“I kept thinking, is there a single quarterback I can write about that I can tell this story through? And no matter who it was … everything felt too small. And so what I wanted to do was write about all of them, in a way, at every level.”

It’s our 200th episode, and we’re celebrating by talking to one of our favorite writers. Seth Wickersham joins Brian to talk about the writing and reporting of his new book, “American Kings: A Biography of The Quarterback.”

Seth discusses what that word “biography” means to him in this context, and talks about how came to write a book about the quarterback position. He talks about how the writing, reporting, and promotion of this book is different than his first book and the lessons he learned from writing about the New England Patriots that applied here. 

Seth describes the different reporting methods he used in writing the book, how he landed on this particular structure and how he chose his anchor characters. He tells us how something being interesting to him was his north star, and the moment his repertorial antenna went up. He also talks about how conversations with his friend Wright Thompson and an ESPN editor helped him crack book’s structure. 

“Having my friends be brilliant writers has just been like, what a blessing. Because it’s like, everyone’s supportive and a teeny bit competitive … You want to have a story that’s worthy of the text thread.”

Links

American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback (Bookshop.org link)

American Kings (Amazon link)

The Book of a Coach

Feds probing NFLPA actions that ‘may be criminal,’ doc says by Don Van Natta and Kalyn Kahler (the best thing Seth’s read lately)

Untold  by Tom Junod and Paula Lavigne

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