight to restore dignity

At about 1:06:25, The Crutcher family and their strength and contemporary changes in Paiute-Shoshone reservation life are highlighted

At about 1:09:50, John describes giving each person in the book their “own story”

At about 1:12:10, John gives out contact info and encourages readers to be in dialogue

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    Please tune in for Episode 237 with Ghassan Zeinnedine, professor of creative writing at Oberlin College, and co-editor of the creative nonfiction anthology Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging. His standout debut story collection is Dearborn.

The episode will go live on June 4. 

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