The Lead is a podcast hosted and produced by Charlotte Norsworthy in the Cox Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management & Leadership at the University of Georgia. We talk about how to get ahead in the media industry by interviewing the people who did.

Nick Chiles is truly the Renaissance Man of writing. In hist 30+ year career as a writer, he was covered a wide range of subjects and has received a wide range of awards (including a Pulitzer Prize in 1992). Not only that, but Chiles has also authored 14 books on African-American life, culture and celebrity.

Now, he teaches writing as a part of his Ferris Fellowship at Princeton University and is, by his measure, the only African-American male literary agent in the country.

It’s needless to say that I was excited to get to interview such a seasoned writer, but I was also excited to have the opportunity to discuss important issues of diversity in writing fields. The issues, Chiles argues, are two-fold: the pool of writers is not as diverse as it could (or should) be, and therefore, their coverage isn’t either.

I hope you will enjoy his interview as much as I did. Listen here: