Luke Dittrich has been writing for Esquire for about six years. In that time, he’s written about a man who lived most of his life with no memory (a man who was also treated by Dittrich’s grandfather), the Penn State scandal and the Joplin, Missouri, tornado that killed 160 people. That last story won Dittrich a National Magazine Award in 2012.
Most recently, he wrote the story “The Prophet.” The story is about neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, who claims to have visited heaven in a best-selling book. Dittrich’s piece pretty much debunks those claims.
In this podcast, we talk about many of his stories, as well as how he got started reporting and who gave him the idea for the Joplin tornado story.
Since joining the podcast, Dittrich turned his story about Patient HM, the man with no memory, into a book by that same name.
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