Episode 26 - Neal Pollack

Mystery writer, journalist, satirist Neal Pollack and Jamie talk about everything from Hollywood to Gawker, with a little weed, Jeopardy, Hipsters and McSweeneys in between. Neal Pollack has written ten bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction that have been published in multiple languages around the world.

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Mystery writer, journalist, satirist Neal Pollack and Jamie talk about everything from Hollywood to Gawker, with a little weed, Jeopardy, Hipsters and McSweeneys in between.

Neal Pollack has written ten bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction that have been published in multiple languages around the world. A 1992 graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School Of Journalism, Pollack spent seven years as a staff writer at the Chicago Reader. In 2000, he published his first book, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, as the inaugural volume in Dave Eggers’ McSweeneys book imprint, and started satirically calling himself The Greatest Living American Writer.

Believing his own press, Pollack quit his job and embarked on a successful freelance career. His articles, satire, and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Esquire, The New Republic, The Nation, and pretty much every other American publication except for The New Yorker. Pollack has since been a columnist for Vanity Fair, The New York Press, Parents.com, and other publications which no longer exist.

Among other projects, he’s written a bestselling detective series set in the L.A. yoga scene.  He currently writes a car column called “The Unenthusiast” for Time, Inc.’s The Drive, continues to write as The Greatest Living American Writer at Salon, and works as the Texas Correspondent for The Cannabist, an online marijuana newspaper.

Pollack is also the host, with his 14-year-old son Elijah, of Extra Credit, a “Channel” (aka a podcast) on Audible.com, where Pollack tries to teach Elijah dubious lessons that he won’t get in school. He has been a guest on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and was featured on an early episode of This American Life.

Pollack recorded a disastrous but entertaining album, Never Mind The Pollacks, with his band, The Neal Pollack Invasion, which was recently re-released on vinyl by Chicken Ranch Records. The Neal Pollack Invasion played South By Southwest many times, and Pollack has performed his spoken-word act at cultural festivals around the world, playing on bills with David Byrne, They Might Be Giants, John Doe, and many others.

Pollack loves cheese, marijuana, Boston Terriers, the Los Angeles Dodgers, classic cinema and you.

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Coming soon, 15 Minutes 2nd conversation with WFMU's Hearty white, and then fiction writer George Saunders!

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