Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth6 February 1955
CityLong Island, NY
CountryUnited States of America
writing trying ordinary
I really try to write as an ordinary person would, not as someone who's too sophisticated about food, or too knowledgeable about things.
writing trying firsts
I try to write in the first person - the first person not of a journalist but of a carnivore, an eater, a gardener, someone trying to figure out what to feed his family.
writing stakes
Yes, I very much like to have a personal stake in what I'm writing about.
writing found findings
Anyway, in my writing I've always been interested in finding places to stand, and I've found it very useful to have a direct experience of what I'm writing about.
writing atheism littles
My writing is remarkably non-confessional; you actually learn very little about me.
writing irony
Experiences that banish irony are much better for living than for writing.
writing self tools
There's an assumption that if someone writes in the first person it's self-indulgent and self-regarding. I just look at it as a tool to understand the world and my experience in it. It's not a tool to understand myself.
writing finding-the-one phrases
Plus, I love comic writing. Nothing satisfies me more than finding a funny way to phrase something.
writing done pieces
Fairness forces you - even when you're writing a piece highly critical of, say, genetically modified food, as I have done - to make sure you represent the other side as extensively and as accurately as you possibly can.
fun ignorance writing
I don't like writing as an expert. I like writing as an amateur. I like writing as an idiot. It's much more fun to start in ignorance.
teacher writing class
I get letters from classes all the time. Say it's assigned in someone's 8th grade class, and the teacher asks everyone to write a letter to me about their impressions and what they learned. So, it's incredibly gratifying to hear.
animal answers citizens decisions depending good issue job lists people policy shopping supposed tools values welfare
I don't think it's a journalist's job to issue shopping lists or policy descriptions. We're supposed to show people how the world is, to give them the tools they need to make good decisions as citizens or consumers. Depending on what your values are the environment, your health, animal welfare the answers are going to be different for every person.
american-educator choice good industrial organic supports
When the choice comes down to industrial organic or local, I opt for the local, because it supports much more than good agricultural practice.
american-educator european might power
Without the potato, the balance of European power might never have tilted north.