Tony Perrottet is a journalist, historian, and author of six books.
His latest piece is “The Butcher of Havana,” this for The Atavist Magazine.
We talk about the central figure, Herman Marks, an American who became the chief executioner for the Cuban revolutionaries. It’s an incredibly gripping read.
Continue reading “Episode 285: Tony Perrottet and ‘The Butcher of Havana’”Become a Patron!View on Zencastr
Kim H. Cross is a freelance journalist, author, teacher, and mountain bike coach. Her latest book is The Stahl House: Case Study House #22: The Making of a Modernist Icon (Chronicle Chroma).
It’s the biography of a house and, in Kim’s words, the story of a blue-collar couple with white-collar dreams.
Kim also is the author of the best-selling What Stands in a Storm, and her work has appeared in The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2021, and myriad other places. Her piece for Bicycle Magazine about Leon + Noel (notice the palindrome, that’s significant. For analysis by Eva Holland of go here and for analysis of her 900-story for the New York Times by Chip Scanlan (a dream come true), go here.)
[SIDEBAR: In the introduction to the podcast I said that Chip analyzed her Bicycle Magazine piece. My bad.]
Continue reading “Episode 284: Kim H. Cross on Scenes, Structure, and The Stahl House”
Jen A. Miller makes her return to the podcast after nearly five years. She said it best, “I feel old…and tired.”
She has a new ebook out called Where to Find New Freelance Writing Clients and Turbocharge Your Career: A Road Map to Freelance Writing Success. It’s $10 and it just might alter the course of your life. I don’t say that lightly. She also wrote How I Made $135,000 in One Year of Freelancing. It’s not gloating. She tells you how.
Jen also is the author of the memoir Running: A Love Story.
In this episode, we talk about:
Continue reading “Episode 283: Freelancing, Abundant Mindsets, and Writing from a Place of Anger with Jen A. Miller”
Jeannine Ouellette (@_elephantrock) is the author of the memoir The Part That Burns, a devastating book about childhood, sexual abuse, motherhood, and so much more. It’s published by Split/Lip Press.
It was a book I couldn’t wait to get back to because I needed to know how Jeannine managed to — I don’t know — survive. She broke my heart a number of times, but not in a self-pitying way.
In any case, she’s here for Ep. 281, this after we met at Hippocamp in August.
Here’s a little blurb from Jeannine’s website:
Continue reading “Episode 282: Jeannine Ouellette on Wanting to be Devastated, Self-Scrutiny, and Her Memoir ‘The Part That Burns’”
By Brendan O’Meara
Susan Orlean makes her third trip back to the podcast (Ep. 61 and 121), this time to celebrate her latest book, a collection of her magazine work on animals titled … On Animals.
She’s the best selling author The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, and The Orchid Thief. She’s been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1990s and, as many of you know, seeing a Susan Orlean byline is something like appointment reading. It’s special.
In this episode, we talk about:
Continue reading “Episode 281: Susan Orlean Tackles Ledes, Generating Story Ideas, and ‘On Animals’”
By Brendan O’Meara
Laura Todd Carns is here to talk about her latest feature for The Atavist Magazine. It’s called “Searching for Mr. X: For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for?”
Laura is a novelist, essayist, and journalist whose work has appeared in many places. You can find out more at her website.
She’s @LauraToddCarns on Twitter.
In this episode we talk about approaching a story as fiction vs. nonfiction, the challenge of the structure of the piece, collaborating with an editor and how it’s like a record producer and a musician, and more.
First I talk to Seyward Darby, as she was the lead editor of the piece. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Episode 280: Laura Todd Carns and ‘Searching for Mr. X,’ an Atavist Original”
Sponsor love: West Virginia m Wesleyan College’s MFA in Creative Writing and The Facing Project’s Empathy Prize for Nonfiction
Jess Phoenix. What else is there to say? She’s the author of Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life (Timber Press, 2021). She’s a volcanologist and geologist (that might be like saying a square is also a rectangle, but we’ll leave it at that, mmkay?). She’s the founder of Blueprint Earth. She has studied English, history, geology, and earned an MFA in creative nonfiction. She also ran for Congress in 2018. She co-owns a horse farm where she rescues retired thoroughbreds from potential slaughter and re-trains them to be jumpers.
How’s your life going?
Oh, and she delivered a pretty baller TEDx talk.
You might wonder why someone like her would talk to a scrub like me. And you’d be correct to wonder, but here we are!
Continue reading “Episode 278: Having a ‘Blast’ with Volcanologist Jess Phoenix”
Allison K. Williams is back! (@guerillamemoir) She is here to talk about her incredible new craft book Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book, a book that digs into the nitty gritty of editing.
What is so great about this book is you can be a seasoned, skilled writer/editor and this book will level you up. The book is a gift, and so too is Allison.
She’s the 2021 Literary Citizen of the Year for Hippocamp. She’s also the social media editor (?) for Brevity Magazine, and many of her craft essays for Brevity are adapted in Seven Drafts. Dig it.
In any case, we dig into lots of stuff about editing, story holes, retyping entire manuscripts, and what it means to cultivate a “writer’s life.”
Consider supporting the podcast and the audio magazine by heading to Patreon.com/cnfpod. There, you can earn transcripts, coaching, editing, and get exclusive access to the audio magazine.
Earl Swift returns!
He’s back as we take a deep dive into Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings, an epic book that details the creative genius and the people behind the “moon car” and the three greatest feats of human exploration, largely forgotten.
Earl is an incredible reporter and writer, spinning intrepid yarns that are densely packed but not weighed down. Incredible stuff.
In this episode we dig into:
Nile Capello (@liketheriver) is here to talk about her Atavist Magazine piece “The Girl in the Picture.” It’s a riveting piece of true crime taken on by two amateur sleuths.
First I speak with editor-in-chief Seyward Darby and then let Nile take it from there.
With Nile, we talk about the writing lessons she’s gleaned from bouldering, how she got into true crime as a kind of self-preservation, and how she determines what stories are “worthy.” We also dig into how she got her foot in the door to full time freelancing.
Please enjoy, and consider supporting the show in myriad ways, be that subscribing, leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts, or even plunking down a few bucks at patreon.com/cnfpod.