The Other 51 – Details, episodes & analysis
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Writing advice? We've got that. A podcast that gets your favorite writers to spill their secrets. Every episode is a new writer: comic artists to Broadway scribes, sports reporters to authors.
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Apple Podcasts
🇬🇧 Great Britain - personalJournals
11/09/2025#96
Spotify
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Shared links between episodes and podcasts
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See all- https://twitter.com/TyDunne
25 shares
- https://twitter.com/williamfleitch
16 shares
- https://twitter.com/jeffpearlman
15 shares
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See allScore global : 33%
Publication history
Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.
American Kings with Seth Wickersham
Episode 200
jeudi 14 août 2025 • Duration 33:41
“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)
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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Editing Anthologies with Danielle Sarver Coombs and Molly Yanity
Episode 199
jeudi 31 juillet 2025 • Duration 37:30
“That’s why I do this. That’s why I’m involved in this. I was one of those young people who was endlessly inspired by female athletes and by women’s sport”
Danielle Sarver Coombs and Molly Yanity join Brian to talk about the two scholarly anthologies they co-edited about the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
We’ve interviewed writers of all sorts throughout our nine years hosting this show, but this is the first time we’ve ever talked to the editors of an anthology!
Danielle and Molly talk about that process, how they decided against writing a book of their own and instead landed on editing an anthology. They talk about how their anthology on the 2019 World Cup influenced these books, what about these events make them so ripe for scholarship, and how important it was for them to include voices from outside of the Global North.
The three of us also get deeply nerdy talking about the books we’ve read lately.
“We have a responsibility as senior scholars who are also women to help lift the voices of people who have a bigger challenge getting published.”
Links
Politics, Social Issues and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup
Media, Communication and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup
2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Media, Fandom, and Soccer’s Biggest Stage
The best books we’ve read lately
Great Big Beautiful Summer by Emily Henry
The Creativity Code by Marcus du Sautoy
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Support
Support the show at Buy Me a Coffee
Follow us on Instagram.
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Episode 190: Solving That Puzzle with Joe Posnanski
vendredi 13 septembre 2024 • Duration 34:59
“I feel like my place as a writer is sort of that place between what happened and the mythology of what’s happening.”
Joe Posnanski joins Brian for a deep dive into his new book, Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments.
Joe talks about how he started with a list of more than 300 football moments and the process of whittling those down. It’s an honest and super nerdy discussion about how early drafts of the book weren’t working, what Joe did to work through those struggles, and how writing about The Drive unlocked the book for him
Joe also talks about how we was able to write a collection of essays while maintaining a central theme, how the Don Beebe-Leon Lett play is the perfect example of why we love football, and what kind of athlete “Brian Moritz” would be.
“For me as a writer, the moment where the book came alive for me was when I started to think of it as a football game … every play is its own little universe in football.”
Links
Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale Of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (the best thing Joe’s read lately.)
Support
The Other 51 is and will always be free, but if you like my work (and the stuff I do at Sports Media Guy) and want to kick me a few dollars, you can do so here. I really appreciate your support.
Follow us on Instagram and Threads. We’re on the decaying corpse of Twitter, but only because for some reason sports media won’t abandon the site.
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Episode 102: Reverse Outlining with Dr. Jennifer Harker
jeudi 19 septembre 2019 • Duration 29:22
In another episode that recorded at the AEJMC conference in Toronto last month (thanks Apple), Dr. Jennifer Harker from West Virginia University joins Brian to talk about her award-winning paper.
First off, she learns that Brian does not mess around when it comes to Canadian snack food.
Then, Jennifer and Brian do a deep diver into her study on the Alliance of American Football and their use of hashtags before, during, and after the league’s launch in 2019. This presented researchers with a unique opportunity to study a league’s social media use and fan interaction as the league itself was being born. Jennifer discusses her findings and their implications for sports media.
Jennifer also discusses her writing process, the value in being in constant contact with your data, how she reverse outlines her manuscripts, and how she keeps moving while writing — literalliy.
A reminder that you can support Sports Media Guy and The Other 51 here.
AEJMC Sport Communication paper abstracts
The Alliance of American Football
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Episode 101: Writing Defensively with Dr. Mark Coddington
vendredi 30 août 2019 • Duration 35:15
This episode was supposed to be recorded at the AEJMC conference earlier this month in Toronto. But Dr. Mark Coddington was busy doing conference stuff, and Brian forgot his Mac dongle, so consider this a makeup in a way.
Mark is an assistant professor at Washington and Lee University and the author of the new book, “Aggregating the News: Secondhand Knowledge and the Erosion of Journalistic Authority,” and he joins Brian for a deep dive into the writing process. Mark describes he got interested in news aggregation in the first place, how he picked it for his dissertation topic and then how he turned that dissertation into a book.
Mark and Brian talk a lot about the idea of writing defensively, why that may be one of the reasons why academic writing is often so bad and how hard it was for Mark to switch modalities for the book. They also talk about what aggregation is in news, why it matters, and why the myth of Woodward and Bernstein is so persistent among journalists.
The MVP Machine: How Baseball’s New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players
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Episode 100: The Amazing and the Impossible with Joe Posnanski
jeudi 22 août 2019 • Duration 46:35
Back when this podcast started, Joe Posnanski joined Brian for Episode 4 to talk about Hamilton, Buffalo sports, and writing.
This week, for our 100th episode, Joe joins Brian again to talk about … Hamilton, Buffalo sports, and writing.
After nerding out about their favorite moments in Hamilton, Brian and Joe get to the main topic — Joe’s upcoming book on Harry Houdini. Joe talks in depth about his writing and research process on this book, particularly how he balanced writing a biography of Houdini and a book about magic and wonder itself. Joe discusses how he reconciled those two ideas and found the center of the book.
Joe and Brian also talk about the importance of finding that thing that your piece of writing is about, and about how being honest with what you don’t know can build your credibility with sources. There is a brief Harry Potter detour, and reporting is compared to roller coasters (one of which, Brian and Joe love). Joe also discusses how he defines wonder and why that is so important to the book and our lives.
Also noteworthy, after this podcast was reported, someone did in fact hit two home runs in a game that day.
Episode 99: Knowing the Story's Done with Rion Amilcar Scott
vendredi 12 juillet 2019 • Duration 31:17
Brian is joined once again by his favorite local* author, Rion Amilcar Scott.
Rion has a new collection of short stories due out on Aug,. 20, “The World Doesn’t Require You.” It’s a followup to his previous collection, Insurrections.
Brian and Rion talk about how the new collection came together, and how both the world it’s set in and Rion’s writing have changed since President Trump’s election. Rion talks about the value of sitting with an idea for a long time until you know it’s ready and how he stretched himself as a writer with this book. How does Rion hope to influence how people see the world with this book? It’s a big question.
They also geek out hard core over SpiderMan.
Episode 22: James Baldwin’s Head with Rion Amilcar Scott
A Lucky Man by Jamele Brinkley
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Episode 98: What'd Brigadoon Ever Do To You? with Anthony King
mercredi 3 juillet 2019 • Duration 31:33
Anthony King, the Tony nominated co-writer of the book of Beetlejuice The Musical, joins Brian this week.
Brian and Anthony do a deep dive into the creative process of a Broadway show, as Anthony describes what a book of a musical is and why it is so important.
Anthony discusses the process he and Scott Brown had in writing the show, how Lydia became the main character, how they changed the conception of the Netheworld, and how the Beetlejuice cartoon influences the show. Anthony talks about how they decided what iconic parts from the movie made the musical, and he shares what he wish he could have brought from screen top stage.
Anthony also talks about the rewriting process that the show underwent after previews in Washington, D.C.
In addition, he answers an incredibly specific question about Gutenberg, the Musical!
The Complete Works of Dashiell Hamett
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Episode 97: Wired to Talk to Everyone with Baxter Holmes
jeudi 27 juin 2019 • Duration 40:37
Baxter Holmes had one of the best months for a sports features writer in a very long time earlier this year. He published two fantastic stories at ESPN - one on the fancy dinners that San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich hosts, the other detailing the dysfunction of the Los Angeles Lakers.
On the face of it, they are two very different stories. But in his return visit to The Other 51, Baxter tells Brian how the reporting for those stories had a lot in common.
Baxter describes how he first heard about Popovich’s wine dinners and how the Lakers’ dysfunction first got on his radar. He talks about the value of talking to everybody, how writing scenes is a key part of his process, how Robert Caro’s notions of concentric circles help him report, and what it was like the day the Lakers story broke. There was a lot of coffee that day.
Baxter and Brian also discuss how writers are a lot like chefs.
Episode 57: Untold Stories with Baxter Holmes
Lakers 2.0: The failed reboot of the NBA’s crown jewel
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Episode 96: A Little Kelly Tripucka with Tyler Dunne
jeudi 20 juin 2019 • Duration 35:39
One of our very first guests on The Other 51 (Episode 3), Tyler Dunne from Bleacher Report returns to kick off our summer season.
Tyler and Brian spend the first several minutes reminiscing about early 1990s NBA basketball, including Brian’s home-economics class gamesmanship involving Chuck Person and Tyler’s origin story as a Charlotte Hornets fan.
Then they get around to the business at hand. What does this time of year look like for an NFL features writer like Tyler? Tyler talks about how this time of year is important to him, helping him lay the foundation for the stories he’ll work on in the fall. Tyler talks about how to approach players as people, not as sources, and how many players appreciate having to think in an interview and having someone really listen to them.
Brian and Tyler then do a deep dive into that fantastic story about the Packers that Tyler wrote in April. What’s it like when Aaron Rogers calls you out? How do you report and write a story like this?
INSIDE GANG TERRITORY IN HONDURAS: ‘Either They Kill Us or We Kill Them’
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