Mallika Rao on honing your voice, the importance of nuanced writing, and making freelance work, work for you

Photo by Raydene Salinas

Welcome back to Creation Stories where we are featuring writer and essayist Mallika Rao, whose work spans immersive journalism to high and low culture reviews, bringing her unique narrative voice to each piece. Mallika's work has been featured in Vulture, NYMag, Huffington Post, Jezebel and The Believer and we talk about honing your voice, the importance of nuanced writing, and making freelance work work for you.

As I was in need of some creative community and support while feeling a bit burned out, Mallika was such an energetic breath of fresh air and I know you will enjoy this episode. Mallika is a freelance writer, whose creative nonfiction has been featured in the top outlets of the genre including Vulture, NY Mag, Huffington Post, Jezebel, The Believer. The Believer piece, Three Bodies in Texas, we talk about the most in this episode and it was part of the last volume of that great magazine. Her work has been recognized by the LA Press Club for best industry feature for her writing on Apu from the Simpsons and Longreads best of the year for a piece on  Dallas Strip Mall Restaurants. She herself has done a podcast, called HiberNation, set in the realm of sleep which was Ambie nominated. You can check out some of her most recent work at Vulture and the link to her full website mallika-rao.com for more work on our website - I'll link some of the great work she mentions throughout this episode online.

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More Mallika Links here!:

• Vulture Book Review on The Candy House by Jennifer Egan and The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara

• Her piece on the word Jugaad, mentioned in the interview

• Her review of the latest collection by Indian author Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in The Atlantic

• Mallika references the work of Saki Knafo, whose work can be seen here and via his award-winning podcast for Gimlet called Conviction

Full Interview Transcript:

  Apologies, as always, for any typos / grammar errors in transcription - cons of a one man shop :)

 Jack: I love immersive journalism memoir, and also how you use not only in kind of the strictly journalistic sense, right?

Like the three bodies in Texas, but also thinking about how you've done that in reviews, which I think is cool because you're not literally going to those places, but you're accessing memories too, to write reviews of shows. But also to talk about the general process in creative non-fiction because I think it can be this one for me, as someone who writes creative nonfiction, the most tricky.

In terms of where do you go to get published? How do you start out? I'm really excited to talk about those questions.

Mallika: I love your question.

Jack: Thank you. I think it would be good just to start by talking about your background, how slash when you knew you wanted to be a writer and then from there what formal processes, informal processes you took to shape and sharpen your own sense of voice and then talk about transition to career.

So it's kind of a long

Mallika: no, I can do that. Yeah, , so I grew up in Texas. I was born in Texas and my parents came from India and I think I felt very early in my life that I wanted to tell stories. Because in my house, my father is a very gifted storyteller and comes from a family of storytellers.

I remember when I was pretty young and we went to India for a wedding where my parents were actually officiating because the groom's father had passed away. And so they need another couple to give away the groom. So my parents did it and I met this huge clan that I didn't know existed my father's side.

And they were just so hilarious and so full of these stories about our family. And I learned so much and I think this is common in so many families and cultures, familial history was passed through stories, you know? And so there were like legends almost of people who are gone or when my father was young and they were kind of these like formalized stories.

Like everyone knew that story or this, or tell that story, you know? So it was this encyclopedia of stories that I was introduced to. And I think my parents also used to do that in Dallas to get us to understand where we came from and our families, the people they left behind, and my parents were both from the same community as well.

So I think they have a lot of overlapping senses of humor and senses of character. There were a lot of shared reference points. So there was this very discreet, huge body of stories that I was introduced to as a kid. But I could never share them with anyone.

We were living in Dallas and it was just this entirely other world. And that was so strange and could be so frustrating and alienating, and then layered on top of that was Hinduism and the stories in Hinduism. My brother and I read a lot of the comic books.

There's these kind of classic comics, comic books Amir Chitra Kathra and so we're reading these stories about mythology from India, that's set in the Indian countryside or, you know, in like Moghul times or whatever, and you're reading it in you know, modern America. And I think, again, there is just this like dissonance and I just had this desire to connect all my world through stories.

I felt like if I could get my friends to hear these stories or to understand, then suddenly I would be understood and I would be able to be intimate with the people around me. I always felt there was this like huge gulf. So I think stories were always just like a very powerful like unit for me of like currency.

And I just very, very, very early on, I also inherited my dad's use of story. Like I organize things in stories . And so that was always very, very clear to me, but. I had I think a really romantic idea of what a writer is. You know, like I read the classics growing up, the Western Canon.

I remember, I think like, probably Rudyard Kipling was in my mind as you know, because he was literary, but also doing sort of fables and, and it kind of crossed across children and adults, same as Roald Dahl. Like those kinds of figures who were somehow tapping into the magic of storytelling, but for these really big aims .

And I imagined that I would be in like some snowy place or some idyllic place just writing at my desk every day. And I had no idea how money was going to come in or, I didn't understand any of the logistics, obviously. I think you can't, you know, until you try it And then, I was in school and I liked the journalism and newspaper and I understood that was a way towards more practical kind of writing, storytelling, writing, and even papers in school.

I loved my English classes and so I think this idea was, oh, I can make money through the telling of real stories. But ultimately it's all going to sort of merge into this kind of beautiful, like imaginary space . And so that was always kind of the idea and I studied English in college and then I got in to grad program for journalism, which I was not sure if that was worth doing, like, , was a fair amount of money.

It was one year. So it wasn't crazy. But it does feel like, can this be taught? What are you doing? And I think I never felt a sense of certainty around the practical steps towards being a writer. I felt a lot of certainty just in my gut so I think I really followed that. I remember my grad school application. It's funny. It's kind of exactly what I've done in some ways. I said that I wanted to write about this world that I knew, and this sort of middle-class Indian value system that I grew up around that I just didn't see expressed anywhere.

There was just this whole world of characters. It almost felt like being , an anthropologist or something in America. Like I want to record all of this that I grew up with because I also grew up in a very kind of developed Indian community of people who spoke the same languages which is like not a lot of people in the world speak it proportionally like in India, you know, there's billions of people or more than a billion people and our language is relatively small the population speaks it. But in Dallas, as I was growing up this community kind of grew massively, we were one of the first families, but then by the time I was leaving for college, it was like, I mean, we did not nearly know everybody. So it was just the sense of like, there's a hidden world and I can do something there.

But I think I was so, so, so naive. I thought that I would get like a great magazine job, coming out of grad school. I really wanted to write for Texas monthly. It just seemed like the perfect situation. It's this beautiful glossy magazine set in Texas. And I can just cover these stories.

Like I'd hear, I remember going home once I heard this, when I was in college, I heard this story about theft, that had happened in an Indian home in Plano, Texas, where a lot of Indian people live of jewelry, and like Indian people keep jewelry right in the home and really keep a lot of their wealth in jewelry.

And the auntie who was telling me about this was telling me that everyone believed that there were multiple thefts happening, that it was that they were linked that this was one gang or something that had figured out that to target Indian homes. Cause only I heard about and it was just something that I clocked.

And then like a couple years later, this jewelry theft ring was arrested and the FBI was involved and it took the cops so much longer to piece together that they were all related, but these aunties had figured out, right. So I had this thing of like, there's another world, , there are crimes and rumors and and then there's the way immigration happens.

I mean, there's all kinds of shady things happening, but like in an interesting way, in a way that we don't have to be sort of cops about it, it's like it's taking stock of what our country actually is, you know? That felt, that just felt exciting to me. So I thought I could write for Texas monthly and tell these beautiful long stories in Texas monthly does like amazing crime stories, but but like without really vilifying the criminal. Like they're very colorful. And I dunno if you've seen Bernie the movie that was based on a Texas monthly story, so yeah. Yeah. You know, finding the human in all of this, everyone's a human but also a character. And I think that it felt like the Indians in Texas really, to me, like lended themselves to this so big.

 I graduated at the height of the recession. There were no jobs and I ended up getting an internship at the Huffington post and making a lot of slideshows and I just could not see how I could possibly get from there to there, you know? And it's been a very long journey, but it's makes so much sense to me that I'm doing the work that I am today because it's always been what I wanted, but it just took, in reality, understanding how the ecosystem works. It's always changing, like adapting took a lot of intelligence, I guess, and time to figure things out. So that that has been a path I couldn't have foreseen, but the kind of the work itself feels very natural.

Jack: Your skepticism around grad school, going back to that, did it prove to be true? Like where you, did you feel more validated or oh, I actually did gain a lot. It was worth the money spent because I think a lot of people, there's always the questions around for writers of do I go get an MFA that kind of thing.

Mallika: Totally. You know, with all these choices there, they're very personal because it really is what's the best thing you can do in that moment. Right. And I think, I could see many splintered versions of my life where I might've wound up in more or less the same place having done different things along the way.

But I think because I always had that sense of a destination in mind, I was always going to make the opportunity to sort of lead me there, but I will say for me, in hindsight I can see what I got out of these various experiences. Could I have done it differently?

Probably .I was able to go to grad school. I got some money and I was in a financially very secure situation. So I wasn't taking on like enormous debt And again, I specifically chose it a year long program. I got into some like more elaborate programs than I didn't want to do that.

I think I had this feeling like I want to get out in the world. And so all this is, is a kind of intermediary between the dreaminess of undergrad, because for me, undergrad was pretty removed from reality. It felt that way. Yeah. And this will be a way to get my feet wet. I'll be in a city, it was in Chicago and it'll just be a year.

And then here I go, you know I thought I would go back to Texas and that would be a somewhat soft landing. Texas is not the most expensive place, especially at that time. And I thought, okay, all of this makes sense, but the way it worked out my mom actually passed away just before I started grad school.

I think in some ways it was, I was really lucky to be in a program for that year because I was kind of protected. My professors were really kind and I mean, I had a really rough year, like emotionally, mentally. And so would I have, managed in a job, I don't know. Maybe I would have, you know, I don't know, but it was nice to be in that kind of academic environment.

And I made some really lovely friends who went on to be in in journalism in various capacities. So that was interesting, but I don't think grad school was really my formative place in terms of career. I think HuffPost was. But I think I got the Huffington post position, partly because I had that degree and I knew movable type and certain things through that.

But again, I could have maybe learned that online. Like, did I need Chicago for that? I dunno, but certainly I think I was coming in with some pedigree and some confidence enough to get a barely paid internship that I found, like I found a listing on Craigslist. It was, it's such a weird time, but HuffPost was like really dynamic.

There were so many people that really felt like going to like a really, really strong public university or something in the sense that it was just huge, but everyone was figuring out their thing, everyone was there to do something. And I think everyone was pretty young.

There was a lot of energy and, some of my best friends and my most critical work, like writing connections came, came out of Huff post. Every big thing that happened to me that has happened to me as a freelancer, I could trace back to a HuffPost person. Wow. Yeah. Even this believer story, actually, I consulted a friend of mine who I met at HuffPost who's now he's an amazing reporter, Saki and he reports he does a lot of reporting around the NYPD and.

I had never done any work around police. Yeah. I was very, very green and he helped me with just like talking me out of kind of dark places of like, I don't think I can do this. And then even , it was kind of really difficult to place the story. And he was just, he was so wonderful.

 He kept encouraging me. He was like, you need to do this and gave me context. So yeah. I mean, I think HuffPost and probably it being in New York was where I really made, met my people, you know?

Jack: Yeah. That's awesome. And when did you start to make that switch from slides to deciding okay. I'm going to do freelance writing. And have the competence to do that. Cause obviously that's also its own challenge to advocate for yourself for

Mallika: Taking me back to that time in my life, I almost feel like some things now are that I do feel really hard, but like some ways that feels like the hardest thing I've ever done, because when you're starting out and you just don't have any confidence, and was not an environment where we were told to like dream big in that way, , everything was so unclear. What journalism would look like in five years, 10 years? I think there was a sense that you're on a sinking ship. I mean, there probably still is today, but If you care about the written word, and I did, and I think there were a few of us who like really were pro had very like old school mentalities who were kind of very conflicted being there. Cause that was not at all what we wanted. Then there are many people who I think were very happy there and they wanted to be in this like exciting digital space where everything is sort of changing, but I wanted to be in like a shabby library, you know?

And so for me, I started out doing these slideshows and a lot of slideshows, and then I actually left after my internship and I freelance just a little bit. I did cartoons for Jezebel and I did some TV recapping. Cause I had also interned at entertainment, weekly EW and then someone reached out to me from HuffPost, a very good friend of mine.

Who's now an editor at New York Mag. And she was starting a culture section. We had started as interns together and she asked if I would come on as her associate editor. She'd been following my moves a little bit. And I think that's what I mean. I think it was like finding the people and she's also Iranian. And we had bonded over just like that same feeling of like, we have these hidden stories, you know, and so I think we knew in some form, if we could work together something interesting could happen. And it was just like, HuffPost , they'd gotten some really great hires, like some New York times people and they were, they had decided to make this push into award-winning journalism and they won a pulitzer actually like the year I came back. And so they were investing in that. I think because I was, I mean, maybe stupidly, like persistent about that. I mean, I think I gave off very clearly what my interests were. I think those of us who made our way into sort of traditional journalism were very, you could tell from the beginning, that's what this person's interested.

Cause any chance you got to do a little bit of reporting, you would do it or I think you started to know what people were deep down. Yeah. I think that's a lot of making it in journalism is like, it doesn't really matter where you start in some ways, I think you just want to be around people and, Websites can be a really, really good starting point because there's just so many people there and as opposed to like papers, not that there are that many left, the barrier to entry is a little bit porous, you know? And so there's all kinds of people that it's just a different environment. And so, yeah, she brought me back on as an associate editor and basically was like, we want this to be like, Vulture you know, brought me on with this promise that it was going to be what I dreamed of and it wasn't quite that we couldn't, but, but we did our best. Then we launched like an iPad magazine and I was involved in that. So I started writing in a very, I would say, in a self serious way while I was there. I don't think anyone was reading what I was doing, but everyone there knew that I had these like very high ambitions.

I just kind of was very proactive inside of HuffPost. And then I actually did this fellowship while I was there that took me to Pakistan and it was this complicated thing. And I realized like that I was not doing like the work I could be doing. And I came back with like a lot of intensity and a lot of ideas.

And it was this thing of feeling like I was on this fellowship and there were a couple there, like white guys on it, and I felt like they were missing. They were like big time political correspondants . I felt like they were missing somethings. And I was like, I have some understanding of the world that I'm not doing justice to, even though I'm, I am technically a reporter at this point at HuffPost, a senior reporter, but I'm still not bringing to bear my expertise or , what I see. And so I came back full of passion and conviction. And I pitched to this editor. I was like, these are the kinds of stories I want to be doing. Here are some story ideas. And she was like, I don't think there's an audience or readership for this.

And my same friend who's now in Eric mag had had left at this point and asked me if I would be interested in writing something for vulture on arranged marriages because Mindy project had just had an arranged marriage and I was like, you know what, this is going to be an experiment. And I wrote it so quickly.

I wrote it like as an email to her, but it was so authentic cause I love her because she gets me, like there was a feeling of safety. And then it went out and it did so well, like went viral and Mindy tweeted it out and all these people follow me. And I had never experienced that of being read , like actually being like I could have published that piece at HuffPost and the same piece, and I don't think it would have gotten that reaction. it makes me sort of sad because I think there's so much great work being produced at a lot at so many places that there isn't that expectation from readers. And so people feel unacknowledged and so I think that for me was just, it was so weird.

It was like, wait, all it took was this going on vulture, which is a smaller site but it's different. And so I kind of was like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I very nicely mapped out. I was like, okay, if I sell it took me this much time to write this and I made this much money. And if I do that, like I'll make up my salary, which is like, not at all what happened, but basically that was my like, okay, you know what, I'm going to try this and I'm going to trust in my voice.

And yeah, that was what, how I launched freelancing.

Jack: It is interesting as a segue, because I think younger you, when you're talking about some of the stories that you wanted to tell coming back from Pakistan and having that unique perspective. I feel like feeds so much into the piece where I discovered your writing, because I feel like younger, you would be so proud that you're telling these stories of exactly what you wanted to tell about these communities in Texas that you grew up in.

Yeah,

Mallika: it's really cool. Thank you. Yeah, it's funny though. It's like the lead time on any like writing goals. It's so long. Cause now I have new dreams, and I'm like, oh, it's going to take me 20 years, but I do. You know, and I think that it is exciting to kind of see things materialize. It's crazy by the time it happens, you're sort of so worn down and jaded that you're just like, okay, whatever.

Jack: It is kind of crazy that you were just talking about the lead time of some of these things, because I actually thought that too, and this is a separate question that I had about the, the image that you use at the beginning of that piece, which is the rabbit duck or the duck rabbit.

Whichever it goes, I was saying today, I showed it to a friend. I was like, what do you see for just the, for fun? And then I was like, oh, I see duck. But I don't know if I see duck because I Googled duck rabbit image and you typed duck first, anyways,

Mallika: that's like a new angle to the

Jack: right as always, which that's right.

But I thought, I think that's interesting because I was wondering. Maybe that was also this image that has popped up in your head first, or maybe the piece you're as you're writing it, you happened upon this.

Mallika: Yeah, no, I love that you asked me about that actually, because that was a big writing moment for me.

But real quick, I just want to say one last thing about, which is that I did have this idea because I also got so obsessed with kind of new journalism when I was in college and, you know, like all the, the Esquire stuff, the nineties Esquire stuff. And I had this feeling that I really wanted to have the authoritative voice of a white guy where I assume that the reader understands things from my point of view, but I knew that it was going to be a point of view that was foreign to the kind of mainstream readership, like this editor telling you the readers don't exist. So I mean, the world changed so much as my career was progressing and that I was not the only person \ in this space. And I think now there's so much literacy around like cultural literacy, but I did have this very macho thing of like, I'm going to be, I'm going to insert my perspective aggressively.

Like I always wanted to get like the word auntie or uncle, , but make it feel like, of course you should get this. Right. That was something also very early on that I think I was really intense about that has mellowed with time. So the duck rabbit thing, so I

totally.

Jack: I love that because I think it is true, especially like you're referencing the nineties Esquire which is like all like 30 year old, white guys showing up somewhere and just telling you what they think about it. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's so interesting because, the assumption that everyone would also understand that in a way that isn't, because I think even though to your point, like people are being more culturally literate I think I grew up in a town kind of similar to yours that is in, we have a huge Indian population, but nobody knows like most of the white people who live there don't know like, oh, this is where the Punjabi people go to eat. There's no like nuance there because there isn't.

Any blending still, at least at younger ages, like suburban, rural areas. So I think that is also part of what attracted me is because I had a lot of friends growing up in this realm that was similar.

Mallika: Where did you grow up?

Jack: I grew up in Michigan and west Michigan.

Mallika: Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So many Indian people, but yeah, Indian people also, I mean, I don't want to speak for everyone, but the community I grew up in and what I saw as a kid was everything was very hidden. Like I think, you know, we were very into assimilation and so much happened behind closed doors. Occasionally you'd like invite your friends to come, but it was this exchange student experience and it was so fun, but then there was an element of maybe self exoticizing , and wanting to be interesting because of this, like there's so much wrapped up in it.

Right. And so what I wanted was to have that neutrality, but to have like these writers, like Faulkner or somebody who focused on an area and the reader becomes just as familiar as this writers' imagination is with this place and these people where, you know them like family members and you know, everything about them.

And I think I really wanted to somehow do that sort of magic trick with the people I grew up with. So yeah and that has expanded so much. I mean, now it's like, people are people with lives that I don't know anything about. And I think so much of this was like young writing, like grandiose vision, and I think it's gotten more subtle as I hope as I've gotten older, but it's always that, I mean, I think for everybody you're trying to bring out something that only you feel you see maybe, you have this compulsion to, to show something to people. I think that that's just what I felt .

And so I envied that neutral voice of the white male writer. There's one story in Esquire that I like was obsessed with called, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm forgetting this, but it's about two motels in Dodge city, Kansas. One is owned by a white guy, old timer, and the other is owned by this Cambodian woman who's an immigrant and part of a refugee community. And there's all this tension between the two motels and it's like such a brilliant conceit for a story. Cause it's about America, you know, but you are entrusting this writer who's like a super excellent writer, but still like it's his vision of everything. I think I just thought, I have that narrative sensibility, but no one is asking me to use it and I'm going to that. So anyways, that was a big push for me at the beginning. And then, by the time I got to the believer piece, I mean, that was a story I started reporting it out years and years ago when I first started freelancing, but I just was so inexperienced and I didn't have credibility.

I did meet with this very like impressive editor early on at an impressive publication. And she was like, this is the blank blank., you really think you can do this basically. I did not have the chops to write a story where everyone, all the key players are dead, first of all.

And then and that I agreed with, I think even though I did have like a lot of bravado and felt like, well, why don't you take a chance on me? But I did feel like what was important about the story was not evident to the people I was talking to. And that, there was a very limited view of what makes for an interesting or important story about a criminal transgression. This is one of the problems with the conversation today is it's so garish in some ways like, oh, the person has to be so innocent and the cop has to be so horrible. And actually, there's so much going on there. There's so much in this, my friend Saki, we and talk about this.

There's so much that like small adjustments that could be made that would have profound changes and we're not really telling some of those stories of the minor transgressions or , the very subtle missteps and they're really meaningful, but they're hard to sell.

I think like everything, like this story was so weird, there was so much making it complicated to a reader that you'd have to explain and translate. And I think, when I was starting out again, I did not have the authority. And I think the landscape was like pretty hostile towards that kind of story.

I've been writing for a while at this point, I'd been starting my voice then like doing all this kind of, you know, these tricks that felt so important to me. And I think I had calmed down a little bit and I was like, okay, You know, I never wanted to force the door open.

I wanted to be a writer just like anybody else. There's a Toni Morrison quote that I've tried to find and I cannot find it. But it's something about how, she's talking about, I think specifically about black writers, but it might not be, it might be more general, but that there's double work when you're a marginalized voice, because not only are you doing the actual work of the writing and creating, you have to insist that people let you do it.

 I felt that I was spending so much energy on that part of things. And I was like, I actually want to also be a writer who's obsessed with craft and whose piece is, is notable because of maybe the structure of it or the approach to it, not just, oh, this is an Indian writer writing, but an Indian that, you know, like that, that kind of box.

Right. So I had started easing up a bit on this kind of intensity of purpose that I had around writing about the people I know that thing. But I was also getting to a point of just feeling way more confident. And I knew so many editors, writing for a couple years and I had like done some things that felt like I have crossed this border in a way this like the ethnic writer I have, I'm starting to cross it.

And it just felt like, okay, maybe I can actually do this story justice. And I envisioned it as the biggest story I would have written at that point. And also maybe a little bit of a breather where I'm trying to think about other things right now. In some ways I feel like I've done the most I can in that, or in the way that I was doing it.

And now I am thinking of sort of other looking into my heart. I'm a different person now, you know, so that's how I feel. That piece felt like this kind of hanging up the cleats moment a little bit, but I yeah, I. And it was in, you know, the believers last issue. And I love the believer.

They're the most amazing place to write for the editors are so incredible. That's one of the few magazines where I worked with editors who did not seem to be interested because of my identity. It was very much like, like they seem to actually , everything was important. Like my sensibility, as a writer, I just felt like a full person working with the editors there.

And I'm very lucky. I have felt that with the editors I work with generally, but the publication felt in line with all of that. It doesn't pay very well. And so I actually placed the story at a different magazine and then they killed it. , but I got a kill fee and I had the reporting done and paid for, which was a huge boon.

And then I was able to develop it for the believer in a way that I think was way more fitting for the material, because it's not a true crime , there's no answer. It's an ambiguous kind of tale and the rabbit duck thing. I had written this whole draft with this other publication and really was trying to make it this I dunno, I was interested in scene work and I wanted to just make it feel like any other crime story. It just happens to be with Indian people and with this very interesting unique, like complicating factors to it. But I just didn't have what you need for it to be a straightforward, true crime piece. And I was struggling with that with the draft, by the time it was at the believer.

And I was just talking to my editor and he was so great. He was like, you know, the thing I always think about is like, what can you do at this publication that you can't do somewhere else? And try and do that. And I was like, you know what? Like the believer is where I can actually voice all my confusion and let it be unresolved.

And so I told them, I was like, the thing I keep thinking about is that rabbit, duck, illusion. And he was like, that's great. And maybe you can work that in. . And I actually was reading at the time the Jane Alison book, meander spiral explode. I don't know if you've read it. I recommend it.

I think it's should be required reading for, especially for MFA folks. She's, great. And basically, the whole premise of the book is like this Aristotelian arc structure has been the one that we just assume all stories need to follow, but actually there are all these patterns in nature that you can sort of be inspired by for story.

She has this example, that's really wacky that I love about her parents switching spouses with another family and they lived in different hemispheres. And so she always had this thing of like two parallel families living in simultaneously. And so a mirror structure is really interesting to her for storytelling.

So I was reading this book and I was like wait a second. Like this whole story is actually about two cities, like a hidden and you know, and this is something I had thought about so much when I was younger, but I think I didn't feel ballsy enough to like do it and say it.

 And then the rabbit duck, like there's a way to let that structure the piece where this optical illusion is actually structuring the piece. And then that became such a useful framework for it. It totally changed the draft.

Jack: . I mean, I love like when I read pieces that, that do that so well, like your, but I also think it does help as a writer to be like, okay, this is the under current, the metaphor that I can use to create the structure that makes the rest of the draft flow around this image.

Right.

Mallika: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I had never done anything that long before, and I actually just wrapped up teaching a class at Columbia the spring. It was a writing seminar and I taught something on Jane Alison's book. And we talked about this idea of letting the shape guide you because when you're writing really long.

I mean, the thing I felt was like, it is so difficult to maintain cohesion, energy, to have some connective tissue through out that's interesting. That's like beguilining, like it's so, I mean, there's so much information and I was trying to tell this procedural story in a lot of ways. So that allowed me to create also a thread through like, I was able to insert that idea of marriage being an optical illusion, like middle of this piece.

And suddenly it changed from being a draft that honestly, I sort of hated because it felt so obedient. Like I just needed to get the story out to some extent. Cause I, I knew that I was, as I said, sort of leaving this set of passions behind a little bit or changing my orientation to them. And so I needed to do this story because I did feel like I was the only person who had spent any time thinking about this family.

If I didn't write this, like probably no one would write and it would just go disappear. And I didn't know what sort of outcome was like I wanted, or if there was even one to desire, like her lawyer actually I was like, you know, what does justice look like for the families? Like justice looks like shit for them.

 There's no justice that can possibly happen. But I think I had this feeling of if I can just get the story out in the world, like smarter, more knowledgeable people than me can figure out what to do with it. But right now I'm just sitting with all these documents in my apartment. And I feel guilty because I need to package them to go out.

 I need to share this with people. And so initially it was just, I was tired and I was like, I just need to get this done. But then yeah, when the Jane Alison kind of epiphany, I was like, oh, I can actually make this lyrical and something I would want to read and really do justice to kind of all my aspirations and hopes that that I've become so tired around that I'm like maybe not as willing to put in the time for. I felt that second wind the come and yeah.

Jack: Well, I just love, and I'll talk about it so people listening can hear. And should Google also the duck rabbit illusion. But I love the also, because it's kind of like you remember that dress on Twitter also that went viral and that people can see, some people only can see one or the other and some people can really switch back and forth.

And I feel like in the narrative flow, you switch back and forth unlike right. Wrongs, you know, what should partnership look like? Family look like, and what is the right answer here? And you're like, it just,

Mallika: and it's such a classic. I mean, it's such a classic, like riddle of storytelling, which is like, like the Rashômon thing of like, there's so many perspectives to a story, right? And there's no, there's no objective truth or story. And I think that dress is a great example. I think when those illusions that like the virality, it's about like, oh, finally, there's evidence that we do actually see things differently from each other. Like, you know, it's so it can be so, yeah, because you're like, oh no, no, of course this person is seeing the color, that color exactly as I am, or you know, that person there or me.

And so yeah, I think it's very useful for writing perspective.

Jack: That was really great. And I want to skip a little bit around, so I know we talked, we talked a little bit about the non-fiction work that you did have done elsewhere, which is, you know, maybe outside the realm of new journalism doing the TV and those reviews. You talked a little bit about how that went into you, did that a bit, HuffPost and with vulture. But curious on the process of like, did you have trouble in the industry being able to pivot between the two, because I think you write reviews in like a serious lens, but sometimes, like you said about people can trivialize Buzzfeed or HuffPost when there's actually really good content on there.

Mallika: Yeah. Oh my God. Such a good question. Yeah. I find the borders in writing so confusing between high, low between fiction non-fiction it's like, I think everyone has the capacity and interest to venture into all these places, , and it becomes you're so, so stratified.

And kind of pigeonholed early on, it can be really, really disheartening. And I definitely felt, oh my God, I have felt that so much. It's sheer, just stubbornness. I think so weird. Right? Yeah. So for me, it's like, yes, I've always been, actually wrote another piece for the believer on this, the word jugaad, which means it's kind of means like to improvise or to hustle, to hack like doing the best with what you have.

And that's been sort of my freelancing philosophy is jugaad philosophy. I have always tried to get the most from what I have available to me. So when I was starting out, I was like, I don't have the reputation, the connections, the know-how to sell a really ambitious piece of investigative reporting. No one's going to buy it and buy the pitch and I won't be able to go anywhere. And so I'm somewhat, I felt very limited. Maybe I created those limitations myself, but I felt that. And so culture, which I've always been super interested in , high and low culture felt like, again, like a very accessible set of material.

You also mentioned memory. And so I was very clear it was like okay, I'm going to create like spin gold out of hay and I'm using what's available on the internet. What's available in my mind. And what I hear around me, and these are all like, this is all cheap material. Like, you can access it without being allowed to.

And so a lot of my early writing was I was using that stuff has material. And I mean, even a book in some ways it was very expensive because you have to be given the galley, you have to be deemed like cerebral enough to do a book review, which, you know, it takes so much time and the right sort of environment.

And there's all these hierarchies. So I was just like, you know what, I'm going to be like, hustley here and I'm going to figure it out. I know that I have, grand ambitions, but there's no way I can satisfy them right now. So. So it's yeah, just, just go hard, you know?

And so I like would do like the Mindy thing, , which was about an episode of TV, but I made it like an essay and I cared about it. I gave it a lot of love and I think that was always I mean, I was very, very intense early on in freelancing. Every piece I did, I cared a lot about and I, and sometimes I felt like an idiot and I felt like, oh, I'm not taken seriously.

Or, you know, what am I doing with my life? But I had this internal sense of, I need to get to this point of a, I mean, it's like, my life was also forming around me where it's like, oh, now I can buy a printer. And now I can take a little bit of time away and do, and everything was slowly, my resources were getting more expansive. And I was like proving myself to myself in various ways. So I think for me, it's been a slow process and I think that's okay. I mean, it's hard, you look around and you see someone, who is your age totally on the same track as you, and already, they have like a cover story and whatever the new Yorker and it can feel like your destiny is pre-written and , there's only so far you can go, but maybe it's naive. I really feel like writing is the one. The reason I always loved it, theoretically as a kid is you can get stronger and better at it without needing that much, it's just it takes a lot of persistence . So it has been hard, I should say, Jack, like, it's been that leap from like TV to books for instance, then I started reviewing books a little bit and then finally getting some reporting and then like, traveling or doing things that were again, like more expensive material to get like every leap has felt like a huge one to take, but I think I've just believed I could do it. And then other people, you got support, I've gotten so much support from editors and you tell them your ambitions. I think that's really important, is to be clear and then people do keep you in mind and sort of send opportunities your way.

Jack: Yeah, that's cool. Well, I love that the using that also though, is you're right. It's easy access points for inspiration, because I think that can be really hard for people also transitioning out of school or like a structured work environment where it's this piece. And you're like, okay, I don't know. Nothing's interesting in my life. Or it's like the big news story that everyone's already covered.

And it's actually, there's so many little pockets that you just have to turn your attention to in your life in a different way. I feel like that sometimes we just turn it off cause were so absorbed with other things, but

Mallika: totally. I love that. That way of putting it. And I think like I don't know.

I think this is something where it makes me sad that first person writing is can be so easily dismissed by people because I do think it is the recourse for a lot of people who don't have access, and that is a beautiful thing. It's a powerful tool.

And I think, I'm a big, I don't wanna say advocate, but like I teach a class on first-person at catapult. And I just think for people who don't feel let in like it's learning how to use your voice is just it can do a lot for you.

Jack: Have you read Body Work by Melissa Febos

Mallika: haven't read it. I it's on my

shortlist.

Jack: I just, I literally just finished it last night, but it's funny because some of it is her first essay is about like, fuck the term Naval gazing, basically. We love to, especially with someone of what we've talked about with if it's a white man writing it, it's not Naval gazing. If it's about like the female experience, generally, it's like, oh, that's Naval gazing.

And it's because you're talking about emotional stuff and I love it's really good. The whole book is about the importance of personal narrative.

Mallika: That's great. I should definitely check that out. And I think, like I mentioned, I was teaching and you know, I have students who are, who feel that their identities are, or it's not even about identity.

What they think about hasn't even been translated into cultural reference points yet. So like whether it's around gender or sexuality or still deeply misunderstood and sort of untrodden ground. And the challenge they have again, is almost it's double work. It's like creating new reference points.

It's finding, I mean, I told one student about this essay that I wrote for Vulture that also did really well. And it was about the the documentary wild, wild country. Did you watch that the Osho documentary? And I had a very like strong reaction to it, and my editor knew I would, because she's my friend, because I have, I have a lot of feelings about Gurus and I've had kind of like experiences in my life.

And I felt that the documentary was really misguided in how it was sort of letting the Guru off in a lot of ways. And that was like really indicative of like a larger kind of excusing that happens for like Indian men who have a beard and sound like wise. They get away with a lot. Meanwhile, like women often sort of do a lot of their work for them or get blamed for a lot.

So I, anyways, I had,

Jack: that is interesting because Ma Anand Sheila is like the villain.

Mallika: Yeah. She's the villain. And it's like, there's no perspective given. but in writing that essay, I struggled with like, how am I going to get across in a very immediate way, the kind of the global nature of this problem. It's not just restricted to this documentary. It's actually like, it's something that probably you have seen it, even if you don't realize it. And I, I found this essay by this writer who I love R.K. Narayan very well-known south Indian writer, not known really outside of India that well, but he's considered like one of the greatest writers of the English language.

And he wrote a lot, he wrote fiction and essays and he wrote a lot about gurus , like God, men, his fiction, and it's so in the way that like the American novel is focused on this sort of Gatsby figure like that, that's somewhat of a recurring theme in sort of American literatures, like the ascent that, the illusion, all of that.

And I feel like in Indian literature, at least in sort of handling of it, like. The charlatan, the God man is like a big recurring figure. So I was like, oh, like R.K. Narayan probably would have had something interesting to say on this, but he's not by any means like a known quantity to Vulture readers, but I found this essay and there was just like a perfect anecdote told in it that related.

And it was really challenging to get the essay, to be very clear, very quickly, as an intro anecdote for the essay. But I was telling the student, this is like, in some ways, you have to find your own reference points and again, force the reader to feel like they should have known this. Or of course they get it, and that's a challenge to go back and read that one.

It is interesting because it's funny. I had just come from India and I was visiting my friend and we went to. Now there's like a big site near Pondicherry, but I forgot.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Auroville.

Jack: Yes, exactly. And so that had come out and just after we got back and we had went to Auroville just to like check it out. And her aunt, there was like, very interested in mysticism and broadly, even like, like when I was there, she wanted to take me to every Catholic church in

I know I was raised Catholic. She just like wanting to learn, she's very interested in spirituality. And I thought that was really interesting.

Mallika: Yeah. And, I don't want to like, like, say it's all bunk. Like I actually, it's such a mysterious topics,

Jack: interesting world, right?

Mallika: It is a totally. And I also something that I really like, I am writing fiction now and I find like the Indian kind of openness to mysticism is so, I mean, I feel that way, I feel very open to like mystical beliefs and I love how they can be negotiated. But then often there's like abuse that happens and

Jack: yeah, it is interesting.

Well, both of these Auroville being one , but also wild wild country is also the white fetishism of some of that really interesting, like Auroville you didn't the Indian people who were there were like tourists, going there to check it out. It was just like mostly Europeans, who are actually staying there.

Mallika: Yeah. And that's where you wonder, like how much of it is just wanting to believe and it's exotic and it's outside of your rational kind of sensibilities aren't triggered because it looks different from you. And so you will allow for a lot more.

Jack: Yeah, exactly. . I know I'm conscientious of I've I've kept you for some time.

Mallika: Oh, this is really great though. Like, I it's, you know, you sit and like write silently and it's it's so at least to talk about it.

Jack: So I actually talked about that in therapy today. So for me, it can be really hard, especially I worked in like such a professional context where people are like, you're doing an MFA.

What is that? Why, why?

Mallika: And I can't even imagine that.

Jack: Yeah. Then you're kind of divorced from a writer community in that way, when in college was this, you know, it's very similar to your undergrad where it's like, we're all going to be writers together. And we're all gonna sit a little round circles every week and talk about what we did at the bar together.

And it's actually hard to find that community or can be, and people can be exclusive about it. I feel like, oh, you know, I know Alexander Chee, but I'm not going to introduce you to him. Like that kind of thing.

Mallika: Yeah, there is a lot of possessiveness over your contacts which is really a shame and there is such a scarcity mentality that keeps, I think the writing world, so petty and small, I just don't understand it.

I understand that people feel like there's limited opportunities and money, but I actually don't think that's true. I think if we were more generous and open of spirit. I just feel like there's this mythology around the writer and people want to feel really important. And I just think, I don't, I don't know.

I don't, I really don't like that someone has your MFA provided like much communities

this fall. Oh, you start. Okay. Well, that's great. That's so great and psyched

Jack: about it. So, I mean, but even then, it's like, I think it'll be great, but it's like six people, right? These MFA programs are so small.

Mallika: Yeah. But I don't think that it becomes, I know people who've done like the hunter MFA and had a really good experience. I think you leave with a sense of real like a network.

Jack: Yeah. It being in New York. Yeah.

Mallika: That's huge.

Jack: So affordable compared to other programs. So

Mallika: like. That's good. That's

Jack: congratulations.

That's exciting. Thank you. Yeah, but it is interesting. I mean, like you brought this up, it's like the siloing also that we do in creative writing. Even my undergrad, it was like, you studied creative non-fiction fiction or poetry. Like if that was your specialty in undergrad. And I was like, none of us actually, like, I think most people in every discipline thinks they can do the other discipline too, and likes to do

the

other disciplines.

Mallika: Absolutely. I think, I have mixed feelings about it because I think on the one hand, yes. Like everybody shares a lot of talent, probably if you're going into this at all and maybe you can like act and sing and are very multitalented. But I think, I do think that the specialization, the like good thing about it is that it takes the craft really seriously. So then you really do have to commit and study this genre to be fluent in the conventions and the sort of the challenges and all of that. And I think that's great because that keeps the dignity of the work.

And I do like that, but I think that it's just in practice, it ends up feeling sort of bizarre because it's like the shock people have.

Jack: Creative non-fiction is fiction. Right? Like you have to, you're more explicit about like, oh, I imagine this is what happened. I don't know. But like, you're still doing that. You're still doing the creating

Mallika: it's lyrical. And I yeah. I just think it's like in different proportions, because with fiction, you have to do research and, you know, you have to be rigorous in all kinds of ways . The one thing I think is slightly different that I have felt as challenging as like, scene work and character.

Obviously. I think that's that. Well, I mean, if you're doing like creative nonfiction, that might be important, but like an essays that's not necessarily important. Right,

Jack: right. Or it's like, maybe the clues are more obvious because you're borrowing from reality. Like you actually are. They're totally observational.

Versus the, I don't know,

Mallika: like it, I think the other thing is that the process is very different and path to publication is very different. So like one thing I was to me, I was like, I have no idea how people writing fiction are making their money because publishing a book. Yeah, I really, and so the logistics of it were just really opaque to me.

I did not understand how you could possibly be doing that. And so to me, nonfiction just. More transparent. Like, I was like, okay, I think I can understand how you living at least making some money. Even that's like difficult, but you know, fiction is very confusing. Like how does that sell it?

Yeah.

Jack: Okay. I will go through my, my rapid questions before.

Okay. So you mentioned one already, which I'm definitely going to read , but would love to hear any first, like any favorite essayists or works that are must reads and then the craft pieces or books that, that you go back to.

Cause I also want. I love getting into the craft works.

Mallika: Essayists, I, oh man. I mean, I like all those sort of classics, I guess. You know, Joan Didion is someone who I read as I was writing the believer piece. I read her central park piece in the New York review of books. But I have to, I have to think a little bit about that.

I mean, I love Zadie Smith. I love Wesley Morris. I also teach those peoples. I mean, teach their work. So I think about, I really love Eula Biss. I think she's like so brilliant and how she talks about race and sort of looks into her own history. Like she elevates that act.

I feel like in this way, that's really mysterious and magical to me when I read her work. So yeah. I love her. Super interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that that's kind of a good one. So those are mine for now.

Jack: No, those are really good.

Mallika: And then, and then I, as for craft books, yeah, I, meander spiral explode is definitely very much at the top. I mean, I used to like, love reading the Nieman lab. Like, you know, when they'd have writers to annotate their pieces, like Susan Arlene did her American boy at age nine, 10, and it's amazing.

Like she just, she breaks down so much of her reporting process and it's like line by line. It's so good

Jack: to check that one out too. Yeah. You should favorite place to write. Do you write at home or do you write cafes? Where do you like to write.

Mallika: Oh, my gosh. I used to be like a diehard right in bed person.

And that has changed dramatically in the last couple of years. I also did a podcast about sleep last year and I'm like very into sleep hygiene now. So I also am into work hygiene. So like I try and write it at my desk in my place. Which is really nice that I have that. I don't really like writing in public places, so yeah.

Or on the couch, my couch community.

Jack: Yeah. Yeah. The butter's

Mallika: depressed. So depressing to your point on sleep. Yeah, definitely. It's so bad. Yeah. And I think like also now I'm like more. Intent. I'm more conscientious about like having a good desk set up with like keyboard and monitor and you know, like all the ergonomic stuff.

Cause it makes such a difference how much and how much you can write. Like my shoulder just, you know, acts up so

Jack: seriously. Yeah. Okay. Any songs or music that you listened to or you write or do you go

with that?

Mallika: No, I, it depends on like what stage of the writing process I'm in like the very, you know, high focused times.

I'm not, I don't listen to anything if I'm doing like a first draft or any kind of real drafting, I wouldn't listen to anything. But at various points, maybe even during those times, I like to listen to like ambient classical, like, like modernist music, like Philip Glass and Steve. Right? Yeah.

That's good.

Jack: I always feel, I listen to like, Indie Sad Girls Songs , it's kind of

listen to. I listened

to lyrics. Wow. I definitely do it as like a mood shifter to like put me in the like mood I was at that time. If I'm writing about something in my own past

Mallika: I love that.

Jack: I don't know why, but it's definitely, even for drafting actually specific, I have a harder time when I'm editing, because I'm like, I'm thinking too much about the words that I think that's so cool.

And then the

Mallika: reverse. No, I think that's really, I might borrow that because I do listen to like old Bollywood song sometimes. Cause they get me in the feelings. Like I really the, you know, like in my feelings and I, I love the idea of, of letting a draft, like come out through that.

Jack: Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you get like a little inspiration from.

Yeah. Okay. This one, last one is asking for a friend. Do you have any advice for someone who wants to write, you know, whether it's freelance or for a publication, but as worried about the financial stability, the publishing side of it, that's a big one or is a tough one to answer.

Mallika: It's a really big one because I, I mean, because there just are sacrifices that I think happened, like from what I've seen in my life and the lives of people around me, I think that, you know, I mean, okay.

I think there are gradations of what you can do. So like, you know, you have what sounds like a really stable corporate job. And I think there's absolutely a way to keep a job. Do and slowly build a writing career. I really, really do. And in fact, I think I might, at this point in my life, I might say like do it that way.

And just be very disciplined and kind of give yourself goals and, and, and also give yourself time off. Like, I think being patient with yourself in that case, and not trying to rush through, into some kind of, you know, crazy level, letting it happen at the time that it can. And then I think there's the like, go all in and freelance and have no security whatsoever, which is what I did at the beginning.

But I was also very lucky in various ways. Like, as I said, I didn't have debt. I didn't have, I dunno, I had a lot of stability in other ways. I feel like that allowed for me to manage that instability, but it was really, really hard. And I wonder sometimes , is that what I needed to do? I guess I felt like that at the time, but I'm sort of confused why I felt that way now.

And I think, but clearly, you know, in some ways it did work and then as I started to feel more stable, that was like an amazing feeling. I feel like social life romantic life is pretty hard to develop in those scenarios, but not impossible. I think you just have to be a really organized person. And, you know, I mean, there are like freelancers in New York, not writers, like, you know, designers and people make these people make these lives work.

And I do think that writers limit themselves so much. Maybe not. I actually, I don't think in practice, I know quite a few very stable freelancers, but I think it seems like you can only be doing this like prestige work when in fact like any successful freelancer in any industry, you need to be creating like a diverse sort of portfolio of work that you're doing.

Like some will pay better and that means like being really organized and disciplined, I think about like, you sit at your desk, you work for this many hours you're available. Like it's a job, you know? So yeah, I think very organized people can have like really happy freelancing careers.

Jack: Yeah. Pretty on top of it.

Mallika: Yeah. Because then you can enjoy life. I mean, it's terrible to just be like, you know, never knowing what's and then you can't like invite someone else into your life. I think that's not, I would never say write and sacrifice all the things that make life beautiful.

I mean, what are you gonna write about? I think I have done that in some ways, but I would say there are smarter more effective ways that are still healthy and you're not punishing yourself.

Jack: Yeah. Yeah. Which I love. And I love that, that it's changing, you know, it's also the romanticized.

Mallika: Oh yeah. I think people have, this is what I've just been noticing. Like I think the whole thing of like the unhealthy writer, that is going away and I think, you know, yeah. I think there's like, we need to be, that's crazy. I don't know. I don't like that at all. And also I have friends who write in TV and when you realize like, it's like, there is money to be made in writing, it's just such a strange why is there this self-flagellating feeling around sort of artists, writers or.

I just, I don't think, I think you can have a more flexible mind than that. I think you can be commercial and make money and also do kind of what feels like meaningful work or whatever. I don't know. I don't like that distinction.

Jack: Yeah. I love that. All right. Well, I want to let you get to get to your evening. I really love talking to you. This was so much fun on a personal level, but also think like super interesting, like tactical advice. And I really appreciate it, but I'd love to keep in touch. I will continue to read. I want to see read the source story

also.

Mallika: I hope you do. I, I mean, please keep in touch. Like I really, if I can help with anything, like totally.

Jack: Yeah, I will, I will definitely take you up on it. Cause I think it'll be, it's going to be an interesting next year as I kind of dive

Mallika: in and yeah, let me know, like I'm interested to see what. Yeah. What you want to write about and where,