Podcast – Page 3 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Now in Paperback: Dinty W. Moore on the Gift of Feedback, Reading Like a Mechanic, and Patience

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By Brendan O’Meara

Dinty W. Moore (@brevitymag) runs the creative writing program at Ohio University. He founded Brevity Magazine, an online magazine dedicated to short (<750 words) nonfiction. He’s written a dozen books.

Dinty’s book, The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press), will help diagnose—and cure!—common ailments in your project, whether you’re far along in a book (as I am) or you’re just getting starting.

Now in Paperback: Andre Dubus III

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By Brendan O’Meara

As my book work intensifies, we lean on these paperback editions of the podcast! (Listeners are digging them, I think. One, they’re the greatest hits. Two, it keeps you from having to dig through the overwhelming backlog). This one with Andre Dubus III might be my favorite of the entire run of the podcast, no shade thrown to the others.

It’s just … he brought it. And it’s one of the a rare episodes of the show’s run when, after listening, I wanted to get up and write. Right away.

This originally aired as Ep. 54 in June of 2017.

Episode 387: Tom Donaghy

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By Brendan O’Meara

“Who Killed the Fudge King?“

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.

Enter Tom.

Now in Paperback: Jericho Brown

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By Brendan O’Meara

Hi, CNFers, nonfictionistas, verifiably true people, re-upping the brilliant Jericho Brown (@jerichobrown) for your listening pleasure.

As I said in the original intro, and as I re-say in this intro, this entire episode is like an hour-long pull quote. It’s so money, baby.

Since this episode originally aired on April 19, 2019, Jericho won the Pultizer Prize for his poetry collection The Tradition, which is what we talked about in this conversation.

Episode 386: Lana Hall

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By Brendan O’Meara

Friend,

Lana Hall (@curiouslana on … ugh … X) is here! What’s the occasion? She wrote a killer essay for Hazlitt called “We Are All Animals at Night” that riffs on her time working in Toronto’s massage parlor industry juxtaposed against her time at a corporate gig, a quote-unquote good job.

But it’s got levels, man, levels. What I took from it was the honor among people working the night, be it sex workers, cab drivers, or the person behind the counter at 7-Eleven. It’s a wonderful piece and Lana is a brilliant writer.

We talk about how she:

Now in Paperback: Mary Karr

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By Brendan O’Meara

It was bound to happen: re-runs.

But that’s fine! How many people go back through hundreds of conversations and find a gem? My guess is very little, so this is a great chance to showcase some older pods … now out in paperback (haha).

You know Mary Karr. She ushered in the memoir boom with The Liars’ Club and followed that up with Cherry and Lit. Her craft book The Art of Memoir is brilliant, as is her poetry in Tropic of Squalor.

This episode originally aired in 2018 with the publication of ToS, so I hope you’ll enjoy (or re-enjoy) this conversation with Mary Karr!

Episode 384: Nicholas Dighiera

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By Brendan O’Meara

What a joy to have Nicholas Dighiera on the show to talk about his flash essay “Happy Birthday” for Short-Reads.org.

It’s an 857-word, one-sentence essay, beginning to end. Nick’s thing is running toward the hurt and telling the truth.

You’re gonna dig it, friend.

Episode 383: Pete Croatto

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By Brendan O’Meara

It’s always nice when you can have a guest back on the show. We have many repeat offenders here at CNF Pod HQ. Because a writing career is so damn fluid, and a podcast conversation is just a snapshot in time, having a writer back on the show is a chance to talk about that glacial evolution.

And so Pete Croatto (@petecroatto) is back after nearly three years (it’s his third trip to the show) following the publication of his wonderful book From Hang Time to Prime Time. It’s a book about the birth of the modern NBA. It’s a must have for the basketball fan in your life. Is there anything better than unwrapping a hard-cover book on a gift-receiving holiday?

Pete is in the in-between stages. He is/was conflicted about what writing his first meant. Did it mean he would be invited to write the next one? No. Would it be some career-defining apotheosis? Hell, no. Rather, the book merely exists on the continuum on his career as a freelance writer of great sports journalism, but also think pieces on the media, and stuff for trade magazines and copy editing. Gone are the days where you can solely freelance longform journalism and have enough money to … let’s just say live.

So this was a great conversation about that post-book (specifically post-first-book time) and what that means. We talk about the book or various pieces being keys to open doors for ourselves, but also people arriving behind us. The book as business card, and the frustratingly slow nature of gradual improvement and mastery.

I really think you’ll dig it.

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Stay wild, CNFers!

Episode 382: Lucy Sexton and Joe Sexton

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By Brendan O’Meara

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.

Episode 381: Michael Finkel

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By Brendan O’Meara

Michael Finkel (@MikeFinkel) is here to talk about his new book The Art Thief: A True Story of Passion, Obsession, and a Monumental Crime Spree (Knopf). You could say this is a story of passion and obsession. It’s quite good.

Michael is an accomplished journalist and best selling author of The Stranger in the Woods and True Story.

His work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic.