Gary Belsky, the former editor in chief of ESPN The Magazine, is the president of Elland Road Partners, a media consulting firm, and the New York Times bestselling author of eight books.

december Q&A

december: Tell us a bit about this essay: where did it come from? What does it mean to you?

Gary: It’s obviously a very personal subject, one that I had intended to write about through a traditional narrative reporting lens. But there were challenges to that, and once I learned that his death was ruled a suicide I decided to look for another way to write about our friend and that time. Eventually, I realized that there wasn’t a truth to be reported but rather my memories to be explored. This piece was not meant to be the official record of our friend’s life and death, nor of our relationship, but rather a reflection of how he and that time lives in my memories.

december: What’s a standout moment you remember from the process of working on it? A stroke of inspiration, a generative brainstorm, a revision challenge, an a-ha moment, a time you shared it with a reader who loved it? Give us a window into the way this piece came to life.

Gary: At one point when I was struggling to figure out what to do with the piece I just decided randomly to write it out as a non-rhyming poem. Or something like that, but whatever the case in stanzas. Like a tone poem. Anyway, I was at work, taking a break, and what I wrote at first didn’t really cohere—it was more a dumping of ideas on the page—but I remember feeling some of the feelings that I wanted to communicate. About memory, about childhood, about loss, about the ways people can affect you throughout your life. So I started tinkering with the structure and eventually found my way to the piece as it stands now. Took a full year, if I’m being honest, revisiting it on and off.

december: This year, we’re celebrating 10 years of publishing december. Can you tell us how literary magazines like december have been important in your literary career? What do you think the importance of the lit mag is to literary culture at large?

Gary: I think that the act of treating words and sentences and paragraphs and punctuation as sacred—which is what I believe literary magazines do at their essence—is important, from a societal point of view. I sort of think of literary magazines in the sort of the same way I think of those old scriptoria in monestaries back when writing was the province of the educated elite, e.g., monks and nuns! Literary magazines are keepers of language.

december: What are you working on now?

Gary: Well, my job, but also a piece about bias in judgment for The New York Times. Quite literally, I mean. It’s about judges and conflict of interest and recusal. I speak and write about judgment and decision making sometimes, ever since publication of the book I co-authored with Tom Gilovich of Cornell, Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes—And How To Correct Them: Lessons from the Life-Chaning Science of Behavioral Economics.

december: What’s something else you love to do or are passionate about outside of writing?

Gary: Food. I like eating.

december: Where can people find out more about you?

Twitter/X: @GaryBelsky

Website: garybelsky.com

Other:www.linkedin.com/in/garybelsky/ & ellandroadpartners.com