It had to be a story about these people who are all insane, and that had to be a feature of the piece instead of trying to hide it. It wasn’t ever going to make sense to take details from many different places, like you would in a normal story where people are telling the truth, and recreate some event. Like “this is a person telling you this story,” not “this is a set of facts.” When I was initially trying to write the story in a straighter way, it was hard because it just didn’t add up. I’ve found that if you’re going to use it, you just have to be totally clear that it’s not that credible. How do you approach reporting with potentially untrustworthy sources? It seemed clear that some of the things your characters told you was BS or sort of pie-in-the-sky. I really like a tough guy who’s not actually tough and is kind of open about it. You mentioned Jerry was “your kind of character.” What kind is that? In the meantime, Jerry Ferrara called me and was like, “I’ll talk to you now.” I ended up writing it for Maria Streshinsky at Wired. I wrote a draft for the Times, but they ended up suggesting I take it elsewhere. And it was clear by that point that the emerald wasn’t worth nearly as much as people were saying. You should run.” He sent me tons of primary documents-in a way, I had too many. I got in touch with Brendan Borrell, who’d written about the emerald for Bloomberg, and he said: “This story is a nightmare. I got some court documents, and people’s testimony under oath was contradictory. The lawyer I talked to originally had told me his clients would talk, but they didn’t. It was complicated and confusing, and none of the principals would talk to me.
I talked to a lawyer representing some of the people involved to write the pitch, and off I went. There was a news story about the Bahia Emerald, and I thought it was so crazy that there was this giant emerald, and no one knew who owned it. I had only ever written two crime stories, and I wanted to find one that was human and funny. I was trolling for story ideas, reading the crime section of the Los Angeles Times. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. I talked to her about writing this kooky tale, finding her voice and what “contributing writer” really means. It has all the trappings of caper film meets slapstick. It’s a surreal saga about a cast of wacky characters fighting over who owns a 752-pound emerald from Brazil, which could be worth $925 million or virtually nothing. Her story on “ The Curse of the Bahia Emerald,” published in Wired in March, came out of a crime story phase a couple years ago. And look for ways to love your subjects, too.” “Be open to the funny while you’re reporting. An inveterate generalist, she says her stories have tended to follow her own interests in life: maternity issues when her kids were small, education when her kids started school, science and sports because she likes them. But her warm and captivating voice has animated every subject she’s chosen to tackle over her 22-year career writing for magazines. Like the Emerald City in "The Wizard of Oz," the Bahia emerald holds great allure.Įlizabeth Weil, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and Outside, says she doesn’t write about “super important” things.
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