April 2025 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 464: John Glionna is a Clown Who Makes Balloons That Kids Don’t Like

Friday, April 25, 2025

We have John Glionna (@johnglionna) here today. Spoke to him in December 2024, so, you know, we’re making good time here at CNF Pod HQ.

For the people who follow up with me from like a week ago, I’m like, ‘you might want to get a burrito and a Pepsi Zero Sugar.’ John’s a fun guy, one of those great journalists cut from a different fabric, a pre-internet vintage. He spent 26 years at the LA Times and he’s the author of No Friday Night Lights: Reservation Football on the Edge of America (Bison Books). Except there’s not really much football in the book.

This story takes place in a small, secluded town of McDermitt, Nevada, on the border of Oregon and Nevada. The high school rarely has enough kids to field a team of eight or so players. If they play, they lose and they lose big. It’s the story about a town trying to keeps its nose above water. It’s a town abandoned by the mining-industry boom times of the the late 20th century. John’s story is one of resilience and pride, of losing but not being a loser.

Episode 463: Leah Sottile on Building Scenes, Sagging Middles, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age

Friday, April 18, 2025

Become a Patron!

Also, from May 28 to June 1, the Archer City Writing Workshops at the Larry McMurtry Literary Center are having a workshop called FEature Writing: The REconstructed Narrative, led by Kim H. Cross, Hampton Sides, and Glenn Stout. Visit lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/events to learn more. No, I don’t get kickbacks or commissions. So get your cynical head out of your ass. It’s not always about money, man.

Well, we did it, man, we did it again. The second live taping of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast happened at Gratitude Brewing.

This with Leah Sottile, making her fourth return to the podcast, this time to celebrate her new book Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age. It’s published by Grand Central.

Episode 462: On Podcasting and Gardens with Debbie Millman

Friday, April 11, 2025

Become a Patron!

C’mon, really? Debbie Millman (@debbiemillman on IG) not only appeared here for Ep. 462, but it’s her third trip to CNF Pod HQ (her first and second are here and here). It’s when people return — and by all accounts seem happy to return — that validates the enterprise all the more.

Debbie has a new book out, Love Letter to a Garden (Timber Press), which is a bountiful book with her tight, concise, philosophical voice, much of it in her beautiful hand lettering. The book also has recipes from her wife, Roxane Gay. You may have heard of her.

Episode 461: For Nick Davidson, Stories Hunt the Storyteller

Friday, April 4, 2025

Become a Patron!

Nick Davidson, @nickgdavidson on IG, a freelance journalist, says, “We usually think of hunting stories and looking for ideas, but I feel like it’s the other way around: stories hunt the storyteller, and I’m just prey.”

I love that sentiment.

Nick is on the show to talk about his piece for The Atavist Magazine titled “The Balloon that Fell From the Sky.” It’s a remarkable and tragic story of a gas balloon race where one of the teams was shot out of the sky by a Belarusian helicopter. It’s a gripping story that Nick spent the better part of three years reporting and writing.