October 2021 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 284: Kim H. Cross on Scenes, Structure, and The Stahl House

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Kim H. Cross is a freelance journalist, author, teacher, and mountain bike coach. Her latest book is The Stahl House: Case Study House #22: The Making of a Modernist Icon (Chronicle Chroma).

It’s the biography of a house and, in Kim’s words, the story of a blue-collar couple with white-collar dreams.

Kim also is the author of the best-selling What Stands in a Storm, and her work has appeared in The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2021, and myriad other places. Her piece for Bicycle Magazine about Leon + Noel (notice the palindrome, that’s significant. For analysis by Eva Holland of go here and for analysis of her 900-story for the New York Times by Chip Scanlan (a dream come true), go here.)

[SIDEBAR: In the introduction to the podcast I said that Chip analyzed her Bicycle Magazine piece. My bad.]

Episode 283: Freelancing, Abundant Mindsets, and Writing from a Place of Anger with Jen A. Miller

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By Brendan O’Meara

Jen A. Miller makes her return to the podcast after nearly five years. She said it best, “I feel old…and tired.”

She has a new ebook out called Where to Find New Freelance Writing Clients and Turbocharge Your Career: A Road Map to Freelance Writing Success. It’s $10 and it just might alter the course of your life. I don’t say that lightly. She also wrote How I Made $135,000 in One Year of Freelancing. It’s not gloating. She tells you how.

Jen also is the author of the memoir Running: A Love Story.

In this episode, we talk about:

Episode 282: Jeannine Ouellette on Wanting to be Devastated, Self-Scrutiny, and Her Memoir ‘The Part That Burns’

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By Brendan O’Meara

Jeannine Ouellette (@_elephantrock) is the author of the memoir The Part That Burns, a devastating book about childhood, sexual abuse, motherhood, and so much more. It’s published by Split/Lip Press.

It was a book I couldn’t wait to get back to because I needed to know how Jeannine managed to — I don’t know — survive. She broke my heart a number of times, but not in a self-pitying way.

In any case, she’s here for Ep. 281, this after we met at Hippocamp in August.

Here’s a little blurb from Jeannine’s website:

Episode 281: Susan Orlean Tackles Ledes, Generating Story Ideas, and ‘On Animals’

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By Brendan O’Meara

Susan Orlean makes her third trip back to the podcast (Ep. 61 and 121), this time to celebrate her latest book, a collection of her magazine work on animals titled … On Animals.

She’s the best selling author The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, and The Orchid Thief. She’s been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1990s and, as many of you know, seeing a Susan Orlean byline is something like appointment reading. It’s special.

In this episode, we talk about:

Episode 280: Laura Todd Carns and ‘Searching for Mr. X,’ an Atavist Original

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By Brendan O’Meara

Laura Todd Carns is here to talk about her latest feature for The Atavist Magazine. It’s called “Searching for Mr. X: For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for?”

Laura is a novelist, essayist, and journalist whose work has appeared in many places. You can find out more at her website.

She’s @LauraToddCarns on Twitter.

In this episode we talk about approaching a story as fiction vs. nonfiction, the challenge of the structure of the piece, collaborating with an editor and how it’s like a record producer and a musician, and more.

First I talk to Seyward Darby, as she was the lead editor of the piece. Enjoy!