June 2024 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 418: Surrendering to the Subconscious with John Julius Reel

Hey, CNFers, happy CNFriday, and, boy, what a fun episode we’ve got! It’s John Julius Reel! He’s @johnjuliusreel on the Instagrams and he’s the author of the memoir My Half Orange: A Story of Love and Language in Seville (Tortoise Books).

John is a writer, radio host, and language instructor based out of Spain and My Half Orange (a Spanish idiom for soul mate) bridges his native culture with his adopted one, and it’s the latter where he found a greater place in the world personally and artistically.

In this conversation (Cut down from two hours. I’ll post some of the outtakes for the Patreon gang.) we talk about letting the subconscious in on the joke, how to make memoir relatable, and the never-ending quest to impress your father.

Episode 417: ‘Stories Can Save Us’ and the Enduring Legacy of Matt Tullis

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By Brendan O’Meara

Special episode this week, CNFers, as we celebrate Matt Tullis and his post-humous book Stories Can Save Us: America’s Best Narrative Journalists Explain How (University of Georgia Press).

It’s a collection of transcripts from Matt’s Gangrey the Podcast that includes a special reported afterward written by Justin Heckert (@justinheckert), one of the key ambassadors of this book.

Justin wrote many memorable stories over the last twenty years like a dude inspired by Jackass, Blockbuster Video, the story of an unused ticket, and many, many more. He wrote a great afterward in Walt Harrington’s Artful Journalism and appeared in The Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists (The Sager Group).

Episode 416: A Lifelong Search for Voice with Acamea Deadwiler

By Brendan O’Meara

Acamea Deadwiler (@acamea) is here with her debut memoir Daddy’s Little Stranger (Riddle Brook Publishing).

It started as an essay collection, but at the behest of her publisher, she was tasked with making it more of a traditional memoir. The result is a coming-of-age story of a young woman who grew up without a father and how she navigated her early life without that influence. Better put, how she navigated her early life with that absence.

We also talk about her influences, studying inspiration texts, what her basketball career taught her about what it takes to be a writer, and finding that elusive voice. Really rich talk.

Episode 415: Sam Jefferies, Hammering Out Screed

By Brendan O’Meara

Sam Jefferies is a freelance writer and communications specialist and his first book is Legacy on Ice: Blake Geoffrion and the Fastest Game on Earth. Credit The University of Wisconsin Press for publication.

It’s a book that chronicles the college hockey and the rise of hockey in the South. And at the heart of it is the Geoffrion familly whose bloodline in hockey goes back to the formation of the slapshot.

Blake Geoffrion had the pressure to keep the generational NHL lineage alive. And he did, though his career was cut short by a devastating head injury.

This is a story of the weight of that legacy.