@voices
Voices of Swell
@voices · 2:03

The Voice of Joe Nocera

article image placeholderJoe Nocera
Welcome to Voices of Swell. I'm Debra Pardase. This is a new Swell Cast series that examines the art and rigor of storytelling. Specifically looking at how the human voice contributes to story storytelling. Today, you're listening to me right now. My voice is front and center. But what does that really mean? How does the voice change how we tell stories in an age where there are so many other alternatives, it's almost retro

You’ve read his books and his stellar journalism in #nytimes #npr His Voice is our focus here on Swell #writing #swellinterview #celeb #DBPconvo

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@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 3:19
Hi, Deborah. I hope this is working. I'm not a light actor, but this is new. Thank you for inviting me to do this. I'm excited about it. I mean, just say that I hope that when my obituary is written, they listen to your introduction first. It was flattering and I enjoyed it. I got to say the thing about me is I'm a conversational writer. That's always been what I've been
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@voices
Voices of Swell
@voices · 1:38

Reading your books to Us? Meh? #audio #reading #books

But if you really, truly hear your inner voice as you write, then people will hear the voice, as you say in the beginning, when Wandra wanted you to create cadence in your voice, to go up and down and to be dramatic. Of course, your first instinct being an authentic guy is like, I don't want to be inauthentic. I don't want to push out, like the interactor in me if it's not appropriate. So I find it fascinating
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@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 2:36

Joe response 2

Well, let me let me first talk just a little bit more about speaking like an actor. If you've ever had your photograph taken for publication, especially like a glossy magazine, you wind up being in all these contorted positions and your heads turn and your eyes are going the other way, and you're trying to keep this smile on even though it feels like a grimace. And then the photograph comes out and you see it in the magazine and you look perfectly wonderfully, natural
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@voices
Voices of Swell
@voices · 3:12

The pie chart of priorities for storytellers #advice #mentorship #career

And another caveat I want to say is that I spent 17 years working in adult literacy, working as an activist and also working alongside teachers to help adults who have low level reading skills get back up to have their skills meet their ages, meaning that you had 55 and six year olds reading at fourth grade levels, and we were trying to deal with that. So I think reading is its own world, and writing is its own world
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@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 3:38

Response 3

And it was hard to imagine anybody else reading that than her. It made perfect sense that she was the reader and she was the right person to read it. I also find that sometimes when I'm listening to a book, I can kind of fade away or my thoughts, and then I have to repeat it and catch it up again, which doesn't happen to me when I'm actually reading. But that could just be me to your overriding question
@voices
Voices of Swell
@voices · 1:07

Reporting vs Opinion

And I know when you work for a paper, they might say to you, hey, we want an opinion piece or we want straight reporting. And I'm looking at your whole career at this point. What's that like for you to know there's a great story there. And do you make a choice? Oh, this will be a great opinion piece. Or I really want to do straight reporting on this. That's my first question, and I have a follow up for that
@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 1:50

Joe response

However, magazine writing is subjective, because if you write objectively, quote, unquote the way you do in a traditional newspaper story, it'll be boring. And so you are weaving in your opinion subtly. When you write a great magazine story because you're telling the reader where you stand or what you think of this situation, you do it subtly, but you do it
@voices
Voices of Swell
@voices · 2:04

Civil casual intellectual discourse with mojo and integrity

This is asynchronous so you can take a walk, come back and answer. So as much as we're talking simply, we have time to do some digging, as you say. So wouldn't it be wonderful if people use this platform to speak from their souls? But take a moment because it's not a dialogue back and forth. You have a second, take a moment to do some digging. That sounds like a perfect combination of civil discourse
@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 2:00

Last one.

Casual intellectual discourse is a lovely phrase, truly, and one can easily imagine such a thing on Swell. I mean, I think about out the exchanges they used to have it slate over the movies or certain TV shows. Or I think about the back and forth on email between Brett Stevens and Gail Collins, which I think would work wonderfully if it was spoken instead of written
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@AverageJoe
Average Joe
@AverageJoe · 2:08
Now, unless it's fiction, right. For instance, let's take the Harry Potter books. Okay. Jim Dale, who's a fantastic voices, impressionist and stuff. He really added something that obviously JK. Rowling would never be able to add. But I feel like when it's you're representing something from yourself in that regard. In a realistic regard, it just feels like it'd be more beneficial to have the actual author reading the audiobook, enjoying the conversation. By the way
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@Phil
phil spade
@Phil · 2:10

Thank you Joe!

And count me on that bandwagon as well. And I just wanted to comment on your last post and tie it into one of your books, actually. And you mentioned that a lot of apps and a lot of internet things are built with good intention. And I don't think that's limited to just the internet world. And I think of the financial worlds and mortgages and a lot were set up with good intentions, and we screw that up too. We always seem to screw that up
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@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 1:02
And then how will the pandemic change the economy for better or for worse? And that's going to be the thrust of our reporting. I appreciate your weighing in. I'm sorry it took me three days. I haven't quite figured out yet, but all anyway, thanks again. Bye
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@joe.nocera
Joe Nocera
@joe.nocera · 1:04
Hi, average Joe, you are going to hate my response to this. So I'm just telling you that in advance. The real reason I don't want to read my own stuff is I don't have the patience. I just can't imagine just sitting there for a week or ten days reading a book and going over paragraphs that you don't get right and doing it again and again. It just would make me crazy
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@voices
Voices of Swell
@voices · 0:49

The sport of politics😜 convention time!

Hey, Joe, it's Deborah. In case you're listening, I wanted to ask you to comment on the next 18 days of not 1810 days of DNC RNC conventions as a sport like do you look at these conferences, conventions as a sport? And if so, if you were doing commentating on it, how would you even proceed?
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