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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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By Brendan O’Meara

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.

Episode 365: Maggie Smith

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I’m probably a poet on roller skates, to be honest, like, I don’t know how to shed that.
Maggie Smith

By Brendan O’Meara

Maggie Smith is here! You might know her as a poet (@maggiesmithpoet), but you’re gonna love her as a prose-writing memoirist in You Could Make The Place Beautiful (Atria).

I was probably the only doofus who had never read her viral, wicked-famous poem “Good Bones,” the poem that turned a relatively anonymous maggie smith in MAGGIE FUCKING SMITH.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a line from that poem and it introduced me to her poem. There’s a good chance I’m the only jucket this side of the Rockies who hadn’t heard of the poem, but it’s an incredible poem and she’s an incredible writer and this conversation, I have to say, (as well as my parting shot), is incredible.

Episode 364: Mitchell S. Jackson

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“I’m never going to let an editor push me off my square in terms of voice.” — Mitchell S. Jackson

By Brendan O’Meara

Several Pultizer Prize—winners have graced the CNF Pod main stage, and, wow!, we get to add the incomparable Mitchell S. Jackson to the roster. What a thrill to talk to this brilliant writer and thinker.

His accolades are too long to list, but here are a few (for more, visit mitchellsjackson.com).:

He won the aforementioned Pulitzer Prize for his piece on the murder of Ahmaud Arbery for Runners World titled “Twelve Minutes and a Life,” which we talk about a bit. (Edited by Leah Flickinger)
He’s a regular writer for Esquire and among his many profiles is this one on Chris Rock, which we talk about a bit.
His first novel, The Residue Years, was nominated (and won) several “first novel” awards.
Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family was listed by fifteen different publications as one of their best books of the year in 2019.
He famously studied with Gordon Lish, which we talk about; and it was Lish who told Mitchell that he could be great. (And, in Lish, fashion, he cut Mitchell out of his life.)

And, damn, he sure is great.

Episode 363: Eric Pape

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By Brendan O’Meara

Eric Pape (@ericpape) came by CNF Pod HQ to talk about his piece for The Atavist, “Sins of the Father.“

This is one’s a gut punch. And, as Seyward Darby, editor-in-chief of The Atavist, says in this interview, she pushes against the gimmicky. This piece delivers a brutal punch, takes us on a journey around an abusive marriage, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, Tony Robbins-esque self-help, and more.

How Eric kept it all together is a testament to his skill as a reporter and a writer.