Pop Quiz: Benoit Denizet-Lewis
Today I speak with Benoit Denizet-Lewis, contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. His writing, which focuses on society, sports, gay culture, and youth culture has also appeared in Boston Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, ESPN the Magazine, Spin, Out, Salon, and JANE.
1. You teach magazine and nonfiction writing at schools like Tufts. What seems to be the hardest lesson for students to learn?
That writing great nonfiction isn’t like writing a great college sociology paper. Many students have learned as undergrads that if you use a lot of big words and creatively repeat yourself for five pages, you’re pretty much guaranteed an A (or at least a B plus). The most difficult lesson for many young writers and journalists to learn is how to write – and the value of writing – a clear, precise sentence. They want to dazzle me with their “style,” but often they haven’t mastered the art of writing a sentence that makes sense. So that’s the first step. The second is getting young writers to understand that clichés are very, very, very bad.
2. What was your biggest break thus far in your writing career?
I had two breaks that were significant. The first came in 1999 when I won an award for a cover story I wrote for SF Weekly . The editor of Spin at the time was in the audience and came up to me after and said I should write a feature for him sometime. So I did, which propelled me to quit my job at the San Francisco Chronicle (I didn’t like it much there, anyway) and start freelancing full time. Before long I was broke, so I went looking for a more secure magazine gig, which I was lucky enough to land at Boston Magazine, a great city magazine. I spent more than a year there as a senior writer, and in my last five months or so I starting pitching story ideas to an editor at the New York Times Magazine (I got her e-mail through another Boston Magazine writer). I probably pitched six or seven story ideas that I thought were just fantastic but which were politely declined. Finally, while working on another story, I lucked into hearing about M, a junior high student in California who is biologically a girl but was secretly living as a boy at a junior high school in California . M and the teachers at the school agreed that I could do the story as long as I didn’t identify M or the school. I promptly pitched the story to the Times Magazine , thinking that if the editors turned that one down, then they had no business running a magazine. To my delight they assigned me the story, and it’s been a wonderful experience writing for them ever since.
3. You graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University . Would you recommend J-school to all aspiring journos, or does it depend on the person and the type of writing they hope to do?
I have mixed feelings about journalism school. I only did undergrad, but I’ve taught both undergrad and grad students. For someone who wants to be a newspaper reporter, I think it’s a great thing. For someone who wants to be a magazine writer, I think it probably depends on the school. Believe it or not, there aren’t many programs that even bother trying to teach great writing. They all teach reporting, which is incredibly valuable, but they often forget about the writing part. Writing isn’t easy to teach, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I’ll also never understand why so many journalism schools hire people with advanced degrees in journalism over great writers and reporters who’ve worked for years in the business. It’s the surest way to have a very average journalism school.
4. What’s been your hardest assignment thus far and how did you get through it?
The hardest was my New York Times Magazine cover story about Down Low culture. I spent weeks and weeks online in DL chat rooms trying to convince guys to talk to me – and, preferably, hang out with me. Eventually some guys took pity on me and agreed to meet. They turned out to be really valuable resources, because through them I met many more people in different cities.
5. You received a lot of coverage for your piece on frats. How did you convince students and authorities to talk about such a sensitive subject on the record?
I brought kegs. (Just kidding.)
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