In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Becky Barsi and Joe Acone sit down with freelance writer Ben Cassidy! A journalist whose byline you’ve likely seen in places like GQ, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Scientific American, Ben’s writing blends curiosity with craft, often taking readers into the unexpected corners of science, culture, and the human condition. He’s been recognized by Longreads and The Sunday Long Read for his standout narratives and formerly served as the features editor at Seattle Met, where his longform work earned national awards. Now based in New England, Ben continues to explore the region—and beyond—through his writing and his newsletter, aptly named The New England Newsletter. In this conversation, we’ll talk about the art of immersive storytelling, how Ben finds and shapes his stories, and what it means to document a place with both depth and heart. Let’s get into it! Learn more about Ben at https://www.bybencassidy.com/ and at https://thenewenglandnewsletter.substack.com/. Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Discord. If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Becky Barsi and Joe Acone sit down with freelance writer Ben Cassidy!
A journalist whose byline you’ve likely seen in places like GQ, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Scientific American, Ben’s writing blends curiosity with craft, often taking readers into the unexpected corners of science, culture, and the human condition.
He’s been recognized by Longreads and The Sunday Long Read for his standout narratives and formerly served as the features editor at Seattle Met, where his longform work earned national awards. Now based in New England, Ben continues to explore the region—and beyond—through his writing and his newsletter, aptly named The New England Newsletter.
In this conversation, we’ll talk about the art of immersive storytelling, how Ben finds and shapes his stories, and what it means to document a place with both depth and heart. Let’s get into it!
Learn more about Ben at https://www.bybencassidy.com/ and at https://thenewenglandnewsletter.substack.com/.
Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Discord.
If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com.
Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:00] BB: I'm Becki Barsi.
[0:00:01] JA: And I'm Joe Acone.
[0:00:02] BB and JA: And you're listening to Creative Guts.
[0:00:18] BB: Hello, hello, all you friends out in podcast land. Thanks for tuning in to Creative Guts. Today, we are speaking with Ben Cassidy, a freelance writer, journalist who has written for a variety of publications. Everything from GQ and Boston Magazine to National Geographic.
[0:00:33] JA: He's the author of The New England Newsletter, available on Substack, a twice-weekly publication where he shares essays, stories, and news from the region he calls home. Let's jump right into this episode of Creative Guts with Ben Cassidy.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:50] BB: All right. Well, hello and welcome to this episode of Creative Guts. Ben, we are so happy to have you on the show today.
[0:00:56] BC: Yes, thank you so much for having me.
[0:00:58] JA: Welcome, Ben.
[0:00:58] BC: Thanks, Joe.
[0:00:59] BB: Ben, can you begin by just telling us, for listeners who don't know you, will you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are as a writer in a creative?
[0:01:08] BC: Sure. So, my name is Ben Cassidy. I'm a magazine journalist and fiction writer. I've written for places like GQ and National Geographic. I also am the author of a new newsletter called The New England Newsletter, which tries to sort of capture the soul of our region, telling stories through essays, and sharing news stories to just try to get a better understanding of what it means to be a New Englander. I have spent most of my career, though, writing for magazines. So, I live in Seacoast, New Hampshire now, and grew up just outside of Boston. But I was a magazine editor in Seattle for several years before I moved here. So, I am excited to explore everything this area now has to offer, both journalistically and otherwise.
[0:01:59] BB: Yes. What brought you to want to explore journalism and writing as a career?
[0:02:05] BC: So, I've always been interested in journalism and writing for as long as I can remember. I grew up with having the Boston Globe and the New York Times on the kitchen table in the morning. I'd go downstairs and read the sports section. Growing up in the Boston area, we had an amazing sort of group of sports journalists, and that section in particular was a really well-known and sort of prestigious place to write. So, growing up, I sort of always envisioned myself writing sports journalism.
As I got older, I sort of evolved a bit from that. I still love sports, but I'm sort of a generalist now and love writing about any number of topics and enjoy that challenge of trying to become an expert, at least temporarily, about something. So yes, that was sort of where I started. I wrote for the middle school newspaper in my city, where I grew up. It was actually the best middle school newspaper in the country.
[0:03:09] BB: Really?
[0:03:09] JA: Oh, wow. No pressure.
[0:03:10] BC: Which at the time felt like a big deal in hindsight.
[0:03:14] BB: Which school was this?
[0:03:16] BC: This was Day Middle School.
[0:03:17] BB: All right, shout out to Day Middle School.
[0:03:19] BC: In Newton, Massachusetts. Yes, we would go to Columbia every winter, usually to accept the gold crown for being the best middle school newspaper in the country.
[0:03:29] BB: That's really great.
[0:03:30] BC: It was sort of the strange area of the country, I guess, where journalism was seen as sort of this prestigious, and a lot of people were wanting to be journalists. But then, I sort of got a little burned out early on with journalism. After doing that in middle school, I sort of wanted to pursue more creative forms of writing and did that in college, and didn't write for the newspaper in college, for example. Subsequently, maybe regretted that a little bit as I tried to find journalism jobs after college, because I soon learned that you can't just kind of call yourself a freelance journalist and have assignments land in your lap. You need experience, and you need reps. It's kind of a hard thing because to get jobs, you need to have jobs, and to have jobs, you need to get to it. It's sort of a circular logic to that industry. But yes, that's sort of how I got my start.
[0:04:32] JA: What was your relationship with your teachers? Did they like spur you along?
[0:04:39] BC: Absolutely. I remember in eighth grade, having a conversation with my English teacher about – it must have been before classes started. She said, You're really talented, and you're really good at this, and I'm going to push you to be. I'm going to give you more assignments, and you should seek out more challenging assignments," which I did not do. I think that I wish at that period of my life that I was reading and writing more, because I think it's so important, especially to read a lot. To become a more talented writer, you need to have the reps in of reading all these different styles and genres of fiction and nonfiction.
I didn't necessarily, at that stage. I wasn't hanging around with a lot of people who were necessarily creative types, I would say, and I don't regret hanging out with them. I think that, actually, it's really useful. Some of my favorite writers are people who don't just belong to a creative community, and aren't just sort of writing for that community, but are writing for a broader population, or just some other population that's not just kind of immersed in the same world that they are day-to-day. I think there's a lot of value in bringing a perspective that's sort of outside of what a lot of writers are thinking about.
[0:06:11] JA: Sure, 100%. I remember, there's a bunch of adages I've heard over the years of like an artist should live a life worth commenting on. I think it sounds a little disparaging, I think. But you know what I mean? And then, I think — was it Sinbad who said –
[0:06:26] BB: Sinbad.
[0:06:26] JA: Sinbad, yes. He said that comedians are funnier when they ride the bus. If they get to a level where they're being shipped in, and they're not taking public transit, they're not experiencing things outside of their insulated little community.
[0:06:40] BC: Yes, that's interesting. I've definitely listened to podcasts recently with comedians who have been talking about that.
[0:06:45] JA: Oh, no kidding.
[0:06:47] BC: That are like, and they say, "I'm too famous now," and they mean it literally, like they don't have genuine experiences to draw from for material. I always viewed it as – well, I've never read or maybe just enjoyed a novel where I'm reading about reading. Like, if I'm just reading all the time and I don't have any other experiences to pull from, how am I going to be able to write about anything else? Now, I think it's important to read a lot, but I think it's important to have a full life that you can pull from.
[0:07:20] BB: Yes.
[0:07:20] JA: Sounds like you're naturally curious, and I imagine that's a huge asset to you as somebody who is a journalist and a writer. Do you think about that actively?
[0:07:31] BC: Absolutely. I think that's the defining thing about my current place in journalism, because there's certainly a push, and not just in journalism, and a number of careers to specialize now, because there are so many people competing for a limited number of spaces, and eyeballs, and attention spans. The conventional wisdom now is to just become an expert in a really narrow topic, and to find that audience around the world who's really interested in that one thing. I do not do that. I write about science, and then I'll write about sports, and then I'll write about technology, because I loathe being bored. I am so fortunate in that, journalism is not a well-paying career, but I've never really had a day since I've started doing this work professionally where I've looked at the clock and said, "Oh, another four hours until I'm off work," which I'd certainly had those experiences early on, especially right after college, doing some jobs.
Most of the time, I'm like, "Oh my gosh. I've written 300 words, and it's been five hours." I call myself a professional. So, yes, curiosity is so important. One of the things that I do outside of, which I don't know if we'll get into, but a lot of freelance journalists, no matter what how it may seem, aren't just doing journalism to support themselves. So, one of my clients outside of journalism is – and really the main one right now is an app called the humane space, which – it's a wellness app, but it's really based on this idea of curiosity being sort of a – and lifelong learning, being a form of healthy behavior, and an important practice to build into your life.
Essentially, I write these science articles that are more or less like guiding you down a rabbit hole about a particular topic. It can be about anything. I wrote about the history of mirrors, and I've written about wombat burrows, and all sorts of things. Like literal rabbit holes, kind of. So, that just gets back to that point, though. I've enjoyed that work a lot, and that's why I continue to do it actually, because it is a form of satisfying that kind of curiosity urge.
[0:10:00] JA: Seems like a perfect mix of things. You get to continue to write, but you're writing about stuff that you're – do you have any choice in what you get to write about?
[0:10:07] BC: At the humane space?
[0:10:08] JA: At the human space.
[0:10:09] BC: Yes, they usually assign me stuff, which is kind of – it's probably good, because I would probably start to narrow more into, this is what I'm comfortable and confident writing about. Also, since that work is the sort of pay-the-bills kind of work, I do try to do it as quickly as I can while doing a good job. So, I would probably try to pick things that it's like, oh, I already know everything about this. Instead of, Wow, that's a word?
[0:10:42] JA: You want something that you can pull from, at least to get it started. You don't want to go do a deep dive on something totally you don't know, if you're going to take forever to research it.
[0:10:52] BC: Absolutely. How they organize it is, a lot of times, you're doing write-ups. There's sort of like a space is what they call it. So, a general topic area. Then, there's several kinds of individual articles, even though it's kind of different than that. But that's the easiest way to describe it about different things within that topic area. So, it's nice when they're just like, okay, write all the things for this topic area. So, you're staying at least in one headspace instead of saying, write about hurricanes, and then write about zebras or something. I don't know.
[0:11:26] BB: What is something in your time as a writer, journalist, and freelance that you wished people better understood about being a writer in general?
[0:11:36] BC: Sure. Well, I think, first of all, being a writer, I think a lot of people want to be a writer, I don't know. I think there's a lot of people that don't actually want to endure the process of writing. That is what you have to love if you want to be a writer. You have to love, like I love writing. I think my happiest work experiences is when I feel like I'm really in a groove writing, and hours, and hours, and hours can pass, and it just feels like no time has passed at all. That happens very rarely. Most days it's agonizingly, including today, where just have been stuck in neutral all day on a couple of things I'm trying to write. That also can be frustrating when you're working on multiple things at once.
But in terms of misconceptions, I would say that's one, that the movie version of being a writer is the actual version. The actual version is very probably monotonous to put a camera to, which is just sitting in a chair and sitting there for a number of hours or standing, I've been doing that too, and just plugging away. Insofar as I can offer any advice, that would be, if you're at work or something, listen to this, keep doing your job. But otherwise, just do the thing. A lot of people like to talk about doing the thing on social media or whatnot.
I think the other thing I would say related to journalism, since I think especially right now, there's so many people who now think they're experts on how journalism works. Even that word, even within the industry, is a really, I would say. broadly applied word now, who is a journalist.
[0:13:22] BB: When everybody's publishing.
[0:13:24] BC: Right, exactly. Like with the gatekeepers gone, anybody can go online and publish something. I actually think it would be a fascinating exercise to ask a bunch of journalists what is the definition of journalism. But as long as we're talking about the process of gathering facts, and asking questions, and trying to approach a story, trying to ground it in objective truth. I think what's a major misconception is that people are just kind of throwing this stuff out there. The rigor behind reporting is not cool, so you don't hear that much about it. It's like asking a lot of weirdly specific questions or questions that can make you sound – without any context around it, can make you sound like very unintelligent. That is a hard thing, especially when you're – a lot of people want to interview people they look up to or they think are this amazing.
I spent a lot of time reporting on arts and culture when I worked in Western Massachusetts, and the Berkshire is a very amazing area for arts and culture. It was always easier for me to interview people, even if they were well known, if I had no sort of –
[0:14:46] BB: Background or context about their –
[0:14:47] BC: Right, no opinion of them. Just because, inevitably, you have to ask a lot of questions that make you feel really not very cool and not always very intelligent, because that is getting to the core of the information. That's what the audience is seeking from you. Your audience is the customer you're serving, not your subject, which is a very challenging thing sometimes.
[0:15:13] BB: Have you ever interviewed somebody who has tried to – I mean, you are trying to curtail the interview to make their appearance better than it is. Are you ever trying to dig in, and really unpack, and understand the person in a way that is more realistic than what they're trying to perceive? Do that make sense?
[0:15:38] JA: Yes, I think so. Yes.
[0:15:39] BB: Find a way to re-edit.
[0:15:41] JA: Make them sound better, yes.
[0:15:43] BC: Yes. I mean, I definitely don't try to – I mean, I always say, I don't write puff pieces and I don't write hit pieces because that's just not how I experience the world. I think when people are, "Oh, this is a good person and this is a bad person," I think people do good and bad to varying degrees, and there's a lot of gray in the world. I think if you approach a story in either direction, either trying to help them or to harm them, it's a very slippery slope. But also, I think, you do get – like when I reported on arts and culture, certain people are very media trained and very savvy about, if they've done a lot of interviews. You do have to dig, as you're saying, kind of get beyond the surface.
A lot of times, that comes from either doing something, and I don't claim to be a great interviewer. I mean, I think in a lot of ways, some of the best interviewers are kind of antisocial beings, because one way to kind of crack that surface is do something sort of antisocial or odd that just sort of unsettles this person who's in the rhythm of answering the same questions over, and over, and over again.
[0:16:59] BB: Throws them off.
[0:17:01] BC: Right, exactly. Or the other thing is just to ask a really specific question about their past that shows that you've done your homework. That's what I'm more comfortable doing. I'm more comfortable being kind of the nerdy, like I read 15 articles about you. So, I know this. I'd rather do that than just doing — probably the quicker and easier things, just to be a little bit more awkward. But yes, people put up defenses, and you have to get beyond that, and that's something I still am working on.
[0:17:35] JA: I appreciate your overall temperament around how you're unpacking these ideas. It feels like culturally, there's so much that pulls you into like the, you know, get the immediate reaction or like get the immediate impulsive emotional response for clicks. It sounds like you're more prudent in that. You're thinking through, how can I dig a little deeper, and get to a more genuine, authentic place/
[0:18:02] BC: Yes. There are people doing this work. It's harder and harder to find them. Not just because there are fewer of those people, which there are for a variety of business models, journalism business model, writing business model reasons. But there's also just more out there, as we were talking about earlier, to have to sift through. That's part of why I started this newsletter about New England, and sort of submitting my own original writing to it one day a week. Then, the other day of the week sort of rounding up some of the great work that other writers and reporters around the region are doing. Because, unfortunately, like every region of this country and many parts of the world, our media landscape in New England is really hard to navigate.
There are a lot of big brand-name publications that are essentially shells of their former selves. I've heard some people call these places like ghost papers, because they're owned by corporations and that have model is to sort of buy a ton of newspapers, really strip them down to their bare bones. So, they still publish, but they may only have a couple of editors and writers on staff, because that name of that paper still has value, but the work that's being done there is increasingly sort of clickbait, or just not as substantive, or as comprehensive as it once was. Which I think the quickest way to sum up why we are where we are is, Internet comes along, publishers don't adapt quickly enough, and are giving away their product for free, essentially, which is just wild for me to think about.
[0:19:52] JA: It's a race to the bottom, isn't it?
[0:19:54] BC: Yes, and they're giving this away for free, and then, they belatedly realize, oh gosh, our print subscriptions are going way down. So, this is actually our primary product now, is our online product. And now, we’re way behind on getting — attracting eyeballs and page views. So, what do we need to do? We need to sensationalize. We need to draw attention that we're not that social contract between the reader and the journalist has – there's sort of this intermediary comment, and that's the sort of struggling business.
What happens when enough of publications are feeding the sort of that half clickbait and are trying to draw attention that way, people lose trust, and people get fatigued. Oe of the oldest stories, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. When there is real reason for alarm or there's a story that really does need to be read, the audience isn't there like it once was. Because, understandably, they've grown tired of – and even, there have been publications that never went down that road, but there are enough others who have, and they're all lumped in. So, that's kind of I think why we are where we are. To me, we need publications and journalists to be authentic, to speak as much as they can to readers without this middle factor weighing in. Just compromising that trust.
[0:21:30] JA: Asking those weird, uncool questions, right?
[0:21:34] BC: Well, that too, yes.
[0:21:36] BB: So, you have a Substack New England newsletter, which is fantastic. I've been enjoying reading it and subscribing to that. But you also seek out other freelance opportunities. Can you talk about one of these experiences? Because you were recently, or this past summer, I think you were out in the Seattle area researching and reporting on a plane crash that was really not as well documented or shared in the stories of those people who were on the crash. That's really an impactful and probably really challenging story to write about. Can you talk about that experience or another kind of story that you've researched that has really hit home in some challenging or interesting ways?
[0:22:18] BC: Sure. I mean, that story that you mentioned about a plane crash just off the coast of the San Juan Islands in Washington State, which is this really beautiful, tranquil, sort of part of the world that I guess are sort of equivalent here in New England would maybe be some of the highlands off Maine. But it was this small plane and only had about 10 people on board, but just people from all different areas, both professionally, and parts of the state. It was just an incredibly kind of diverse and interesting group of people.
I instead of writing the salacious, gory plane crash story, which a lot of those details were already out there, anyway. I decided to focus on each of these people's lives. The first thing I did was reach out to the families, and some of them didn't want to participate, so that I didn't really focus on those folks as much. It was the people where I could talk to, many of the people around them, to learn who these people were, because I think about that when I get on a plane. All these people are on this plane.
[0:23:26] BB: You're having that shared experience.
[0:23:28] BC: Yes. I mean, there's something that's brought all of these people here. They all have a story for why they're there. So, I wanted to capture that, but to your point in bringing this up, I think that was an example of – I wrote that for Alta Journal, which is a great magazine, California-based. Traditionally, it's been almost all California stories, but they're trying to write more stories around the West Coast broadly. So, it wasn't a clickbait story. It was a six-part, very long story.
Those stories I know from my experiences being an editor at a magazine in Seattle, people do read very long stories. People also read clickbait and very short stories. I think that people underestimate just how much appetite people have to really dive into a story if they can tell that the effort and that their trust is going to be rewarded, in other words. But that was when I was, to be clear, that was when I was still living on the West Coast primarily. So, a lot of those folks were near area where I was living at that time. But it is a challenging thing to go back and forth between writing about something that's a really heavy topic, and then resuming your life.
It's interesting to navigating that when you – I think about this with other creative folks, how you balance your personal life and your creative practice. I know my life has changed a lot personally in the last couple of years. When you're on your own, there's a lot more freedom to just kind of develop some bad habits around being, I would say, the balance tipping too much into the work category. and not enough into the experiences outside of it. You can certainly, when you're writing about these heavy topics, you can really start to dwell on, which can also be productive in certain cases.
[0:25:32] BB: What are the things that help you balance that? Because you write about so many broad topics, I mean, from playing crashes to contra dancing. We'll get to that one in a little bit. How do you feed yourself, and help rebuild yourself, or foster that creative energy, and brighten your spirit? What are some things that you do for just self-care?
[0:25:55] BC: I think, and this does play into that newsletter, something I have said this to people in my life. That I've never once hiked, or gone to the beach, or done something out in nature where I've kind of come back and be like, "Man, that was a waste of time." I always feel it makes me feel better. So, I've been really fortunate that my career and my life has been in places where beautiful parts of the world that accessing those things outside, and really just moving away from a screen for a significant period of time.
I mean, I have been as guilty as anybody, especially when I was living alone, where I am just – my eyes are probably going red from being behind a screen for so long. I think it's really important to take a break, let your mind rest. I mean, I love even just beyond working out and things like that to fitness stuff, but actually, just like walking, even, which I've read is a really great way to actually – when I'm stuck, it's hard to do this. But they say that it's great to pull yourself away from the screen and go for a walk. That actually, that is the fastest way to where you want to go is to actually get away from what you're doing, and I've been trying to do that more.
[0:27:23] BB: That must be helpful to have that moment of separation to process. But also, as you transition from one story to another, because you have such an amazing vocabulary, and the flow of your writing changes based on the theme of your story. So, how do you adapt your voice and approach when you're trying to write about, whether it's between different types of audiences or for different publications?
[0:27:49] BC: I think, always a work in progress, but I think – and it does really matter if you're writing for publications, read a ton of what they've been publishing, just to get a sense of, okay, how does this fit in? Which is sort of an interesting – and this is journalism as a, in so far as we're talking about it, as sort of a creative field, is sort of an interesting question unto itself. Because a lot of journalists, especially when I worked at a local paper, I think they would kind of roll their eyes at journalism, not the same as essay writing, and all that is being creative. There's an old school belief that it's a trade. You get so used to churning out these stories. People aren't precious about their journalistic work. That's one genre of journalism. Then, there's others, which I would put myself in this category, who are more like writer journalists who are probably far too precious about, "Well, we didn't put the comma there. Should we put that one?"
Yes, I think it's really – I mean, that's part of the work, is just, even like, "Is that adjective going to make people think this." I think the best writers you see kind of their full emotional breath. I think if everything's sort of one note, people will tune it up out. That's what I try to go for. So, I'll write something really heavy, and then, I'll write something light. I think my guiding principle with, and the person writing, is pretty new in terms of this newsletter, where I'm drawing more from my life. I actually weirdly find that easier in a lot of ways than my journalism work, because often times, when you're writing a profile. For example, you're writing really personally about somebody else. You have to be writing through your readers, but you have spent a lot of time with this person. You want them to respect you and to feel like you've done a good job, even if it's not a flattering piece. You want them to them to at least be able to understand why you landed where you did.
In a weird way, writing personally has been freeing because I'm like, "Well, I know this is right because this just happened to me." I feel more comfortable. I'm confident in who I am. And I think most people who meet me think I'm – I think I've actually put it in one of the stories recently, like one of my graduate school teachers said, I'm very affable, which I think he kind of meant as a diss too, but I'm going to take it as a compliment. We're all very different, and we're all very similar at the same time. I think the most important thing is to be authentic, and people respect that. So, even if the story's kind of ridiculous or somebody doesn't agree with what I'm writing, they know I'm giving it to them just how I would say it to anybody else, which isn't always the case, I would say, with a lot of contemporary.
I think people have always been concerned with how their work is perceived. I think the entry of people have more access to seeing how their work is perceived. It used to be, you might just be in a room and you might – somebody might raise their hand and say, "Oh, I didn't like this or that," or you might get a phone call.
[0:31:11] BB: Right. But Joe Schmo from across the world now is commenting, and they don't have any context
[0:31:17] BC: Right, or Robot Schmo from Google.
[0:31:22] BB: Robo Schmo.
[0:31:25] BC: I think that's a big part of – I've thought a lot about, "Okay. Well, what am I adding as a writer? What are my strengths being a writer?" I think the pieces that have resonated most with people where it's the parts that are soulful that get at the human experiences and emotions, and it being sort of unfettered by how this thing might be perceived. I think people can –
[0:31:52] BB: That's what we need more of right now, that human connection.
[0:31:56] BC: I think, and I will say, there are probably too many personal essays out there. There's definitely a big economy for that, and I was always really hesitant when I was at the magazine to write them because I was sort of like, "I don't know if I have anything really to add on this or that." But I did write at the beginning of COVID. So, I moved out to Seattle a few months before COVID hit. Seattle was actually in the U.S., the first city where there was a known COVID case. Now, subsequently, we know it was probably all over the place before this. But it was an odd experience because we were sort of in the position of going remote work, and all these things were sort of happening first in that part of the world.
I had lived in the Berkshires on my own before I moved to Seattle, which was a really formative experience for me and could also be quite isolating. So, there was sort of this irony in that I – part of the reason I moved to Seattle and joined this magazine, was I was missing sort of an exciting city life, and then everything shut down.
[0:33:02] BB: North Adams is not like the hub of everything in the Berkshires.
[0:33:07] BC: I love North Adams so much, and I think it's a place that's going to only be more and more discovered for a lack of a better word. So, there was this weird irony where all of a sudden, I was sort of thrust back into the position I had been in in the Berkshire. So, I wrote an essay for the magazine all about – Seattle's also a place that has a ton of newcomers because there are these large tech companies that attract people from all over the world, and there's something called the Seattle freeze, which is like this idea that people are very cold to newcomers in Seattle. And that they're very flaky, I would say.
Coming from New England, I would say, people are very nice there, but maybe disingenuously sometimes. Although, met plenty of people who weren't that way ultimately. But so, at this time, I wrote an essay about what it was like to be a newcomer, to be new to the city, and then, just be stuck inside for all this time. It got really good feedback. That sort of was like, "Okay. I can do this personal writing thing and not have it go terribly." I think I've done – maybe I did one or two other things over my time there.
Moving back to this part of the world and wanting to be rooted here long term, I felt more motivated to connect more directly with people, while also still doing journalism, third-person things. But I've really enjoyed connecting with people in my life and others who I don't know about New England things.
[0:34:39] BB: So, with that, I think it's time for some rapid-fire questions.
[0:34:42] BC: Great.
[0:34:43] BB: So, starting off, can you tell us what other writer has influenced you the most?
[0:34:47] BC: I would say F. Scott Fitzgerald. I just love the way he wrote sentences, and I love the way that he used sort of common words and uncommon ways. I feel like those moments of delight that you, as the reader, have when you understand what he's saying, even though you've never heard it said just that way. From the time I was a kid, I loved that.
[0:35:11] BB: Yeah, it's accessible.
[0:35:14] BC: Yes.
[0:35:15] BB: Nice.
[0:35:15] JA: Speaking of accessible, what is your favorite color?
[0:35:18] BC: Orange, one of our high school colors.
[0:35:21] JA: Classic.
[0:35:21] BB: Your favorite scent?
[0:35:23] BC: Lavender.
[0:35:25] BB: I love that.
[0:35:26] JA: Favorite sound?
[0:35:27] BC: I'll go with waves crashing. I love the beach.
[0:35:30] BB: Favorite texture or touch?
[0:35:33] BC: Go with sand at the beach. Seacoast sand, you know.
[0:35:37] JA: What's the most inspiring location you've traveled to?
[0:35:40] BC: Can I do while being in transit as my inspiration?
[0:35:44] BB: Yeah.
[0:35:44] JA: Sure
[0:35:45] BC: I love riding on planes, especially, also trains or anything where I'm not actively steering, whatever.
[0:35:53] BB: That's probably good. Actually, with that in mind, I don't know how much driving you do. But do you ever record ideas, like if you are in motion, or you send a voice memo to yourself or something?
[0:36:04] BC: I've never done that, and I wish I could. There was a writer that I worked with who apparently did that. After he went to report a story, he could just write the just with a voice memo.
[0:36:15] BB: Wow, that's impressive.
[0:36:18] BC: That is a lot of time you save doing that.
[0:36:22] BB: What is the last new thing you've learned?
[0:36:26] BC: So, I was driving yesterday and passed a sign in Rye, New Hampshire that said there was a Kentucky Derby winning horse that came from that stable, which I had no idea there was a Kentucky Derby winner from this part of the world.
[0:36:42] BB: It must be that sea air.
[0:36:44] BC: Yes.
[0:36:45] BB: I don't think it was sea biscuit.
[0:36:48] JA: See what you did there.
[0:36:48] BC: There we go.
[0:36:50] JA: Last question, if you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self?
[0:36:54] BC: Read more, watch less.
[0:36:57] BB: Advice we could all take.
[0:36:59] JA: That's a good one.
[0:36:59] BB: Yes.
[0:36:59] JA: I like that.
[0:37:00] BB: Ben, thank you so much. It has really been an honor to take time to talk to you and learn about your experience, your background as a writer. I really hope that you take that time, find the time to explore that next novel, because the limited amount of time that I've been reading your work, I really enjoy it. So, thank you for sharing that with our world.
[0:37:21] BC: Thank you so much, and thank you both for having me, it's been a lot of fun.
[0:37:25] JA: Awesome.
[0:37:25] BB: All right. With that –
[0:37:27] HOSTS: Show us your Creative Guts.
[OUTRO]
[0:37:33] JA: Another huge thank you to Ben for joining us on Creative Guts.
[0:37:36] BB: That was awesome.
[0:37:38] JA: It was great. I feel like I am always so inspired when I hear writers speak about their creative process. It's both very different but also kind of similar to the things we go through as visual artists.
[0:37:49] BB: The time that you have to take to process information around you, and your surroundings, and how you can feed off of that to build your creative practice. It sounds like something that Ben really does, it's important for him to really be immersed in the space, and be able to take the time to interview these different people, and to build a really robust story, and narrative about the experience that he wants to present.
[0:38:12] JA: Yes. I'm really glad to hear that he's moving into a space where you can connect more through his personal voice. And he's found an avenue to do that through his — his Substack, The New England Newsletter. Subscribe now.
[0:38:25] BB: Subscribe now. Another thing, his final note of if he could go back and give some word of advice to his younger self, is the importance of disconnecting from a screen and reading, just taking that time to read. I don't know about you, but I mean, I was a latchkey kid. I know you were a latchkey kid. My babysitter was Nickelodeon and MTV.
[0:38:43] JA: Same.
[0:38:44] BB: I remember my parents who worked so much and weren't home as often, just saying, "Turn the TV off. Turn the TV off. Read a book," and I just never did. I didn't take that advantage of literature as much seriously when I was a child. I love to read now, but I wish I was more of a voracious reader as a child.
[0:39:03] JA: Yes, same.
[0:39:05] BB: You can learn more about Ben and read many of his works on his website, bybencassidy.com, and subscribe to The New England Newsletter on Substack. As always, you can find those links and more in the episode description and on our website, creativegutspodcast.com.
[0:39:19] JA: You can also find us, Creative Guts Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Discord. If you're not on social media but want to stay in the know about what we're doing, join our newsletter list.
[0:39:31] BB: This episode is sponsored in part by the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts. Thank you to our friends in Rochester for their support of the show.
[0:39:38] JA: A big thank you to Art Up Front Street for providing a space where Creative Guts can record. If you love listening and want to support Creative Guts, you can make a donation. Leave us a review, interact with our content on social media, purchase a merch, whatever you are able to do, we appreciate you.
[0:39:52] BB: Thanks for tuning in this week. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Creative Guts.
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