Interviewing Interviewers about Interviewing
Ep 1: John Milas, Author of The Militia House
Hi,
I’ve been wanting to start a podcast or series where I interview other interviewers about interviewing. I didn’t go to journalism school so I’m not sure if they break down the artform there, but I’ve never really seen “interviewing” dissected as a serious craft.
I love interviewing people. I enjoy being interviewed. I like reading, watching and listening to interviews. It’s a weird thing that humans do, but I think it’s often beneficial to be on all three sides of the interview equation.
So in this series, we’ll try to get to the bottom of what interviews even are, why they matter, how to conduct a good one, what constitutes a bad one, who the GOAT interviewer is, what the best movie about an interview is (hint: probably Frost/Nixon by default), and much more.
I’m still in the working stages of putting this project together. As of now, the tentative title is: “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Interviewer, with Will Hagle.” So it might still have a long way to develop. But I wanted to share the first test episode that I recorded with the writer John Milas.
John has interviewed authors and other individuals for SmokeLong Quarterly, SmilePolitely, and other outlets. As the acclaimed novelist of The Militia House, he’s also been interviewed.
We break down interview theory and philosophy and think about things I’ve never thought about before, consciously. I embedded the full mp3 of the conversation below, followed by the lightly edited transcript.
Let me know what you think in the comments if you get the chance. Should I release this as a podcast or do more of them?
ENJOY
Will Hagle
Welcome back to Anne Rice's interview with the interviewer, the show where I interview interviewers about interviewing. And like Anne Rice, my guest today is a novelist. He wrote the Militia House. Great book that I recommend. Might be in the same genre as Anne Rice. Maybe not. Maybe that's a question I'll ask during the interview. Maybe not. But as you can see from this one sided ramble, this is not a conversation.
But it's also not a ramble, it's an interview. So my first question is, would you like me to amend your bio?
John Milas
No, being the author of The Militia House and maybe being in the same genre as Anne Rice, that's probably enough for listeners.
Will Hagle
If this is a podcast, which I think it is, I could have given a more detailed description of the book, maybe, sung its praises, maybe list a couple other credits, because you've been published a few other places. But I like to keep it succinct, if that's a word, even though this is making it even longer than it could have been if I just would have done that.
John Milas
Well... Anyone can go to JohnMilas.com.
Will Hagle
There we go. That's I should have included.
John Milas
That's probably the most succinct.
Will Hagle
You've interviewed a bunch of people for various publications, including SmokeLong Quarterly, and Smile Politely, you actually interviewed me, as well as, yeah.
John Milas
Yeah, full disclosure, I think we should say that I've interviewed you before. It was heartbreaking to have to cut it from about 10,000 words to like 1500.
Will Hagle
Probably the best interview you've ever done.
John Milas
Yeah. It was honestly one of the best, if not the best.
Will Hagle
Yeah, I still think someday we should release the full interview. People out there, stay tuned. So my second question was gonna be, what's a good first question to ask you?
John Milas
Mmm… Wow in the context of interviewing people or just in -
Will Hagle
But I have another question and it's, should I interrupt you during the interview or is that a good philosophy to just let the interviewee speak?
John Milas
Well, wait a minute. I've never actually interviewed someone and then published the audio of an audio interview. So I don't actually, I don't know how I come off, but I bet that's something that I did when I was interviewing you was probably in her was probably to interrupt you a lot.
This is just reminding me of a question that I would ask early on when I first started interviewing people. I would ask like, "what is your least favorite question to be asked about whatever the topic is. Now I'm reflecting that internally back on myself and I'm not sure. Now I'm interviewing myself, basically.
I think you didn't ask me this, but my least favorite question to be asked... because I've been interviewed about my book is maybe like, how did you become a writer? Even though I also asked you that, I think, in in our interview.
Will Hagle
Yeah, and you also asked, 'What parts are fictional, what parts are not,' which is might be my least favorite.
John Milas
Yeah, that's a question I don't like to answer either, so I'm a hypocrite.
Will Hagle
So, okay, to give people, if anyone is listening to this, to give people an idea of what we're talking about... So you're a writer who has been interviewed for your own writing, and you're also a writer who has interviewed other writers for writing publications. Would that be the majority of what you've done? Although I did see in some of your past interviews, like you interviewed a meteorologist, I believe, in college, which that was a great interview I read. We'll link it in the notes.
John Milas
That's right.
Thank you for reading that. With Doug Quick, I'm guessing. That was a highlight, I think, of my time with Smile Politely — Smile Politely being a can an online community Magazine in the Champaign Urbana, Illinois area.
Mostly over the past several years I've mostly interviewed other writers, but I started off as an undergrad with a publication called Buzz Magazine. I'm not sure there, there might be archives of that that exist if you if you look really hard for it online, but I'm I don't think they have a dedicated page anymore.
Will Hagle
I remember reading the print publication though, growing up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
John Milas
It was cool. It was an arts and culture magazine.
I mean, what was cool about it to me is I'm a townie in Champaign-Urbana and I'm also an alumnus of the University of Illinois. And if you go to UIUC as a townie, you tend to not really connect with many other townies on campus. A lot of people are from the Chicago suburbs or they're from abroad, lot of international students. So the cool thing about Buzz Magazine was sending undergrads out into the community to cover arts-related topics and that's what I segued into doing at Smile Politely: interviewing not really only writers—although I did interview a number of writers—but there were arts events that I would promote and I was eventually contacted by Mike Czyzniejewski at Smokeline Quarterly, he's the interview editor, and I had interviewed him for Smile Politely actually. I guess he appreciated my questions. These interviews were...
I don't remember how they're titled. I'm sorry, I didn't study up on my past before this, but they were called like "Five questions with X person." And so I interviewed him and the Smoke Long Quarterly interviews are kind of the same format.
So I must have proved to him that I was capable of handling that. I don't know how many I've done for Smokeline Quarterly at this point, but it's kind of on an irregular schedule. They reach out when it's like my turn and then I either say, yeah, I have time and send it over or a couple of times I've had to blow them off just because I was busy.
Will Hagle
So what do you think the point or purpose of an interview is? Like whether it's going out in the community and talking to someone or interviewing another writer, like within a format?
I guess while you were talking, I was trying to think of what I would say to that. Now I'm interviewing myself, but I was thinking, you know, the point is kind of just to get people to explain their ideas in a candid way by guiding them through questions. But sometimes it's for research, like I've been doing interviews for research purposes, kind of, but it's the same thing. Like you're kind of looking for them to, you're trying to get them to say something interesting or just see what they say, whether it's interesting or not. I don't know.
John Milas
Yeah. I think, with my writing, because I've profiled people and I've done back and forth Q and A's, which are separate types of formats.
And if I profile someone, will include their direct quotes from the interview that we did to prepare for the profile. most but the whole thing is still in my voice. And if it's an interview, I mean, like you're saying, there's also types of interviews you can do for research, but for interviews that are meant to be published in their sort of native form of just a Q &A, I guess for me, the opportunity is that like, all the information is coming directly from the source, rather than an intermediary interpreting what they're saying. You know, I've been interviewed and they call them talk backs, by the way, if you do a verbal interview that's recorded, but then later it's it's written up in print and edited. So I've done a couple of those and there is always kind of a weird feeling as the subject when you read it back and some of your quotes are altered a bit. And I think for me that maybe maybe that tells me I need to ramble a little bit less in my verbal interviews if they need to be edited. But I think also it's a weird feeling because unless someone who does that knows me really well, those alterations kind of changed my voice into someone else's, I guess. I've never had a huge problem with this, but...
Will Hagle
I'm just imagining editing this podcast and just taking single words you said at different parts and forming them into some controversial statement.
John Milas
It would be perfect if edited my response to that question. That would be poetic justice, I think.
Will Hagle
Yeah. Half of it's missing. But guess I was curious if you have like, cause I guess with myself, when I, it depends on who I'm interviewing and why obviously like some of these interviews you're talking about are like specific formats for publications that are doing this. And then like, I've also written things where I'm interviewing people like for a book. And then I know I'm going to kind of like put it into a story, which is pulling people's quotes out. Again, like that can change the context or, you know, that influences different things that the subject might not expect, which is definitely something good to think about. But, I guess like over time I've wondered, you know, like, should I have the questions written out? If I'm going to interview someone, when do I know like to improv and go into a random question? And then usually if I do that, it turns into something like this where I'm like, "I guess that's not really a question, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about that."
Just in general, do you have any general thoughts on the philosophy of interviews of whether they should be free form or are you like, "I'm going to ask this question, then I'm going to ask this question, then I'm going ask this question" or a mix?
John Milas
I don't know if I have a set philosophy. think... I don't know. mean, I've mostly done remote interviews where I will send someone questions. I mean, in my old days of of the arts journalism at Buzz Magazine and Smile Politely I conducted a lot of verbal interviews and then would transcribe them later and edit them. Most of the interviews I've had with other writers have been remote so it's kind of a case-by-case thing if I send someone questions about their writing and they send their responses back. I'm trying to think. I believe at some point a couple of times I've responded with follow ups. I'm just of the mind as a reader. Like if I read an interview, it is really easy to tell if there's an organic discussion happening between the interviewer like and the subject and if it's just question and answer and kind of robotic.
Will Hagle
Do you think the conversation style is better?
John Milas
As the subject of an interview, I prefer it just because it helps you keep your train of thought. I was actually interviewed... This is not published. I was interviewed when I was in grad school. had a short story come out in an online journal that would irregularly follow up with authors and interview them.
Or they didn't interview them. They would have them write a sort of almost an editorial about their writing. They wanted me to do that. I said I would rather be interviewed because I didn't want to just talk about myself or ramble like that. And that interview turned out to be awkward because it was just questions then I answered.
Then the next question was just something totally kind of unrelated. Once I was done answering, the person interviewing me would kind of respond and say, interesting. And then they would just move on.
So when I was first in college, I was in this program that my university required for undergrads that was sort of like this alcohol and substance abuse education program. I took a class to become a facilitator for the discussions that freshmen were required to participate in. So one of the things we were trained was in these discussions, if someone says something, it's really important to reflect it back and be an active listener. So I think maybe that's kind of where I bring that baggage.
Where I'm carrying that baggage from is that training of if I'm asked a question or if I'm in a class and I raise my hand and say something to the professor, if they don't respond at all other than with just a nod or just a mhmm, that's just humanly awkward. So I think for interviews, I just...
You can always tell if something is organic or if something is just kind of, I don't really know, systematic or process based. like, I prefer, you know, if someone's being interviewed, I prefer to come away from that feeling like I have a sense, a better sense of them as a person. I guess I'm not totally convinced that that opportunity is there if the conversation is less organic and more just like pre-planned with, I'm just gonna go down the list of questions.
Will Hagle
I agree. And it's probably a thing where people start out... like when I first was interviewing people a long time ago, I probably was nervous and I was like, okay, I just got to ask these things. And then maybe you it's kind of a skill you probably develop over time.
I'm thinking of Hot Ones, the show where the guy eats chicken wings on YouTube. Some people will be like, "He's a great interviewer." Whereas to me, I'm like, he's not a good interviewer because he'll just ask a question. I'm saying it now. I'm calling you out, Sean Evans.
It's like, he can come up with good questions. But it's almost as if he's sending them over email. But he's sitting across the table. Maybe it's the way they edit the show, but usually the subject just answers the questions. And then there's no follow up at all, or he's just like, "oh, great answer" or something. But then people are like, "oh, he has such good questions. He's such a great interviewer." So that always boggles my mind. But I think it just comes down to preference and taste. Whereas I like the more natural conversations, too.
But then was gonna ask you, if the majority of the interviews you've done have been written correspondence, then that's very different than vocal interviews, and in some cases it forces you to just ask the best questions knowing you might not have any follow-ups or you're you'll only have limited follow-ups and it won't be a natural conversation because it's written.
So, long-winded way of asking you: What preparation do you do to format those questions? What's your lead up to doing an interview like that? Is there anything you're taking into consideration?
John Milas
I mean, it kind of depends. For the local arts journalism I was doing, I would be provided information ahead of time or I could contact someone ahead of time like the interview subject who I was going to meet. I could ask them: "do you have materials I can look at?" if it's some kind of art arts event that I was promoting.
Interviewing people about their writing, I think it's really obvious if someone interviewing an author has or has not read that author's work. Maybe not. I mean, I've listened to a lot of interviews, I've participated in a lot. There are a lot of interviews out there where the interviewers have not read the author's book.
Will Hagle
Mm-hmm. I've been on one side of that.
John Milas
Yes, I think both of us probably have. I think it's just important like out of respect to do what you can I guess to mitigate bad questions beforehand. A really obvious way to do that is to just take some time to do the research. I mean for SmokeLong Quarterly, it's not that much. I'm interviewing people about a narrative piece. It's either fiction or nonfiction that is 1,000 words or less. There's really not that much.
I mean, no shade to flash fiction. It's a very valid art form, but like, that's not hard. It's not hard to read a 1000 page piece and come up with five questions. The hard thing is to try to ask a different question every interview. I really try to not repeat any question at all. That's like a soft challenge to myself. I've also never kept score. I haven't looked back at my interviews to see if i've repeated questions by mistake, I don't have a log of all the questions listed out. Maybe that would be helpful too.
Will Hagle
Someone's gonna do it after hearing this, superfan. They're gonna call you out.
John Milas
Right? I think I just, as a writer, put myself in the position of the people I interview and kind of try to envision maybe what I wouldn't want to be asked, or what would be a rote type question, or something really obvious.
I don't know how many years I've done those flash fiction interview, but earlier, I don't think I was as good at it. I can recall some of these interviews and I have looked up, looked them up again at times. I know some of the earlier ones are, from my point of view, at least not that interesting in terms of the questions that I was posing.
I mean at one point someone kind of ignored the questions and sort of used the interview as an opportunity almost to share more creative writing. Which wasn't unwelcome, I thought that was really interesting but it did kind of make me wonder were my questions bad?
I interviewed Scott McClanahan. This happened with Scott McClanahan and Smile Politely. I mean, I'm just in college too at this time, and I sent him one of these like five question interview things for a local festival he was going to come and participate in. He kind of blew it off. I don't really blame him, but you know, I was asking like, 'do you ever edit your own Wikipedia page?' And it's like, I mean, maybe he does, but like being asked that before you come to do a reading in like a local community, that's probably not necessarily what you want to be asked. That's kind of like an annoying, you know, undergrad question.
Will Hagle
So what was his response?
John Milas
I think he just said, yeah, my wife edits it. That's it. If I'm not mistaken.
Will Hagle
So he gave you like, but how did he share creative creative writing or was that someone else?
John Milas
So in the the Scott McClanahan interview, I think he did start to blow the questions off later. Like the first two maybe I think he was straightforward and then and then like the final two or three are a lot more indirect. There was someone on Smoke Long Quarterly though and I would have to look this up but I remember the questions or the answers more than being, you know, just direct responses... They were evoking more of the writing in the piece. Sort of like continuing the voice from that piece. I don't know. I don't get interviewed enough to consider an opportunity like that. But if 10 people a day were after me, I guess I would maybe try to have more fun and answer questions in that way too. I should have reread this one before today because now I'm not doing it justice.
Will Hagle
Written interviews between writers are an interesting subgenre of the interview itself because the writer could take it in any direction they want. They could type it in their speaking voice, or they could try to do some sort of creative writing thing, which I feel like actually probably isn't done enough.
John Milas
It's like if you did a verbal interview with a musician and instead of answering you, they just started playing their instrument really loud in your face. That's kind of maybe how I view those responses in the literary community. It's like, maybe the question isn't that interesting, but they're still going to write something, you know, that people are going to read and if the work itself, if writing is the main reward, I guess they're getting their kicks in some way, like they're satisfying the need. It's interesting. Maybe I should try to take inventory and maybe try to assemble, look out for more of these interviews that have occurred elsewhere.
Will Hagle
Well, is an interview a form of writing or no?
John Milas
That's a good question.
Will Hagle
Thank you. First one of the podcast.
John Milas
I took an undergrad nonfiction writing class and we were assigned to do an interview as part of it. And I remember a classmate criticizing one of our other classmates for not really doing any writing. The assignment was to give someone else voice in your project, I guess is how I viewed it. It's sort of a type of nonfiction writing.
I like to make things and complete projects and obviously, you know, fiction, short stories and books and stuff, occupy my time out of that space. But I still like to complete if it's an interview that's still something that I feel like I am making I do editing on on them and I think like like the it feels like cheating a little bit because you come up with the questions and you do the work before the interview happens, but then, you know, 50 % or more of the substance of the whole piece is going to be taken care of by whoever your subject is, unless they only give you one word answers. There's something about that that takes some weight off your shoulders, if what you're doing is trying to make a space for someone else to do to perform the labor, I suppose.
Will Hagle
Yeah, it's more like an organizational or like project manager kind of task than it is writing, which could be creative, but it's definitely different than writing, even though it involves typing sometimes.
John Milas
Yeah, and I mean, for my, the flash fiction interviews I do are also capped at 1000 words total. So I often will delete parts of my questions to save space and also just to like make sure the subject has the floor. So I mean, it's almost like anti-writing in that sense. If all I'm doing is deleting my own words and giving the space to someone else, I guess. But I do think that interviewers definitely in every interview, provide the flavor of the interview. That's what I'm trying to say. I think it emanates from whoever the interviewer is.
Will Hagle
And the interviewee is like the meat for lack of a better word or like the main course. And then like the flavor spice comes from the interviewer?
John Milas
Maybe, I mean... I think so. It depends on the subject. If you think about Hot Ones, it's interesting to me just as an example of a unique interview format. But like, if you think about the celebrities on there, I think that they could be posed the same questions by someone else and the interview could take on a whole different shape. Or they could be posed, you know, different questions by Sean Evans and the interview would take a different shape.
Will Hagle
I'd love that.
John Milas
I don't feel that like the same person is going to necessarily give the same interview to 10 different interviewers.
If you follow writers or famous people who are interviewed... Like, let's say someone has a book come out. If you listen to a number of different interviews about that same book project, you'll notice some of them have stock answers at the ready for certain questions and they're ready to go with that. But even then I still kind of think that there's just a different response elicited from subjects based on what it is the interview is doing, I think, even if it's remote.
Will Hagle
Well, you don't want to repeat yourself either, like someone who's been interviewed and interviews people. If you get asked the same question, then at least for me, I guess, personally, it's like, I'm in my head thinking, if the same person sees both of these, they're just going to... It's like, I'm going on The Tonight Show in the nineties or whatever. And I have like my stock answer that I'm also repeating somewhere else. So I don't know. It doesn't feel as natural. So then it's like a pressure on the subject to do something else.
John Milas
Yeah, absolutely.
Will Hagle
So how do you think this interview is going?
John Milas
It's good. It's fun to talk about this. I've never been taught how to interview people. I didn't study journalism. I just started doing it for fun.
Will Hagle
Me neither. I just started thinking like, what's the point? Why do I like reading, watching interviews and interviewing other people? Maybe in journalism school or something, they go into this, but I've never learned what makes interviews good. So I thought it'd be interesting to talk to people about it.
John Milas
Yeah, I don't have any firm grasp on interview theory other than just thoughts that have accumulated since I've gone around the block with it. But I agree, really do. I think it's, I mean, maybe going back to earlier, like my thoughts on how interviews lend the opportunity for the primary source to just directly share information. Maybe I just prefer that in like a Q &A format too.
You know, someone who's interpreting it via a fully constructed profile of someone where they have kind of picked and chose the important, details and, and beats... I don't know. There's just something in that back and forth Q&A, it's just so cut and dried. It just gets to the point.
Will Hagle
Well, I feel like that's become more popular over time. That's why people like podcasts or just they want the raw unfiltered stuff.
John Milas
We've talked about Smile Politely, the online Champaign-Urbana culture magazine. When I was writing for them in college, I probably did around 30 pieces. And they really didn't want the Q &A format actually at that time. I remember they didn't do that much. They didn't do that many of them.
It was more of the profile format, like a feature piece, you know, with a beginning, middle and end and almost like a five paragraph essay. But now I notice they are almost exclusively just going for the Q &A format. And as an interviewer, that's just easier. It's so much easier to just transcribe question and answer than it is to try to pick quotes from someone's answer and then to like sneak it into your prose and format all of that and try to create something that's well written and informative, like at the same time.
Will Hagle
Yeah.
It's also easier for the subject too. If it's five questions, you just respond to it. And like, that is a form of writing too, but it's not hard writing. It's like they can just think out loud through their fingers. Probably.
John Milas
You're kind of making me like envision a format where there's more self-awareness to the shared aspect of the interviewer and subject and they view it as like kind of a co-creation experience. There should be like more of that in whatever way that's doable.
Will Hagle
Well, yeah, that's what I was going to ask at some point, like the one-sided nature of interviews...
John Milas
I'm interested in the idea of an interview where two people equally interview each other, but also is that not just a conversation?
Will Hagle
Yeah, then it's a conversation. That's what I mean.
John Milas
Yeah, an interview has to has to be like one sided, I guess, doesn't it?
Will Hagle
Yeah, I think that's part the definition. Which brings us to our next segment, our first segment. This is if I had to come up with some boilerplate questions that I would send, which I came up with like two right before this, but who are your top three to five interviewers?
John Milas
That's a good question.
That's so interesting because when I'm drawn to specific people who do interviews, really is much less to do with their style of interviewing and more to do with their access. Hot Ones, I will watch one of those when I see someone who I'm interested in hearing from. Or I mean, even like Bill Maherk, he'll have guests who I'm like, wow, that's really interesting that they're on Bill Maher even though don't really care to hear from Bill Maher. So like I can't really think of an interviewer other than maybe like alate night TV show personality, like Conan O'Brien is, is fun no matter who he is talking to. It usually seems to come down to like the access that someone has, in terms of just who they're able to talk to.
The last thing I'll say on that is Sean Evans, I think he's pretty boring and it's really obvious that he has a whole team of people who do massive amounts of research on his subjects. So maybe I'd be more of a fanboy for him if it was more of like a grassroots effort, but it's clearly very professionally done with regard to all the background info that's being assembled on the subjects that come in.
Will Hagle
To give him some credit, he probably had the creative vision and he started it. So I'm sure it comes from him or like people are trying to execute his vision.
John Milas
Yeah, and he's a beast. I'm a hot sauce guy. Actually, my goal, I should say this on the record, my goal, it's because of Sterling K. Brown. I want to be famous enough to get on Hot Ones and make it through without drinking any water. That's my challenge to myself because of Sterling K. Brown. And I know others have done it. He's the first one that I personally saw do that.
Will Hagle
Like I said, I kind of hate that show, but I do watch it from time to time because it's good production quality. The questions are interesting sometimes, but I just would like to have it be a little less produced and just watch like the full thing where they have more of a conversation. So I don't know if they're just editing it out or if he is just is like completely incapable of following up on questions.
John Milas
Yeah.
I agree with that. I am the kind of person in any context who I'm more interested in everything that's been deleted or edited out or all the production. I'm interested in everything that we're not seeing. So that would be the ideal way probably to watch those. Maybe like in 50 years we'll see all the uncut footage from that or something.
Will Hagle
Yeah. And also like the, I'm sure the celebrities get the questions in advance, but they're always like super specific. Like in your music video on Tuesday, September 15th, you did this. Was that a reference to this?
John Milas
Dude, I've never, I've never been asked a question like that yet. I'm nervous about it. Like someone's going to be like ;on page 53. did you see this typo or it's like this grammatical error or something like that?' I'm going be like, I have no idea.
Will Hagle
Was that an allusion to the character?
John Milas
Right? Yeah, was this intentional foreshadowing for the book that for your next book or something just totally out of nowhere?
Will Hagle
Yeah.
So the most important thing for you in an interviewer is access. So it's more about the guests for you. And like the interviewer kind of fades to the back.
John Milas
I guess so. That's my philosophy for my flash fiction interviews too, frankly, is I will ask... I will send questions, you know, remotely that will be fairly... I don't know about elaborate.
Maybe convoluted at times. They're very leading. I mean, I have an idea of really what I want the subject to talk about. Then I will cut my question down after I get that to really give them the space. I don't know if that's fully cheating or not, but I prefer to try to be invisible, I guess. I can't think of someone who's an interviewer who does the opposite of that... for some reason Tom Green is coming to mind, although I haven't seen him interview someone a long time. But he's the kind of person that would interview a subject and make the interview kind of all about him and like how awkward he is making it. Actually a better more current example and more intentional and self-aware I think would be Eric Andre. His interviews are fully like him, aren't they? You're watching it for the access that he has because he books superstar people on this absolutely wild show, but really like you can see them interviewed anywhere. All those people are interviewed all over the place conventionally. So you are watching Eric Andre to see him. I don't know like punch his hand his fist through the the desk or something. There's all the kinds of random things we could bring up from that show, but that's actually a good example of like the opposite of the kinds of interviews I like. I love Eric Andre, but if I'm watching an interview non ironically, that's not what I want to see. I definitely want the info from the subject, although he is a favorite of mine just because of his intentionality with like the format of interviewing. It's very absurd, but at the core what he is doing is something different than what others are doing.
Will Hagle
Exactly. And now I'm self analyzing this whole interview and thinking I maybe didn't do a good enough job of trying to personalize it for you making questions. But also sometimes I like interviews that are just with subjects who will have interesting things to say about any sort of topic.
So I'm sure you've been interviewed about your background, how did you get into writing, how did you become a writer, or like similar sorts of interviews. So I feel like there is something to this sort of blend.
Now I'm just like, this is a good idea, right?
John Milas
Well, here we are. It is.
Will Hagle
Yeah. All right. I got a couple more questions and then the interview is going to wrap up, which is actually, I just said that naturally, but that's something I say in a lot of interviews. We're like, all right, just a couple more. swear. Like I know this is usually I feel like I'm like holding the person hostage or something, even if they, but I think anyway, that's another mental issue. Edit that out. Okay...
Do you have a tip for me for my next interview or something I should try out or a question I should ask.
John Milas
I don't ask it anymore just because in the interviews I'm doing there's such limited space but I do like the question of asking people like, "what's something you hate being asked?" Or asking someone like, "what is something like you wish you were asked?"
To me as a writer my goal is to try to do what's unexpected on the page in a lot of ways. That philosophy I think in interviewing is helpful to just ask questions that the subject hasn't been asked before. You robably can't expect yourself to find every interview or every podcast, but...
Will Hagle
Yeah, you gotta read their interviews.
John Milas
Maybe one or two, but not probably all of them. But I don't know. I guess that's my advice for anyone interviewing is to think of unexpected questions. Think of a question that maybe hasn't been asked before. And if that doesn't seem possible, then maybe that's where you could bring yourself into it. You know, what is a question only you would ask someone? Then obviously the whole interview will take the shape of something really original.
Will Hagle
So to bring myself into it, ask one more question, I swear, just one more. I know you're a cinephile... what are the top three movies about interviews? And you can only say Frost Nixon once. Speaking of which, I was gonna say Frost, I forget his first name, but he probably had the most access of all time. He got Nixon.
John Milas
Good movie. Michael Sheen, is that the actor? So there's also The Interview, right?
Will Hagle
The Kim Jong-un. Yeah. There's Interview with a Vampire.
John Milas
Yeah, I've noticed that the new series... I've never read Anne Rice. Sorry gang. So I don't know how closely tied the novel is to that format, but I like how in the in the new and I can't remember the Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise movie either, but I know, you know, in the new series, the whole thing is framed with literally the interview being conducted. I don't know if you've seen this yet. Maybe this is a rec for you... Watch the new interview with the vampire series, because it literally does have the framework of the interview being conducted. There's gotta be other movies or shows about interviews.
But yeah, Frost Nixon and The Interview...
What else is there? I do love behind the scenes documentaries about movies.
Will Hagle
Yeah, I guess documentaries could count too. All right, well, that concludes the interview portion of the interview. And now I have just one real question, as if we were doing an interview, because that was just the interview about the interview... this is the interview: what is it like to not have internet?
John Milas
I do not have internet in my apartment. It's austere. Spartan, maybe. Whatever adjective you would like. It's very sparse and plain I have internet access obviously on my phone, so I haven't completely escaped.
It's kind of a grind, but working at a computer all day—I don't work remotely, so I work in an office at a computer. I'm on the internet all day. guess what I've learned about this is I don't miss the internet as much as I thought I did at the end of the workday when I go home.
Will Hagle
That makes sense. And this is where I should follow it up with another question, but instead I'm just gonna end the show. I don't even know if this is gonna be released or when it's gonna be released, but if it is, are there any final thoughts you have on either interviews or your book or anything else.
John Milas
I don't know, I interviewing, I recommend people to do it. You know, if you have the chance, or if you have the chance to seek out the opportunity to interview someone, I would recommend pursuing it because I think when you...
Formulate the questions you have for someone if those are questions you're asking on your own behalf You obviously become really self-aware of what you don't know about something I Think there's just a lot of intentionality you can gain from asking other people to answer for things.
Will Hagle
And I think that's what makes interviews valuable in a way that's different than conversations is like, you and I could just talk as a conversation, but if we set it up as an interview, like just from having this conversation, now this interview, I feel like now I am going to think about interviewing in different ways. So I've kind of learned something from asking it. So it is almost, I feel like for me, a lot of times it is almost sort of a selfish thing where it's like, I'm just curious to get this person to say something interesting, but like with the hopes that there will be other people out there who also find it interesting and that the person who you're talking to doesn't think it's a waste of time because they like talking about whatever they're talking about.
John Milas
I think there are a lot of podcasts where authors are interviewed by people who are also writers who are secretly maybe trying to learn more about writing and pick these authors' brains. But obviously the byproduct is there's an audience for it and everyone gets to, you know, by extension, pick those authors' brains and learn from them too. So even if it's selfish, at the core, it's still a huge benefit for there to be an audience for it.
[long silence]
Will Hagle
and we end it with dead air. All right, thanks for tuning in. Read the Militia House, johnmilas.com. Perfect episode. Good night.
John Milas
Thank you.