Avery Trufelman
Avery Trufelman is the new host of The Cut, creator of Articles of Interest, and an alumna of 99% Invisible. Follow her on Twitter here.
What do you love about being back in New York?
Honestly I’m kind of getting a kick out of the new New York. I’m biking around everywhere and hanging out in Greenwood Cemetery and taking long aimless walks. I think if I were to move in the beforetimes, I would be so distracted by parties and museums and theater and people… that I would kind of forget to look around at the buildings and the birds, you know? This city is still so magical, just in a really different way!
I loved The Cut on Tuesdays and was so sad when I thought it had ended forever! What can we look forward to with The Cut's new podcast? Can you spill any secrets?
Well the big secret is that everything is up in the air! We have a number of episodes planned out but… ultimately it’s going to be a surprise to all of us. We’re all working in the new parameters of these odd times and trying to make interesting, relevant radio as best as we can. I love love love that the team at Vox Media and Stella Bugbee at The Cut are all so game to experiment and try new things. I’m looking forward to the new sound, even though I can’t, for the life of me, predict what it’s going to be.
I read that after your first season of Articles of Interest, you didn't have a lot of confidence about it. Which seems crazy to anyone who has heard your work! Do you have confidence now? How has the path toward getting confidence been?
Oh hey thank you, that’s so kind of you. Honestly, no, I will never feel ok. But just knowing that I’ve felt this insecure before and that this is a pattern is a close approximation of something like comfort. I mean, The Cut feels like a really different project than anything I’ve ever done before, because it’s a weekly show and no one knows how long it will go on for. I’m used to announcing an episode or a series that I’ve completed. You know? Like I’ve fussed over it for weeks or months and now it’s in a place where I can reveal it. Now I’m announcing something that… I have yet to make. And I am not even certain I can do it every week! No I can totally do it I can do it.
Will you be trying to follow the path that The Cut has already frontiered, or will you be putting your own spin on it?
Yes! To both. I was a massive fan of The Cut On Tuesdays and was also bummed when it stopped. I absolutely want to emulate its playfulness and its inventiveness- I loved that you never knew what you were going to get week to week. And of course, since it's still The Cut, there will be a lot of familiar voices and beloved writers coming back. But of course I can’t help but have a different spin, because I’m a different person and these are different times. Roman Mars had this great saying that I think about all the time with regards to this. It’s something along the lines of “art is imitation plus lack of talent.” And that’s what this is going to be. I’m going to be doing a new interpretation of something I love, equipped with these strange new pandemic-era tools. Wow, really selling it there, aren’t I? No it will be fun! Please listen!
Your parents met working at WNYC. Was there pressure to enter the audio space, or did you always want to do it?
Never pressure, but always a lot of support and inspiration. The radio was always on in our kitchen and our car. They bought me a mini cassette recorder when I was nine years old, and the following summer I went away to a summer camp and we mailed voice recordings back and forth. Things like that. I know a lot of people in the industry have parents who don't quite understand what podcasting is, or don’t realize it's an actual career path. I am really lucky that my folks always understood and encouraged me, because they worked in broadcasting and loved it. They’re the best.
How has Roman (Mars) helped you be a better podcaster?
I would not be a podcaster at all without Roman. I applied to every single job I could find: a beat reporter in Alaska, a news show in New Hampshire, a staff job at WNYC. Roman took a chance on me, and totally crafted everything about the way I work. His approach is independent, scrappy, and inquiry-driven. He never tried to imitate Ira or Jad or an NPR voice - he was always just chasing his own thing. Hearing Roman be so creative and joyful and true to himself absolutely molded the way I make stories. I’m pretty much imitating him all the time.
Are there too many podcasts?
No. Not at all. We would never say, like, “there are too many books everyone stop writing.” Or like “there’s too much music to ever listen to, so please don’t make anymore.” That’s insane. Culture moves and changes, and it is incumbent on all of us to move with it and encourage a variety of new voices and perspectives. I mean, arguably there aren’t enough podcasts, right? I mean there are film schools across the world cranking out thousands of films every year, not to mention film festivals and film incubator programs and independent coalitions of filmmakers- and that’s how you end up with something like, say, Moonlight. Audio needs to go there. Have that level of creation and creativity. We’re small beans in comparison. And we’ve been saying there are too many podcasts since I started in 2013. It’s a scarcity mindset and we have to let it go.
If you were going to create another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
I badly want to make a show about the career of Cher and her relationship with the Aremnian diaspora. Don’t you want to know more about those two things?!
Thanks, Avery!