Who: Olga Khazan

Claim To Fame: Olga Khazan is the author of the new book, Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World. She is a staff writer for The Atlantic, covering health, gender, and science. Prior to that, she was The Atlantic’s Global editor. She has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Forbes, and other publications. She is a two-time recipient of the International Reporting Project’s Journalism Fellowship and winner of the 2017 National Headliner Awards for Magazine Online Writing.

Where To Find Olga: Her Website, Amazon, Twitter

Praise For Olga: [Olga Khazan’s is] a voice unlike any I can remember encountering on the page. By turns insouciantly candid, calmly authoritative, and poignantly insightful, Khazan’s persona has a startling freshness that ultimately wins over the reader… [She extends] deep empathy and genuine curiosity to her subjects.” ― The Washington Post

When and where do you like to write? Are you regimented about your writing routine?

I have an office (which I’m very grateful for and never brag about and only got recently), and I do all my writing in there pretty much. I have a comfy chair my boyfriend bought me and one of those adjustable desks. I work like 14 hours a day, and you don’t want to mess around with bad ergonomics when you work that much.

I don’t really have a routine other than that I like to write for 4-5 hours at a time. If I can’t have 4-5 hours clear to write a story, I’d rather just push it to the next day or the night. I can’t do the tweeting-while-writing-and-talking-to-your-boss thing. Or I have to consciously take a break at a breaking point.

Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits before you sit down to write?

Not really. I like to have my beverages and snacks close at hand. Sometimes if I’m really stuck I’ll take a walk or do the elliptical. But usually I can just get to it.

All of your work is incredibly reported and researched. What does your researching process look like? Do you have a system or method for organizing material you may want to use in future writing?

I’m a reporter at heart, and that means my safe space is doing interviews. I interview people who seem like they would know about my topic, then I ask them who else I should interview. All the interviews go in a Google Doc, and at the end I should have like a travelogue of my understanding of the story in the Doc. That’s if everything goes well! Which it doesn’t always.

Deciding on a great idea to write about can be the most challenging aspect for a writer. How do you come to the point of ‘this is something I want to write about’? Are there habits or daily practices you use to think about book or article ideas?

A lot of them just come to me based on what I’m reading or seeing. With WEIRD, I’ve just always been fascinated by oddballs and loners and outsiders. I really get a lot of energy from interviewing people like that because I feel like that a lot of the time. Following your own interests and passions is a good way to dig into something.

Weird was your first book. Did you find your routine and process differ at all versus how you approach journalism and magazine writing?

The main thing is just the time of day that I worked. With the book, I wasn’t tied to a work schedule, so I let my inner night owl fly free. I would usually start up around 2 or 3 p.m. and work till midnight or 1. One day I had a radio interview at 8 a.m. that I forgot about, and … I definitely woke up 3 seconds before it started. I’m not sure why, I just feel more alert in the evening.

What books or writers have most influenced the way you think and the way you write?

Yes, Story Craft by Jack Hart was very helpful. I’ve read a bunch of other writing books, but that was the main one that taught me “how to do it,” so to speak.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

I always feel like if people follow whatever advice I have and it doesn’t work, they’re gonna blame me later. So your mileage may vary, but I would say try doing more of what you like and less of what you dislike. A lot of young people in journalism are pressured into doing stuff they don’t like because of this old dues-paying model that doesn’t really work anymore. So you have people who want to be a theater critic at the New York Times writing about Little-League games in Omaha. I would say just forget that and do your theater criticism already! Or whatever.

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