For a couple weeks, visit combeyond.bu.edu, use the promo code NARRATIVE25 at checkout and get 25% your tuition for the two-day Power of Narrative Conference. And, no, I don’t get any dough.
Jessica Camille Aguirre (@jessicacaquirre) is a freelance journalist based out of Berlin, Germany, and she’s got a ripping piece for this month’s Atavist, “Watch It Burn.” Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe’s fraud of the century.
It deals with carbon credits and the scammers were quick to pounce on this upstart industry.
William Ralston is a freelancer journalist and he comes on the show to talk about “Mayday,” his long feature about a harrowing rescue of four children after a deadly plane crash for The Atavist.
Right from the start, William grabs the reader and doesn’t let you go, man. Maybe you’ll consider subscribing to The Atavist Magazine. I don’t get any kickbacks, so I do it out of the goodness of Grinch-sized heart (before he serves up the roast beast).
William’s work has appeared all over the place. He’s a dogged reporter, so we get into that quite a bit.
This conversation gets into trust, as well as learning how to write before you’re ready. Jonah Ogles also stops by to give some of those valuable insights into the editor side of the table.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my rage-against-the-algorithm. Signup form is below you and to your right. Book recs, book raffles, cool stuff curated by me for you, CNFin’ happy hour or writing group, writing prompts, fun and entertaining. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Consider supporting the show via Patreon patreon.com/cnfpod. Shop around if you want to support the community. You make that possible. The show is free but it ain’t cheap.
Free ways to support the show?
Subscribe and download and share across your socials. And don’t forget to consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Those go a LONG way.
In this episode we dig into how she reported this piece and how her central figures sought retribution for the damages inflicted upon them, often without their consent.
We also hear from Seyward Darby, editor-in-chief for The Atavist, about her goals for the upcoming year for herself and the magazine, as well as what she’s looking for in pitches.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my Up-to-11 Newsletter. Signup form is below you and to your right. Book recs, book raffles, cool stuff curated by me for you, CNFin’ happy hour or writing group, writing prompts, fun and entertaining. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Consider supporting the show via Patreon patreon.com/cnfpod. Shop around if you want to support the community. You make that possible. The show is free but it ain’t cheap.
Free ways to support the show?
Subscribe and download and share across your socials. And don’t forget to consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Those go a LONG way.
Katya Cengel (@kcengel) is a journalist and author, and she’s the journalist behind “The Truth is Out There” for The Atavist Magazine. A father’s disappearance, dark family secrets, and the hunt for Bigfoot.
It’s a touching story on “searching for elusive truths,” that weaves together cryptozoology and a family in search of their father.
So in this episode we unpack who Katya dug up this story, earning trust, and getting comfortable with untidy endings.
We also speak with editor Jonah Ogles about getting pitches over the hump and the value in pitching again and again.
For this month’s Atavist, Lily Hyde wrote “Two Thousand Miles from Home,” as Russia invaded Ukraine, theree women from the same family became pregnant at the same time. Then the war tore them apart.
Pretty bonkers, right?
Just wait till you read it.
Lily riffs on how she arrived at this story, how she came to live in Ukraine, the novel that’s helping her narrative nonfiction, and how she earns trust.
We start off by speaking with lead editor Jonah Ogles so, you know, you’re gonna get some inside baseball from the other side of the table.
Tom Donaghy, a playwright and screenwriter, needed to find out.
Harry Anglemeyer was a fixture of Ocean City with a fudge empire on the Jersey Shore, The Copper Kettle. He wanted to lift up and move forward the ocean-side city. He was openly queer in a time that wasn’t as accepting. In 1964, he was murdered and the case was never solved.
Hidden Valley Road was recommended not only by Oprah, but also Barrack Obama
His features have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Wired, and Oprah Magazine, among others.
His latest is “Dead Reckoning” for The Atavist Magazine, and it chronicles the greatest peacetime nautical disaster in U.S. history. It deals with skepticism over technology, honor, fathers and sons, hubris, and many other juicy themes.
It’s that Atavistian time of the month and we’ve got a two-for-one, BOGO!, with Lucy Sexton, a documentary filmmaker, and Joe Sexton, a lifelong newspaperman and father to Lucy.
Lucy was working on a doc about the Iran hostage crisis when her father was taken hostage while reporting in Libya. What came out of it was “Held Together,” edited by Seyward Darby.
What’s all the more compelling is the dual authorship, not in the traditional co-bylined affairs that are uniform in nature with two names atop the story. This is two distinctly tuned instruments playing together in harmony.
Always nice to reach that Atavistian time of the month and this month has a great piece that combines the personal and the journalistic, “The Romance Scammer on My Sofa.”
These scammers, Yahoo Boys, as they’re called, spam people — the lonelier the better — in an effort to steal money. They’re based largely out of Lagos, Nigeria and there’s a great chance one of these Yahoo Boys has knocked on your door in one way or another.
They prey on the vulnerable, the lonely, and, for a short time, victimized Carlos’ mother, which led him on something of a manhunt to find the scammer, but what he found was a greater understanding of his mom.
Carlos is a journalist and student at the Columbia School of Journalism. You can find him on Twitter @CarolosBarraganT, and I hope you’ll head to magazine.atavist.com to read his piece and potentially subscribe. And, no, I don’t get any kickbacks, CNFer.
Anna Altman (@bananaaltman) is a freelance journalist and a social worker in training, and she just wrote and reported her second feature for The Atavist Magazine called “The Quality of Mercy.” It deals with compassionate release for the terminally ill and the one man at the center of it advocating for his fellow inmates.
In this episode we dig into how she arrived at this story and the unique challenges of reporting this piece in the ten-minute chunks Anna had with her central figure, Gary Settle, as they spoke through the prison phone system.
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