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Call for submissions! SUMMER: CLOSED!

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Dear CNFers,

Issue 2 of the CNF Pod audio magazine is coming down the pipe. The theme is summer.

I want your best essays about summer. Summer jobs. Summer flings. Summer breeze. Summer, summer, summer time!

We come of age in summer and I want your best essays of what those precious summer months mean to you.

Word limit: Up to 2,000 words. This is about a 15-minute read. Only submit written pieces.

Deadline: March 21, 2021.

Submit to creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com with SUMMER in the subject line.

Issue 2 will be exclusive to Patreon members, so for as little as $4 a month you’ll get access to the the magazine, as well as some other goodies.

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Episode 235: Athletic Brewing’s Mason Gravely says ‘Make It Easy to Say Yes’

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By Brendan O’Meara

During my conversation with Mason Gravely (@alive_adventures on IG), I asked him what a good interviewer is like. I admire him as an interview so much, I had to know.

He said, “You know, it’s someone who listens. Someone who really is present. You can really tell when an interviewer is distracted, or they’re just kind of going off. They’re calling it in.”

Mason does incredible work for Athletic Brewing, the nations best and only (?) brewery only brewing non-alcoholic beer. Amazing stuff.

Episode 234: Lamorna Ash Goes Out to Sea in ‘Dark, Salt, Clear’

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By Brendan O’Meara

Ho! Ho! Ho! CNFers!

What’s that under the tree? It’s Lamorna Ash here to talk about her wonderful debut work of nonfiction Dark, Salt, Clear: The Life of a Fishing Town (Bloomsbury).

Great talk with Lamorna as we dig into how she’s dealing with the pandemic, feeling trapped at sea, drawing inspiration from other forms of art and so much more. She’s 26 years old and you can tell she’s going to be a star. Maybe she already is!

Say hi on social media @CNFPod and, if you have time, leave a kind written review on Apple Podcasts. Almost at 100. Been sitting there for a long, long time.

Being a member on Patreon is HUGE. You’ll be supporting the audio magazine, supporting writers, and making the product possible. No members means no magazine. If you liked Issue 1 of the magazine, consider supporting the next one.

For $4 a month, you’ll get access to new transcripts, the forthcoming audio magazines, and other goodies exclusive to members. Check it out.

Episode 233: Lee Gutkind on Magical Moments, the Rope Test, and ‘My Last Eight Thousand Days’

Lee Gutkind, Brendan O'Meara — Lee Gutkind

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By Brendan O’Meara

Lee Gutkind (@LeeGutkind) has returned to the show after a long, long time, this time to talk about his wonderful new book My Last Eight Thousand Days: An American Male in His Seventies (University of Georgia Press).

We talk about a lot of stuff, like voice. Lee says:

Episode 232: Change is the Only Constant with Glenn Stout

Glenn Stout is the author of several books and the series editor for Best American Sports Writing.

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By Brendan O’Meara

For the 30th and final edition of what we have come to know as The Best American Sports Writing series (Best American Paper, or Houghton Mifflin. Harcourt, (Amazon says Best American Paper, HMH’s website says it’s theirs. I don’t know anymore.), 2020), CNFPod bestie Glenn Stout returns to the show to talk about BASW and the evolution of journalism, or the evolution of the medium.

He also has a new book coming out in March: Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America’s Original Gangster Couple. It is available for pre-order.

If you want your fix of Stout, he’s been on the show here, here, and here. All worth listening to. There’s nobody better at distilling what this mess is all about.

AB______

While listening to a recent episode of Heavyweight, the podcast hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, one of the reporters relayed a bit of valuable information.

She said (name escapes me, sorry), “ABR.”

Always Be Recording.

As a gatherer of information, you never know when the nuggets will shine. And in audio, the recorder is your camera. You can always spackle in narration, but if you miss the nugget … you miss the nugget.

This phrase “always be ____,” can be “closing” or “recording” or “listening.”

However you finished that sentence, always be.

Compliment yourself

Seth Godin has written that, as freelancers, we’re our worst boss.

We wouldn’t tolerate a boss who talks to us the way we talk to ourselves.

Meichi Ng, the brilliant cartoonist behind Barely Functional Adult, said,

I think I still don’t have a bulletproof way to silence that voice. But I try to focus on what friends told me. I try to focus on what I know to be true. That might be a bit more positive than what I’m thinking about at the time. And then, if anything, I just talked to friends about it. And I feel like it’s always a good reality check to have someone else tell you what they know about you as opposed to you kind of spiraling into darkness.

Maybe look at your work, imagine it being done by an employee, and imagine giving that employee a figurative pat on the back. It always feels good when the boss recognizes your work. So recognize it in yourself.

Where’s the juice?

By Brendan O’Meara

There’s a moment somewhere in the creative process that needs to be its own reward.

Only you can know what that moment is. Is it generating ideas? Is it this idea that you have a secret that nobody else knows?

With so much out of our control, it’s all the more important to seek out these moments of juice, moments to hold and hug that nobody can take away from you.

I could tell you mine (I have several, but there’s an Alpha juice moment for me), but that might rob you of yours.

When you find your juice, remember it and double down on your juice.

A New Level

To reach a new level, a new normal, or a new average, you can do it in small increments.

It might be worth your time to go FAR to the extreme. Say, if you want to cut down on your drinking, maybe you abstain for a month or two. The new average will likely be less than before.

Extremes are impossible to maintain, but in the short term, the swing back will reach a whole new level.

Episode 231: Pete Croatto on Listening, Showing His Work, ‘From Hang Time to Prime Time,’ and Adding that Ding

View on Zencastr

By Brendan O’Meara

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Pete Croatto (@petecroatto on Twitter) is here to talk about freelancing, writing, and his new book From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA (Atria Books, 2020).

Where’s the juice? Where’s the juice in the enterprise?

The juice is in coming up with an idea and convincing an editor that the idea is worth pursuing, convincing a person, selling a person on that idea. When I get an idea for a story, it’s almost a giddy feeling. It’s a feeling that that you have a secret that no one else knows about, so you want to just tell as many people as you can about that. It’s like gossip, it’s a big piece of juicy gossip, and you want to share it and get it in the right hand.
Pete Croatto from Episode 231 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

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