It’s a tremendous books, one that delves into the life of the great lead-off hitter Rickey Henderson and puts his life into context, builds a world around Rickey.
Neal (@nealbascomb) profiles regular people about the craft of their work. Each profile is a wonderful character sketch of how people go about their work. It’s like Humans of New York, Studs Terkel, This American Life, and Walt Harrington’s Acts of Creation rolled into one. It’s great, and Neal’s just getting started with profiles of an abstract artist, a chef, and an ER doctor. Soon, he’ll have one of a war reporter.
We talk about how this departure stemmed from book burnout, what energizes him about these profiles, and how he disagrees with John McPhee about tape recorders.
Brad also is the longtime host and producer of Otherppl, a podcast with in depth conversations with today’s leading writers. It’s one of my favorite podcasts. He’s been producing it since 2011, so even longer than us here at CNF Pod HQ.
Brad’s book is written in these chunklets and touches on being a creative person, the messiness of life and a creative life, reading, books, social media, fatherhood, and more.
We talk about a lot of themes in the book and the incredible prep it takes to bring one podcast into the world.
Tad Friend (@tadfriend) needs little introduction, but here it goes: He’s a staff writer for The New Yorker and has written some of my favorite pieces. There’s the profile on Bryan Cranston, Master Class, and Impossible Foods.
Most recently, he’s the author of the memoirIn the Early Times: A Life Reframed(Crown). In it, Tad tries to better understand his father, but comes to grips with his own role as a father and husband, a writer and … squash player. It’s a wonderful book, but, then again, did you expect anything less?
In this episode we talk about structure, tension, reporting and running toward the doom. Lots of great stuff to unpack and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Listen … just discovered “Top Chef” (don’t judge) on account of Peacock.
I’ve always been inspired by chefs and how they go about the work. When I was watching “Chopped” several years ago, I remember one chef talking about how he was on onion duty in the kitchen. And instead of lamenting it, he vowed to be the best damn cutter of onions. It’s a great attitude, something we can all heed.
The parallels between high-level cooking and writing are similar. We started with Season 18, Top Chef: Portland. Why? Well, we live in Oregon so we jumped into that, spoilers of past winners be damned.
And in the first episode, Richard Blais, restaurateur and one of the judges told the chefs to have “authorship” of their dishes. Another, Melissa King, said you have to “edit” your plates and choose what to leave on the plate and what to leave off.
She’s practically running a school for writers with the incredible offerings she has over at janefriedman.com. If you want to be a better writer and, more importantly, have a greater understanding of what it means to marry your art with commerce, Jane’s work is required.
Though we didn’t delve into book proposals, a CNFin’ faux pas if there ever was one (my b), but I had taken a book proposal refresher with her as part of Creative Nonfiction Magazine’s offerings. She’s a pro. (@janefriedman)
So we dig into plenty of stuff that’s germane to your journey like author platform, building a newsletter audience, social media (and its trappings) and the tension you can glean from a show like Better Call Saul.
It’s not often this show features stone-cold, bad ass editors. But that’s what we bring you today. I’m sure Leah Flickinger (@LeahFlickinger) will recoil at the remark, but it’s true.
She has edited pieces that made their way to Best American Sports Writing, won the National Magazine Award, and, oh, by the way, the Pulitzer Prize.
So Leah is here to talk about how she developed these pieces and how she frames conversations with writers to get the most out of them and the pieces they’re working on.
The Atavist has dropped yet another blockbuster, “The Caregivers,” this by the filmmaker and journalist Kelly Loudenberg.
It’s a great piece that is tender and well-handled by Kelly.
We start this episode by speaking with Seyward Darby, editor-in-chief at the Atavist, about restraint and how writers have more in common with drummers than lead singers.
When Kelly takes the stage, we talk about how doc film influenced her journalism, how giving birth to a premature baby gave her an extra level of connection with the caretakers at the heart of this story, and how she goes about building scenes.
Consider subscribing to the Atavist so you get full access to the incredible work they’re doing month to month, year to year.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my Up-to-11 Newsletter.Here’s the latest. 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. I just paid out the writers from the last audio magazine. 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.
Hey CNFers, welcome to CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast, the show where I usually speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I say usually because this week I don’t have a guest.
Booooo…
Hey, hey, hey before you start hurling tomatoes up that the stage, hear me out. My guest this week wasn’t feeling good so we had to reschedule. You might be like, “BO, thought you had some of these in the can. Get your house in order.” And yes, in an ideal world I have a few in the can, but you’d be surprised how many of these interviews are done the week of and packaged soon thereafter.
I could’ve scrambled for a guest but I wanted to try something new. I don’t think this’ll be a regular thing in the podcast feed. I DO think it’ll be a normal thing for the Patreon crew so consider heading to patreon.com/cnfpod to support the podcast to get special podcasts like this one you’re about to hear.
So what’s the deal? In an effort to up the production value and to make the show seem a little bit more zippy, I’ve always been inspired by the structure of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Here are these episodes that focus on one guest, they film all day, so hours and hours of footage, for what, 15 minutes of final product? What must that edit be like?
Ever been starved for knowledge about meteorites? You came to the right place!
Greg Brennecka is a cosmochemist studying meteoritics and the author of Impact: How Space Rocks Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong. It’s published by William Morrow.
Greg is wicked smaht and works as a staff scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He received the prestigious Sofia Kovalevskaja Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2014 to study the early Solar System at the Institute for Planetology in Munster, Germany, where he led the Solar System Forensics group for five years. His research has appeared in Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
We talk about how the moon formed, how meteorites shaped our culture, and how he goes about snagging a space rock for his research.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my Up-to-11 Newsletter.Here’s the latest. 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. I just paid out the writers from the last audio magazine. 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.
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