City Living, City Writing from Weimar Berlin to Philadelphia Today
Daniel Brook and Matt Katz in conversation
This conversation between journalist/biographer Daniel Brook and journalist/podcaster Matt Katz will explore writing about cities, moving from Weimar Berlin -- the setting of Brook's recent biography of queer German-Jewish psychiatrist, social theorist, and activist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld -- to Philadelphia today. How do writers take huge swaths of information about their subjects and their associated places and whittle that down to produce compelling journalistic narratives? Brook, who has been writing long-form journalism for 25 years (including for the former Philadelphia City Paper), has answers. Katz is the executive producer of City Cast Philly, a local news-and-culture podcast, and has taught journalistic writing in the Creative Writing Program at Penn.
Daniel Brook (he/him) is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in publications including Harper’s and the New York Times Magazine. His research has been supported by institutions including the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Biographers International Organization which awarded him a Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship. His book, A History of Future Cities, was longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize and selected as one of the ten favorite books of the year by the Washington Post. His latest, The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin, garnered a starred review in Publisher's Weekly and was praised as "elegant [and] timely" by The New Yorker. Born in Brooklyn, raised on Long Island, and educated at Yale, Brook lives in New Orleans."
MATT KATZ is an investigative reporter, journalist, and podcast host who has covered everything from local school boards to presidential elections to natural disasters. In 2024 he created, wrote, and hosted an autobiographical podcast, Inconceivable Truth, about how he came to exist. Vogue named it one of the best podcasts of the year, and it hit the Top 10 on the Apple Podcasts charts. For many years Matt covered former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, first for The Philadelphia Inquirer and then WNYC and NPR, winning a Peabody Award and publishing a book, "American Governor: Chris Christie's Bridge to Redemption," with Simon & Schuster. Matt's reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, PBS, and The Washington Post. He also works as an adjunct professor teaching journalism in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Matt is currently executive producer of City Cast Philly, a daily news-and-culture podcast and email newsletter about Philadelphia.