Today, I have a special interview for you with freelance journalist and author Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow. She has a fascinating new book out on April 8th, Atomic Dreams, the inside story of how nuclear energy has become the hot topic of the climate debate, and perhaps a vital power source of the future. Through her immersive reporting, we meet a cast of surprising and complex characters: “activists and polemicists, converts and curmudgeons, who all debate, with each other and themselves, the future of energy,” writes Russell Gold, author of Superpower and The Boom.
I first got to know Becca through a longform journalism group, becoming friends over the years. We ended up developing one of those special writer relationships, in which we can text each other and within minutes hop on FaceTime to talk about the latest creative or reporting challenge of the day, which might be anything from dealing with a difficult source, to a tough edit, to a story pitch that needs a home, and much more.
In the freelance journalism world, some of us call these “accountability buddies,” who listen to each other as we embark upon new projects or find ourselves navigating through the middle of one. These friendships can also extend well beyond journalism or accountability, into everyday life.
For The Reported Essay, Becca talked to me about her relatively new career in narrative writing, and how nervous the idea of it made her in the beginning—going from essays and ideas reporting to more in-depth narrative pieces that involve telling human stories about complicated people.
So, I hope you enjoy this frank and honest conversation with Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, whose writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, New York Review of Books, The Nation, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Guardian, among other publications. She is the author of Personal Stereo, a short cultural history of the Walkman, which was named one of Pitchfork’s favorite music books of 2017. Her work has received support from the Robert B. Silvers Foundation and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
