Will Leitch's Blog

The title of this week’s newsletter would make you think that this is the 500th edition of this newsletter, but it is not: Longtime subscribers may remember that during the early days of Covid, we ran daily, unnumbered editions featuring stories from readers about how they were dealing with an unprecedented global crisis. Some of those stories were sad, some were hopeful, some were simply practical. My favorite was the April 2, 2020 one from Javad Khazaeli, who wrote in about how he performed a ...

My older son William has gotten into scary movies over the last year or so, which makes sense and strikes me as normal; there is something about this specific age (he turned 14 yesterday) that requires constant stimulation of the senses, regular jolts of adrenaline, big loud spasms of all the shit of being alive. Fourteen was the age when I was most into horror movies too, along with Megadeth, riding my bike down hills really fast and cutting out pictures of Elle MacPherson, taping them to my wa...

This week, I did something so cruel, so monstrous, to my children that, to judge their reaction, they will someday be talking about it to their therapists as an obstacle from their youth that they, well into adulthood, valiantly struggle to overcome.

I refused to let them wear sweatpants to school.

This last week, it finally got below 60 degrees in Athens, Georgia—remember fall? It was a full three months of the year in which you could wear a light jacket and have an occasional dalliance with a go...

On a bus on the way to Staten Island for the start of the New York Marathon on Sunday, I sat in the back next to a man named Oliver. It was 5:15 in the morning, and everybody had a lot of nervous energy, so we all got to talking. Oliver was a very nice man.

This was Oliver’s ninth New York marathon. I was a lot more impressed by this fact than he was. The real goal is apparently 15. People who run 15 New York Marathons are known as “streakers” and are inducted into The 15+ Club; one man, Dave Obe...

Tomorrow, I will run the New York City Marathon. You can track me right here. Be gentle.

I’m going to be in NYC for the rest of this week afterward, and on Thursday, November 6, 7 p.m., I will be part of the Squawkin’ Sports Reading Series at DSK, 710 Fulton Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with Patrick Sauer and David Roth of Defector. You should come!

You can buy tickets right here. If you do buy a ticket and read this newsletter, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com with a copy of your ticket, ...

In exactly eight days, I will run the New York City Marathon. (Here’s the piece I wrote about running last year’s.) I’m going to be in NYC for the rest of the week afterward, and on Thursday, November 6, 7 p.m., I will be part of the Squawkin’ Sports Reading Series at DSK, 710 Fulton Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with Patrick Sauer and David Roth of Defector. You should come!

You can buy tickets right here. If you do buy a ticket and read this newsletter, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com ...

The book is out. People tend to like it, I think. I hope you have bought your copy. If you have not, there is no time like the present: Buy now. If you have already bought the book, you are encouraged to leave it a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or both. It helps.

Buy LLOYD MCNEIL'S LAST RIDE

The most commonly asked question I receive about this newsletter is “what’s with the headlines?” Since starting this newsletter in, yikes, May 2016, I have hewed to a very strict headline-naming convention. A...

The book is out. People tend to like it, I think. I hope you have bought your copy. If you have not, there is no time like the present: Buy now. If you have already bought the book, you are encouraged to leave it a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or both. It helps.

Buy LLOYD MCNEIL'S LAST RIDE

Most of my life has been spent trying to do something—to be someone, to figure out the pieces of who I am and try to gather them up in order to make something bigger … something more. I had to always keep mov...

The book is out. People tend to like it, I think. I hope you have bought your copy. If you have not, there is no time like the present: Buy now. If you have already bought the book, you are encouraged to leave it a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or both. It helps.

Buy LLOYD MCNEIL'S LAST RIDE

I began running when my wife got pregnant with the teenager who now lives in my house. I’d been trying to quit smoking for a few years, with limited success; I was a dedicated two-packs-of-Marlboro-Reds-a-day...

The book is out. People tend to like it, I think. I hope you have bought your copy. If you have not, there is no time like the present: Buy now. If you have already bought the book, you are encouraged to leave it a review on Goodreads or Amazon, or both. It helps.

Buy LLOYD MCNEIL'S LAST RIDE

About a month a go, a tire blew out on my car. I was driving on I-85 North, heading toward Atlanta from Columbus, and I heard a little pop from the passenger side back tire. It’s the second time in my life I’...