Where story work explains itself.
Longform treats creative careers as sequences of choices, accidents, pressure, and revision. Its conversations linger on reporting, writing, editing, access, ambition, and the private habits behind public work.
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Longform is an interview show for people who care about how serious, funny, strange, and difficult stories get made. Its subject is not just the finished book, article, documentary, or podcast. It is the route there. The show spends time on first jobs, old assignments, editorial chaos, source relationships, court records, reporting nerves, unfinished ambitions, and the private bargains people make with their own work. The pace is measured. Questions often carry context before they land, which gives guests room to answer in more than talking points. That patience matters. In recent conversations, Rachel Khong describes the pull between magazine work and fiction writing, Kelsey McKinney talks about reporting as sanctioned nosiness, and John Jeremiah Sullivan reflects on writing, self-deception, and the strange joy of language. The Polk Award episodes push the frame outward. Meribah Knight discusses juvenile court, sealed records, federal lawsuits, and the power held by adults in closed systems. Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers talk through access, source management, and filming in Central African Republic. Longform can also turn the lens back on itself. Its bonus mailbag episode treats the show as both a practical weekly job and something listeners experienced as larger than its makers intended. Shell Game extends that self-questioning into AI voice cloning, independence, and the eerie usefulness of a synthetic self. The show is warm without being cozy. It has dry jokes, awkward openings, and plenty of human looseness, but the center is always the work. Longform suits listeners who want process, memory, contradiction, and craft instead of a promotional lap around a guest's latest project.
Made for: For readers, writers, reporters, editors, documentary fans, podcast makers, and anyone who likes hearing creative people think through the machinery behind their work.
What sets it apart: Longform stands apart by showing its homework and staying with the second question. It treats craft, memory, institutions, and doubt as part of the same conversation.
Interviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Longform makes the hidden decisions behind writing and investigative work legible through patient, unusually candid interviews.
Longform turns creative work into a close conversation about the choices and private machinery behind finished writing and reporting. Max Linsky, Aaron Lammer and Evan Ratliff ask guests to reconstruct how their work took shape, then stay with the tensions beneath it: Kelsey…
A reporter admits she plays dumb on assignment; you get the question behind the question.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A voice clone turns a routine support call into a careful lesson in synthetic speech.
Shell Game starts with a customer-service call about unauthorized charges, and the jolt comes quickly: the voice on the line is not Evan Ratliff, but a clone of his voice, guided by an AI chatbot and tied to his phone number.
A rare bonus mailbag that turns podcast labor into the point.
Long Form opens a rare bonus mailbag and uses it to think through the show itself: how it is heard, how it is made, and why the people behind it matter as much as the institution the internet can make it seem to be.
A farewell Long Form hour about writing as work, dread, and daily habit.
This Long Form hour uses a farewell-leaning frame to center John Jeremiah Sullivan and the uneasy mix of writing, dread, and the small lies that can sit behind the work.
A thoughtful author interview about the tradeoffs between journalism, fiction, and keeping a writing life intact.
Rachel Kong's Longform conversation starts with Real Americans, but it keeps circling the same tension: the chaos of journalism versus the slower pull of fiction.
A low-key craft conversation that makes reporting feel vivid without making it precious.
Kelsey McKinney's turn on Longform stays close to the work behind her writing: the shift from big reported narratives to essays and criticism, and the reason reporting still feels like the most electric part of the job.
A careful look at juvenile court, where sealed records and federal lawsuits shape what can be seen.
Maribah Knight's reporting on juvenile court traces a system built around rehabilitation, while still leaving room for uneven outcomes, privacy, and hard-to-answer challenges.
A careful look at Wagner reporting, source pressure, and the ethics of access.
Long Form uses this Polk Award conversation to show how journalism changes when the people being covered also help shape the frame. Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers discuss their Wagner reporting in Russia and the Central African Republic, and the strongest material comes when…
Women's outdoor stories from host Gail Straub, spanning ski culture, wilderness therapy, and subarctic life.
Long-form Apple talk with sharp product judgment and deep tech history.
Weekly film, music, and arts criticism from Monocle 24's Midori House studio in London.
Two product designers talk Figma workflows, button sizing, and AI design tools weekly.
Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert dissect CSS, CMS workflows, and AI coding agents weekly.
Evan Ratliff lets his clone answer the phone.
The mailbag finally shows up.
First, there is a lawnmower.
Max has no voice left.
A crow cuts into the start, which feels about right for Longform.
Juvenile court is supposed to help kids, not crush them.
Aaron returns to the Polk series with a question that keeps getting stranger: why would Russian-aligned sources in Central African Republic let Vice in at all?