Two weeks ago, I had a fantastic conversation with writer and academic Brad Balukjian about his process for writing these unique sports books that blend travelogue, biography, and cultural history. We discussed the challenges of getting such unconventional non-fiction books published today, as well as the state of sports writing and publishing in general.
Brad shared insights into his research methods, including tracking down and interviewing former athletes. We also explored how the publishing industry has changed over the years, making it more challenging to produce hard-to-classify and deeply-researched narrative non-fiction works like The Wax Pack and The Six Pack.1
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Key Quotes
On the research process: "I want this book to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. I don't want you to have to be a huge wrestling fan to enjoy it. But I also knew that the most obvious audience are big wrestling fans."
On getting candid insights from subjects: "I was pleasantly surprised at how the guys, when I would fact check them, were generally very amenable to being fact checked."
On the challenges of publishing such books today: "Based on the sales of The Six Pack, my publisher is not going to give me another deal like I had for that one. Given that writing has become more and more of my livelihood, I have to make decisions based on what I can actually afford to do."
On the value of in-depth, long-form writing: "I think that voice is still valued in the genre of memoir, which is its own entire world. But I'm not interested in just writing memoir. I'm interested in these hybrid styles where you're mixing some memoir but you’re also doing some history, you're doing some reporting."
On the current state of sports writing: "You don't really see many sports books anymore where the writers have much access to the subjects, right? I mean, it's like, there are so many books in the seventies and eighties and nineties where the writer was able to hang out for hours in the locker room or trail the player for the whole year."
I recently spotlighted The Six Pack in my capacity as commissioner of the Pro Wrestling Authors Hall of Fame — you can read that here.
Trust me — it’s worth it just for the Garry Templeton chapter.
The Work of Writing a Book About Wrestling