June 2018 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 106—Rebecca Fish Ewan and ‘The Forces of Gravity’

Photo credit Charissa Lucille

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetable by Rebecca Fish Ewan (@rfishewan on Instagram):

“I couldn’t, as an adult, get past the story of how her life ended. And I wanted to tell the story of she lived.”

It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories.

For Episode 106, I welcome Rebecca Fish Ewan, author of By the Forces of Gravity (Books by Hippocampus 2018), a love story between friends that ends in tragedy told through free-verse poetry and cartoons. It’s a great reading experience and a wonderfully told story of adolescence in the 1970s Berkley. You can buy the book by visiting books.hippocampusmagazine.com or via Amazon.

In this episode we dig into:

How Rebecca chose to write the story in the way she did
The power of community
Writing from the POV of her 12-year-old-self
And dealing with self doubt

Rebecca is @rfishewan on Instagram, her preferred social network and is @rfishewan on Facebook. Go check her out.

If you’re not subscribed, be sure to hit up Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, and Stitcher so you get a fresh delivery every Friday. Share this with people you think will dig it. Ad let me know what you think of it, what you got out of it. I’m @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod on Twitter and @CNFPodcast on Facebook. Pick a network, any network and let’s connect.

If you dig the show and you have a minute, please leave a review over on Apple Podcasts. If you show me evidence of your review, I will edit a piece of your writing of up to 2,000 word.

Sign up for my monthly reading list newsletter. Four books and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month. No spam. You can’t beat that.

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is sponsored by Hippocamp 2018. Now in its fourth year, Hippocamp is a three-day Pennsylvania writing conference that features 50+ speakers, engaging sessions in four tracks, interactive all-conference panels, author and attendee readings, social activities, networking opps, and optional, intimate pre-conference workshops. The conference takes place in lovely Lancaster, from Aug. 24 through the 26th.

Past keynotes have been Lee Gutkind, Mary Karr, Dinty W. Moore, and Jane Friedman (all have been past guests on the podcast. Whaaaat?) This year Abigail Thomas will be the featured speaker.

Visit hippocampusmagazine.com and click the “Conference” tab in the toolbar and if you enter the keyword CNFPOD at checkout you will receive a $50 discount. This offer is only good until Aug. 10 or until all those tickets are sold. There are a limited number so act now! Like RIGHT NOW.

The registration is $429 ($379 with the discount) through Aug. 10 then goes up to $449 on site. If you sign up through this portal before the conference starts, you’re actually saving $70!

Hippocamp 2018: Create. Share. Live.

Episode 105—From Factories to the Front Pages with Jonathan Green

Jonathan Greens “Sex Money Murder” is out now.

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Jonathan Green (@JonathanJAGreen):

“It was always the story behind the headlines I found more intriguing.”

This is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories where we dig into origins, work habits and process so you can be a better a better storyteller. Continue reading “Episode 105—From Factories to the Front Pages with Jonathan Green”

Episode 104—Elizabeth Rush Talks “Rising” and What It Means to Be a Woman in the Field

Elizabeth Rush, Brendan O'Meara — Elizabeth Rush returns!

By Brendan O’Meara

Here we are again, welcome to The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories. I’m Brendan O’Meara.

I gotta say right up top that there’s been some serious issues with my hosting, Podomatic for those in the know, with the RSS Feeds. Shows are coming up unavailable in Apple Podcasts and it disappeared from Google Play and Stitcher. They say they’re on it, but it’s been three days with no improvement.

You can still stream the episodes from the embedded player on my website, brendanomeara.com, but in the meantime, downloading through the most popular and widely used platform—Apple Podcasts—is impossible until Podomatic gets it fixed. You might say I’ve been shopping around for other options.

Episode 104 brings back Elizabeth Rush to the podcast. Her new book Rising: Dispataches from the New American Shore (Milkweed Editions) is out. She could be coming to a city near you so check the show notes for the Rising Tour. I think that’s what Bruce Springsteen called his tour when his Rising came out. In this episode we talk about:

Rising sea levels
How to turn bleak material into something beautiful
How Elizabeth finds teaching energizing
And sexual harassment while doing fieldwork, something she’s never been asked about and was happy to get to talk about.

So that’s where we’re at. Please bear with me on the RSS nonsense. If you follow the social feeds, that links you up to my website so go find @CNFPod and @BrendanOMeara on Twitter and @CNFPodcast on Facebook. Follow Elizabeth @ElizabethaRush on Twitter for all things Rising.

Here she is: Episode 104.

Promotional support is provided by Hippocampus Magazine. Its 2018 Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction is open for submissions until July 15th! This annual contest has a grand prize of $1,000 and publication for all finalists. That’s awesome. Visit hippocampusmagazine.com for details. Hippocampus Magazine: Memorable Creative Nonfiction.

If you made it this far I suspect you might like the show and want to help it out. Would you mind leaving an honest review on Apple Podcasts? That helps with validation and visibility. Let’s try and get to 100. We’re 57 ratings away at the moment. If a small fraction of you take out your phones, click on the star you deem appropriate, hit submit, that’s all you gotta do and you will have helped out the show in a major way. That takes like 10 seconds, if you want to leave a review, I will still edit a piece of writing up to 2,000 words for your kindness and time. Just send me a screenshot of the review with the date and we’ll get started.

I also have a great monthly reading list newsletter where I send out four book recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. I don’t get any kickbacks or anything, so it’s just things I dig and endorse for your pleasure. First of the month. No Spam. Can’t beat that.

That’s it CNFers. See right back here next week.

Episode 103—Persistent, Constant, Careful Work with Dennis Overbye

Dennis Overbye, whose graceful writing about the cosmos, made me want to reach out to him for episode 103.

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Dennis Overbye (@overbye):

“What interests me are questions that don’t have answers.”

“I have to remember I’m there for the reader, not for me.”

We’re back in the saddle again.

I took a week off from producing a show, much to the chagrin of the wife, who thought it was a bad move to miss a week, but I had two hard deadlines, and our dog is in rough shape these days, so it’s incredibly hard to focus. #excuses

On top of that, I got back some feedback on this book I’ve been writing since 2009 and it’s the kind of feedback that is incredibly valuable, smart, incisive, but it has made me realize just how shitty I am at this. I’m paying a significant amount of our GDP to become a better writer and editor myself. It’s a continuing ed thing as much as trying to get my stupid book published. #itsnotyouitsthework

Okay, so I’m probably less shitty than I was 10 years ago, but I’m still wicked shitty. 10 years from now, I’ll be less shitty than I am now and all the people I’ve disappointed will likely be dead, so there’s that.

So what is this show? It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to artists about telling true stories. Today’s guest for episode 103 is Dennis Overbye, @overbye on Twitter, a science writer for the New York Times. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of two books: Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Story of the Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe and Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance.

I’d love it you subscribed to the show wherever you get your podcasts and share episodes across your social streams with people you think might get some value from the interview. You are the social network.

Another CNFPod in the can. Got any questions or concerns, by all means ping me on Twitter @BrendanOMeara or @CNFPod. I’m @BrendanOMeara on Instagram and @CNFPodcast on Facebook. I do all kinds of wacky cross promotional things, so if you’re into that, pick a network and follow me.

Most important is if you want my monthly reading list newsletter, head over to BrendanOMeara.com and sign up for it. Once a month. No Spam. Can’t beat it.

If you’re feeling especially kind, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes as that helps with visibility and validates this entire operation so we can reach as many people as possible.