Will Leitch

William F. Leitch (born October 10, 1975 in Mattoon, Illinois) is a writer and the founding editor of the Gawker Media former sports blog Deadspin. Leitch is a national correspondent for MLB.com, a contributing editor at New York, critic at Grierson & Leitch, contributor to The New York Times, GQ, The Washington Post and NBC News; and has published four books, Catch, a novel, Life as a Loser, a memoir, God Save The Fan, a book of sports essays, and Are We Winning?, a book about fatherhood and baseball.

For the BBC journalist, see Will Leitch (Northern Irish journalist).
Will Leitch
Born (1975-10-10) October 10, 1975
Mattoon, Illinois
Alma materUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Notable worksThe Black Table, Deadspin

His fifth book, Lucky, a novel, will be published by Harper in summer 2021. [1]

Background

Leitch was born and grew up in Mattoon, Illinois, which is also the setting of Catch. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. While there, he was an editor at the University's paper, the Daily Illini. He now lives in Athens, Georgia.

One of Leitch's first glances with fame came when he appeared on one of the early episodes of Win Ben Stein's Money. In an excerpt from Life as a Loser, published on Blacktable.com, Leitch describes the experience of taping this episode within hours of being dumped by his fiancée (a fact that co-host Jimmy Kimmel included in Leitch's introduction).

Career

IronMinds.com

Life as a Loser appeared on Ironminds, an online magazine that existed from 1999-2002.[2]

The Black Table

In January 2003, Leitch became a founding editor of the website The Black Table, with Eric Gillin, A.J. Daulerio and Aileen Gallagher. His Life As A Loser column ran online for five years and was ultimately compiled into a book of the same title, with a foreword written by Tom Perrotta.

Deadspin

In September 2005, Leitch became the founding editor of Deadspin. Deadspin quickly became one of the most popular independent sports blogs on the web, and has been profiled in Sports Illustrated[3][4][5] and The New York Times.[6] Leitch announced on June 5, 2008 that he would be leaving Deadspin at the end of the month to become a contributing editor at New York magazine. Deadspin would later shut down after an ownership dispute, and the writers would create Defector.

Other work

During the 2007 NCAA Tournament, Leitch wrote a daily column for TimesSelect, the paid section of The New York Times.[7] During the 2007 baseball playoffs, Leitch wrote a daily column for The New York Times' Web site.[8]

Leitch was featured in the February 2008 issue of Penthouse magazine.

On May 4, 2010, Leitch released his fourth book, Are We Winning?.[9] Leitch describes the book as being about baseball and fatherhood. It takes place during a game between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals. It is about how children communicate with their fathers through sports. It is about rivalries and fellowship, using baseball as a substitute for real life.[10]

Leitch also co-hosts the podcast 'Waitin' Since Last Saturday,' a podcast about Georgia Bulldog Football and has officially been adopted as an honorary bulldog by some of Dawgnation.

Leitch co-hosts the movie review podcast 'Grierson & Leitch' with his lifelong friend and film critic Tim Grierson. The duo also write features for the entertainment websites Vulture and SyFy Wire.

Leitch co-hosts the St. Louis Cardinals podcast 'Seeing Red' with Bernie Mikalsz.

Books authored
  • Life As A Loser. Arriviste Press, Inc. 2004. ISBN 0-9746270-0-3.
  • Catch. Razorbill. 2005. ISBN 978-1-59514-069-2.
  • God Save The Fan. HarperCollins. 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-135178-5.
  • Are We Winning?. Hyperion. 2010. ISBN 978-1-4013-2370-7.

References
  1. https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/harper-will-leitch-lucky-novel.html
  2. Life As A Loser, Ironminds.com, at Archive.org
  3. "Video". CNN. December 19, 2005.
  4. "Video". CNN. March 27, 2006.
  5. "Video". CNN. February 25, 2008.
  6. Shattuck, Kathryn. "New York Times articles about Will Leitch". The New York Times.
  7. "In the Paint and Off the Court at the N.C.A.A. Tournament". The New York Times.
  8. "A Fan Keeps Score". The New York Times.
  9. Are We Winning? on Amazon
  10. Are We Winning? Q&A on Deadspin
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