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Episode 381: Michael Finkel

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I think of my office as my big batter’s eye. In my peripheral vision, when I’m sitting at my desk, from left to right and all the way in front of me, I like blank walls. And then I’ll put all of my research behind me. It’s kind of a crazy thing. I have stacks and stacks of research that I can’t see unless I turn around and grab it. That fools me into the fact that I there’s like tabula rasa, there’s a blank slate in front of me and all my research is behind me. And that’s when I can really do my writing.
Michael Finkel, Ep. 381

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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.

Episode 380: Wudan Yan

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“Narrative nonfiction journalists love to valorize over-reporting. And when you work for yourself, time is money.”
Wudan Yan, Ep. 380

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By Brendan O’Meara

Wudan Yan returns, this time to talk about The Vice of Spice for Undark. You can find her @wudanyan on Twitter and Instagram. Look it up, friend.

She’s also the co-host of The Writer’s Co-op Podcast with Jenni Gritters as well as a fact checker for books and podcasts and other stuff.

She had the piece coming out. She wanted to talk about it. I was like, sure, sounds good. Here we are.

In this episode we chat about her lack of a 3 a.m. (or 3 p.m.) voice, the valorization of over-reporting, efficient interviewing, and suspiciously golden turmeric.

Episode 378: Steven Moore

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I feel like I don’t understand an essay until I’ve ready it a few times.
Steve Moore, Ep. 378

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By Brendan O’Meara

Look who came back! It’s Steven Moore! He’s the author of The Distance from Slaughter County: Lessons from Flyover Country (UNC Press). Growing up in Iowa and spending the last several years on the west coast — many in Oregon — Steven toggles between when it meant to grow up in the midwest and the view from afar.

His essays range from riffs on the sitcom “Home Improvement,” Blockbuster Video, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and political coverage of a state that had voted for Obama, then flipped, you know, the other way.

Steven also is the author of The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier, which won the AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction.

In this episode we talk about:

Episode 376: John Vaillant

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An interview, well done, elevates everybody. The interviewer gets what they want, they get this material and this deep detail, but the older I get, the more I realize that pretty much 90% of what human beings want out of life is to be seen and heard.
John Vaillant, Ep. 376

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By Brendan O’Meara

John Vaillant is here, CNFErs, to talk about Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (Knopf). It’s an incredible feat of writing, reporting, and research and takes us to the devastating 2016 wildfire that tore through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.

John is the author a The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed, and The Jaguar’s Children.

You can find him on Twitter @johnvaillant and in this conversation he notes how Twitter actually helped him (what?!), and we also dig into interviewing for scene, not treating interviewing as an extraction industry, but more renewable, and fire, lots of fire.

Episode 375: Hattie Fletcher and Stephen Knezovich

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You don’t have a lot of room to fart around and throw in stuff that doesn’t matter, you have to focus on what you’re doing and get it done, and then get out.
Hattie Fletcher, Ep. 375

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By Brendan O’Meara

Got a two-for-one deal here, CNFers. It’s Hattie Fletcher and Stephen Knezovich, two of the brilliant minds behind Short Reads, a weekly email missive of flash nonfiction.

They are formerly of Creative Nonfiction Magazine until a failure in leadership forced Hattie, Stephen, and a handful of others to leave the magazine. What came of that experience is Short Reads.

So in this episode we talk about email marketing, building an email list, writing short nonfiction vs. long nonfiction. It’s a concentrated dose of goodness.

Stephen also is an accomplished collage artists, so be sure to check out his website to get a sense of what his work is about. Collage is the bomb.

Episode 374: Christine Yu

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That imposter syndrome is a big piece of it because I always question am I the right person to write this story? Am I the best person to write this story? Why am I writing this story? Why will someone talk to me about this? That’s always a hard piece of it for me.
Christine Yu, Ep. 374

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Christine Yu (@cyu888) is the author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes (Riverhead Books).

This is a great conversation about what the athletic science community has gotten wrong — or just straight-up lazy — when it comes to the science behind women’s athletics. The book deals largely with the male-female binary and doesn’t really delve into the experiences of trans athletes. That’s for another book, one presumes.

Discovery and Writing Before You’re Ready

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By by by Brendan O’Meara

Hey CNFers, I didn’t have an interview in the can for this week, so I figured I’d try something a little new. Kinda new. Sorta.

This podcast is something of a craft essay. It’s similar to my parting shot … if I only published the parting shot. (Sidebar: This has me thinking, maybe I should bottle up my parting shots and run them on, say, Wednesday, as a mid-week pick me up. If they’re craft based, not if it’s personal. You can email me if you think you’d like that, similar to my flounder (defunct?) Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry. How did it not catch on?)

Episode 370: Christopher McDougall

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Tell the story from the beginning. Don’t tell it from the end. Tell it from where you were when you didn’t know anything. And that stuck with me.
Christopher McDougall, Ep. 370

By Brendan O’Meara

Love that Christopher McDougall (@ChrisMcDougall) came back to the pod. You might remember from Ep. 172. Is that right? 198 episodes ago? Can’t believe that.

Episode 367: Reid Mitenbuler

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I’m always thinking about the pleasures of reading. It’s almost like customer service to your reader, right? I’m doing this for you to give you a place. Bring them into that world.
Reid Mitenbuler, from Ep. 367

By Brendan O’Meara

Reid Mitenbuler (@reidmitenbuler or @mitenbuler) is here to talk some shop around his book Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age (Mariner Books). It’s a gripping read that follows Peter Freuchen through the bulk of the 20th century as he traverses the unforgiving terrain of Greenland, stands up to the Nazis, and writes screenplays and even acts during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

He’s kinda sorta like Forrest Gump.

Episode 366: David Grann

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Each book has a different voice and almost a different style to some extent.
David Grann, from Ep. 366

By Brendan O’Meara

David Grann (@DavidGrann) returns!

His new book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder (Bantam Doubleday Dell). And what a tale!

Isn’t it nice to sink into a cool story in nonfiction? Not some overarching treatise on either self-improvement or how we can/should improve the country? In this case, David takes to the souther tip of South America where hell on Earth plays out.

David also is the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, The Lost City of Z, and The Devil & Sherlock Holmes. Each story he writes is a master class in writing, structure, and research. On top of that, David is just an awesome and generous person, so you’re gonna love this chat.