Steve Almond

In an essay from his new collection: Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country, Dear Sugars co-host Steve Almond considers his beginnings in journalism through the lens of the “bad stories” he believes delivered our country to the Trump era. Accompanied by a Longreads Podcast interview with Essays Editor Sari Botton.

Steve Almond rediscovers his love of pinball as an adult and joins a social club dedicated to the enjoyment and preservation of pinball machines.

Almond argues that a culture of negativity is growing in the world of writers, partly due to a fear that they are competing for fewer steady jobs and a shrinking audience. “Entitlement is the enemy of artistic progress, which requires patience and gratitude and, above all, humility. You don’t grow as a writer by writing off other people’s efforts. You grow as a writer by respecting the process.”