he described him as a liberal southern lawyer of the atticus finch type.ou also describe your mother as a bit of a hippie. how did a conservative thinker like yourself come from these parents? guest: it's not an exaggeration to say it my father was like atticus finch, not just because he was a lawyer but he really did accept payment in kind from indignant clients. in his case, it was not a bunch of people from the cunningham's, it was people who work at a warehouse for books and gave him a complete set of the works of mark twain. a deluxe edition. he accepted that as payment he was a very liberal and in an atticus finch way. if you go back to read to kill a mockingbird or met my father, you would see how wide a conservator streak there is in that particular brand of liberalism. it is very old-fashioned. i think i could draw the best of what he was able to pass on was not quite liberalism as it was practiced by my millennial peers -- by millennial peers. host: what if you get into journalism? -- why did you get into journalism? guest: it happened by acciden

but, again, he was very liberal in an atticus finch way.if you go back and read "to kill a mockingbird," or if you ever met my father, you would see how wide a conservative streak there is in that particular brand of liberalism. it is very old-fashioned. i was able to draw the best of what he was able to pass on, which was not quite liberalism as it was practiced by, you know, my millennial peers. susan: why did you decide to go into journalism? helen: it happened by accident. i just sort of graduated from college without really much knowing what i wanted to do. in very millennial fashion, i had just started a blog, and, from that blog, was picked up by a few magazines, and i was drafted from the blogosphere. so it's a very millennial story. susan: the essay seems to be your preferred format, your primary format for journalism, which seems to run counter to the age of twitter. what is the power of an essay in conveying ideas today? helen: i think there is a real appetite out there for sustained thought. i think that, you know, the biggest w