lordeoftherings

Hello from a reader! When I was an undergrad in Chicago a few years back, I knew… an embarrassing amount about the NYC restaurant scene because I read your columns so often. The precision of your diction, the off-handed but pleasurable nature of your style really made them such a regular delight—something that could have been quotidian, stuffy, self-involved, or ass-covering became a gift to the reader and an excuse to educate. They’re something I aspire to in my own journalism.

SO. How did you handle writing those columns—or really any regular journalistic assignment? What was your workflow? Were you an outliner, a multiple-draftser, or do you tend to write and edit at the same time, so your “first draft” is the published version?

As someone who’s been both a high-profile editor and a high-profile writer, what qualities do you try to instill in writers as an editor? Who are some of the favorite editors you’ve worked under, and what did you learn from them?