February 2022 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 304: Bill Donahue

It’s that Atavistian time of the of month and I get to welcome the journalist Bill Donahue to the podcast to talk about his new piece “The Voyagers.”

Naturally, it’s an incredible piece that is a voyage across the Bering Strait, but, as Bill notes, a voyage across the Cold War.

I also speak with Jonah Ogles, the lead editor of this piece, about what makes for great profile writing and how an editor can help a writer get to “that good place.”

Lot’s of great rawhide to gnaw on in this podcast.

Episode 303: Damon Brown

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By Brendan O’Meara

“From the rooter to the tooter,” writes Damon Brown in his new book Career Remix: Get the Gig You Want with the Skills You’ve Got (Sterling).

He writes that his southern African American relatives would often get the scraps of the pig, and they’d have to get creative and use everything. I’ll let you connect the dots. What Damon means is, “There is nothing wasted.”

And so we’ve come to his new book about parlaying the skills you’ve got into any gig you want.

This is Damon’s third trip back to the podcast and he always brings it. He’s the author of more than twenty books including Bring Your Worth and The Bite-Sized Entrepreneur.

He’s got a great YouTube show at youtube.com/browndamon. You can find him on Twitter @browndamon and LinkedIn.

Episode 302: Neda Toloui-Semnani

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By Brendan O’Meara

If you’re like me, you like a memoir where the author is hunting for something. Neda Toloui-Semnani is on a quest of sorts in They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of My Parents (Little a, 2022).

Neda’s father was an Iranian revolutionary who was executed in the early 1980s by the shah’s regime. Neda was a toddler at the time. Neda’s mother and father were part of the protests in Berkley, California and mobilized for change.

While in Iran in the early 80s, Neda recounts the harrowing story of how she and her family escaped Iran after her father was arrested. This book is nuanced and layered and a wonderful read.

Episode 301: Debbie Millman

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

By Brendan O’Meara

Can you believe it? Debbie Millman has returned the CNF Pod main stage with a new ~~album~~ book called Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People (Porchlight Books, 2022).

Debbie might be most known for her incredible work in branding, where at one point or another in her illustrious career she had “touched” roughly 25% of most things on the grocery store shelves. She worked on Burger King’s logo, Tropicana, Twizzlers, and more.

But I know Debbie because of her amazing podcast Design Matters. It started in 2005 and has developed over the years to be one of the greatest interview shows in the podcast-o-sphere. As you know, there are quite a bit.

There are two faces on Mt. Podmore and it’s Debbie Millman and Joe Donahue. That’s it.

Episode 300: Gloria Liu

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

By Brendan O’Meara

Gloria Liu (@thats_my_line) is a freelance writer/journalist based out of Colorado.

She’s a former features editor for Outside Magazine, and it was a reported essay she wrote for outside about burnout and the meaning of life that prompted this conversation. Can’t find a link to that story, but her piece on garages is awesome, as is this piece on money, as well as the housing crisis in a ski town.

We chat about her journey in freelancing. She’s on her second rodeo with freelancing, after a stint as features editor for Outside. Her background is in finance and business, so we dig into some lessons she learned from that that help her in freelancing.