In this episode we feature one of the giants of story telling and of long form journalism, Tracy Kidder. Kidder passed away at the age of 80 in March 2026, and so we are sharing this recording from 2011 as a way for us to celebrate his life and work, and all that he has given to readers.
Spanning over 50 years, Kidder’s career began at the Iowa Writers Workshop where he enrolled in 1974 after military service in the Vietnam war. He began with aspirations to be a novelist but soon found that he had talent for seeing the through line of the lives of the people all around him. And so for his entire storied career, Kidder wrote compellingly about ordinary people from all walks of life, including carpenters, home builders, computer programmers, Haitian doctors, schoolchildren, and nursing home residents – just to name a few. Along the way he earned a Pulitzer, a National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, for his ground breaking books like The Soul of a New Machine and Mountain Beyond Mountains. His body of work included dozens and dozens of articles, and twelve books, which came to redefine an entire genre of nonfiction.
He joined us in 2011 after the publication of a book called Strength In What Remains, and he tells the story of learning to write in Iowa, and then his apprenticeship turned life-long professional relationship with Richard Todd who was one of the Atlantic Magazine’s famed editors. It’s an extraordinary story in which Kidder reveals his mistakes, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities as much as his successes. And he does so with self effacing humor and quiet wisdom. This is a must-listen for every aspiring writer, and for every reader who wants deeper insight into the creative process and to understand how many of the stories that have come to define modern journalism were made.
Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder passed away in 2026.
