December 2021 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 294: ‘We Wish to be Able to Sing’, Mike Damiano Talks About His Atavist Story

Sponsor love: West Virginia Wesleyan College’s MFA in Creative Writing

Mike Damiano brings 2021 to a close with his piece for the Atavist Magazine about an unlikely revolutionary who helped the people of Easter Island earn rights they deserved from an oppressive Chilean naval regime. It’s the story of Alfonso Rapu a school teacher turned revolutionary via nonviolence. It’s called “We Wish to Be Able to Sing.”

Mike is a staff writer for Boston Magazine, but like many people writing stories for the Atavist, he’d been working on this Easter Island story for years. Atavist becomes like this benevolent foster home for stories that are too long for traditional magazines and too short to be books. And Seyward and Jonah say, come here little story, we’re gonna make you a STAR!

The show has a new Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod.

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Episode 293: The ‘Supremely Tiny Acts’ of Sonya Huber

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Sponsor love: West Virginia Wesleyan College’s MFA in Creative Writing

By Brendan O’Meara

Look who’s back? It’s Sonya Huber!

What a treat!

She the author of the memoir Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day (Mad Creek Books) and it’s one of the best experiences I had reading a book in 2021.

In this episode we talk about:

Episode 292: Chip Scanlan says, ‘A Writer is Someone Who Writes. Period.’

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Sponsor love: West Virginia Wesleyan College’s MFA in Creative Writing

By Brendan O’Meara

Hey, CNFers, Chip Scanlan is here!

Here’s a little ditty from his website:

I am a writer. An author. A writing coach who has helped thousands of writers discover the writer within us all.

And his new book Writers on Writing: Inside the Lives of 55 Distinguished Writers and Editors is out now. And for $10 on Kindle ($15 for paperback) you get insights from the likes of Susan Orlean, Bronwen Dickey, Tommy Tomlinson, David Finkel, Roy Peter Clark, Rosalind Bentley, and many, many more.

In the book, Chip (@chipscanlan) asks four questions of every person:

Episode 291: ‘Simple is the Way to Go’ with Mirin Fader

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By Brendan O’Meara

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What’s not to love about Mirin Fader (@mirinfader)?

She’s an incredible writer and reporter. She’s a senior staff writer for The Ringer. On top of that, she’s generous and insightful, and she brought all of that and more to this episode of the podcast.

We talk about her feature on Tyler Skaggs, a notable selection for Year’s Best Sports Writing.

We also dig into her biography Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an MVP.

We talk about failure and persistence and writing and ledes. This is a dream conversation if you’re into the nuts and bolts of writing and reporting long features and books.

Episode 290: ‘Only in Oregon’: How Drawing Political Cartoons is All About the Writing with Jesse Springer

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By Brendan O’Meara

This week, Jesse Springer, an Oregon-based political cartoonist and graphic designer, comes on the show to talk about his new book of cartoons Only in Oregon 1996-2021: 26 Years of Oregon Political Cartoons.

He came by the studio and brought his own very good microphone, so the two of us got to make eye contact. What a concept!

Sure, this is a very specific book that will have appeal largely — if not only — for Oregonians, but we do riff on whether or not political cartoons are journalism, his creative process for working through ideas, getting people to have better “art self esteem,” and a lot more.

The show has a new Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod.

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!