Author Interview:

Five Minutes with....Jeff Pearlman

Jeff Pearlman is a New York Times bestselling author and a good follow on Twitter. (I've asked him to come to Post.News...we'll see.  Nine of his books have appeared on the bestseller list, and I will list them below.  A former newspaper reporter, Pearlman also worked at Sports Illustrated magazine for over five years. The majority of Pearlman's books have been about sports, two about basketball, four about football, and three on baseball.  Some of the books are about teams, some about individual athletes.

After the research is done, do you have a specific process that you follow when doing the actual writing?

I don't really. I sit down with my pile of printed out notes, and I think, "Ok, where to begin." And I get writing. Usually in a coffee shop, hot drink by my side, dreams and terrors filling up my head, a blank screen and 180,000 words waiting to be written.

When do you write?

I used to be a night writer: 2 a.m., 3 a.m. Now I'm actually more of a day writer. Just harder at 50 to have the late-night energy I had at 35. Plus —and this is a biggie — the late0night diner situated near my house cut off its latest hours during Covid. That was my spot.

Do you have a writing nook or do you write wherever/whenever?

Wherever/whenever.

How many hours a day do you typically write?

During actual book writing months, 8-10.

If you could give your younger self any writing advice, what would it be?

The reporting is 800,000,000 times more important than the jaunty writing. Facts, facts, facts, and details, details, details are the difference between shit and great.

What does literary success mean to you?

It means I've spent the past two decades being available for every youth sporting event, every recital, every parent-teacher conference. That's been the greatest payoff, by far: my kids are 19 and 16, and I've been a huge presence.

Who are your writing heroes?

Mike Freeman, Joe Lombardi (http://dailyvoice.com/connecticut/fairfield/staff/21/joe-lombardi), the late Bill Fleischman, Stanley Herz, Sally Jenkins, Steve Rushin.

I would like to thank Jeff Pearlman for taking the time to answer a few questions and for being the first interview subject on the blog.  I look forward to hearing the answers from more authors.  Following is a list of Jeff Pearlman's books:

The Bad Guys Won - A biography of the 1986 New York Mets

Love Me, Hate Me - An unauthorized biography of Barry Bonds

Boys Will be Boys - on the 1990s Dallas Cowboys dynasty

The Rocket That Fell to Earth - a biography of Roger Clemens

Sweetness - a biography of Walter Payton

Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s 

Gunslinger - a biography of Bret Favre

Football for a Buck - a biography of the United States Football League (USFL)

Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty

The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson 

Jeff Pearlman's website