“If you’re not doing something that scares you, at least a little bit, then you’re wasting your time artistically.”
“You can do just as successful cutting words as adding.”
“You are the subject and the scientist at the same time.”
So, imagine a candle and it has two wicks, one on the top and one on the bottom. Now picture me lighting the candle at both ends. Do you see this fresh imagery?
It’s almost as if this candle will burn out before its time.
I only wish this represented something.
What’s this? It’s not Friday! What is the meaning of these CNFin’ shenanigans? Well CNFers, I’m going to try and kill myself and do two episodes a week. Is this sustainable? The short answer is, of course, no, but if it can be managed that’s twice as many CNF buddies, twice the reach, twice the insights and double the insanity. Continue reading “Episode 97—Jeff Geiger on Oral Storytelling, Failure, and Fear as Fuel”
In Episode 95 of the creative nonfiction podcast he talks about his humble start in journalism, suspending disbelief, the power of creating something, and journalism as sport.
Kevin Wilson, author of “Finding Clarity,” came by the show to fire you up.
By Brendan O’Meara
Tweetables from Kevin Wilson (@KWBaseball):
“If you have something good to share, share it!”
“In order to go fast, you’ve gotta be slow.”
“How much to you value [solitude] as part of your craft?”
Kevin Wilson, president of KWBaseball, is back for another at-bat here on The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I talk to the best artists about telling true stories.
If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, go to Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play Music so you get that little ping each week when we go live.
I’ll also ask that you leave an honest review on iTunes. Those greatly help with the visibility and the hope is to keep growing. This podcast is a LOT of work and if it doesn’t grow then I’ll be forced to “go out of business.” Reviews and ratings will help keep the lights on.
I’m grateful that you stopped by and I hope you stay.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas spoke about her latest book “The Hidden Life of Life.”
By Brendan O’Meara
“What I wanted to do was show the commonality of all life on earth…it seemed important to me that we’re related.” —Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
You’ll excuse that there’s not traditional intro and outro to this show. You might even prefer it. I’ve had what I can only hope is a MINOR complication with recent oral surgery and don’t want to talk and thus compound the problem at hand. I won’t bore you.
It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to artists about telling true stories. Leaders in narrative journalism (like Bronwen Dickey), memoir (like Maddy Blais), essay (like Erica Berry), radio (like Joe Donahue), and documentary film (like Penny Lane) talk about their origins, routines, processes, and key influences so you, kind listener, can apply those tools of mastery to your own work.
Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words, writes, “We are lucky to have shared some time on Earth with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas…Reading her is like looking through a telescope and realizing that the brightness you see actually happened long, long ago and has taken all this time to reach your own eyes.”
Dig the show? Leave a review for a review! What’s that? Consider leaving an honest review on iTunes and I will coach up a piece of your writing up to 2,000 words. Reviews are the currency that drives the podcast economy and I’d be thrilled if you added your two cents. Show me proof via electronic mail and we’ll get it done. You give me a minute of your review time, I’ll give you a few hours of mine (that’s how long it takes to read a piece three times and give good notes.) You give you get.
Also, in an effort to be less dependent on social media (@CNFPod, @BrendanOMeara, @CNFPodast, and @BrendanOMeara), my monthly newsletter is the bedrock of my little community here. It’s my monthly book recommendations and what you’ve missed from the world of the podcast. I’d love it if you signed up. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Maybe I’ll be able to talk next week. In the meantime, enjoy Episode 93, and if you want to hear far more from Elizabeth, be sure to check out Episode 80 with her.
“Lack of information can ruin people’s lives in a profound way.”
“Each of us had a lot of periods during the process where we felt we sucked at writing.”
So I had oral surgery this week so my capacity to speak with my face mouth is greatly hampered.
Welcome to the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories, teasing out their origins, habits, and routines, so that you can apply some of those tools of mastery to your own work. What’s goin’ on CNFers! CNFbuddies!
I recorded this interview with Ellen prior to the surgery so I sound like a human person through the interview. She along with Nina Brochmann wrote “The Wonder Down Under: The Insider’s Guide to the Anatomy, Biology, and Reality of the Vagina.” It’s quite a fun read.
Both Ellen and Nina are touring the U.S. as we speak since the book caught fire after their TEDxOslo talk about “The Virginity Fraud,” breaking myths about the hymen and such got over 2 million views. It’s up near 3 million now.
I spoke only with Ellen for this episode because Nina got sick at the last minute. Only one brilliant Scandanavian for you this week…
Ellen hits on:
How her curiosity led her to women’s health
Co-authoring a book and co-writing a TED Talk
How the lack of information can ruin lives
And processing a new sense of global visability
Yeah, a little house keeping, I’d love for you subscribe to the show so you can get one of these nifty little podcasts every Friday. Also, if you leave an honest review on iTunes I’ll edit/coach up a piece of your work up to 2,000 words. You give me one minute of your review time, I’ll give you a couple hours of mine. Not a bad deal for you.
Okay, now it’s time to hear the brilliant … for episode 92, wow.
“Anybody who goes into journalism for fame or fortune or awards right off the bat I write off as an idiot.”
“The pipeline has changed.”
“I think it took two years to be comfortable with freelancing.”
Okay, so what’s the meaning of this? Mary Pilon again? For one I could listen to 52 episodes of Mary, but when we recorded I spliced the interview in two parts to shorten it and I’m glad I did at this point because my guest this week cancelled. What’s the lesson kids? Get interviews in the can. When I can it’s brilliant. Can’t always happen. Continue reading “Episode 91—Mary Pilon’s Freelance Rumspringa and the Best Advice She Got from David Carr”
“I can’t think about writing a big project. It’s too overwhelming for me but I can think about a thousand words a day and then this magical thing happens which is you end up with 90,000 words.”
“I think you have to have the basics down as a writer before you can even think about playing with how to tell it. I would say I spend 80 percent of my time on this one reporting and another the other 20 writing.”
“There is some advantage to saying nothing and letting people go on forever.”
“It’s usually when you stop trying so hard that you something happens.”
“You have to go away for a few days and then come back and look at it fresh and see what’s magical about the information.”
Hey, there CNF-buddys, I’m comin’ at you live from my shiny new digs. New house up in Eugene and I’ve got a nice little office I can call my own. There’s no foam on the walls yet, so please pardon the audio, but we’re making strides to be the best.
Part of that is me shutting the front door and getting the hell out of the way. I still haven’t quite figured out a way to completely edit myself out of these interviews. But I’m working on it.
Don’t worry…
…
…
Rachel Corbett joins me this week for Episode 88 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in the world of narrative journalism (like Bronwen Dickey here and here), essay, memoir, radio, and documentary film where I try and tease out origins, habits, routines, mentors, key influences, so you can apply some of their tools of mastery to your own work.
Rachel is a freelance journalist whose work appears in a few rags you might have heard of: The New Yorker, the New York Times, etc. She’s also the author of You Must Change Your Life, The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin.
Rachel hits on some key points about:
Carving out your own niche
How things come easier when you stop trying so hard
Listening vs. talking
Getting away from the work so you can come back refreshed
And the power of being dumb and defeated (some of us were born this way)
So…you dig the show? I ask that you leave an honest rating (10 seconds) or a review (<60 seconds).
A review = an editorial consult/coach sesh of up to 2,000 words
“I like to start from the present. It’s vibrant and visceral and has these questions that are lingering throughout time but we can access them.”
“I was looking for myself. Where is my experience?”
“Your parents moved the entire world. What are you going to do with your one wild life?
Okay, let’s rock and roll, this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction. Leaders in the world of narrative journalism,memoir, essay, doc film and radio share their origins, stories behind the stories, habits, and routines so you can apply their tools of mastery to your own work.
Let’s hear from Hope Wabuke this week for Episode 87. She’s @HopeWabuke on Twitter and at hopewabuke.com. Hope is a poet, though she knows it, and her essay “The Animal in the Yard” is one of six 2018 Pushcart nominations for Creative Nonfiction Magazine (no we’re not a couple, but our friends tells us we like each other).
I had a real hard time cutting this interview down—something I do to all of them—because she is so wise and illuminating throughout, that I left it largely untouched.
She talks about the:
Global African Diaspora
Starting from the present as a place to explore the past
Nonlinear narratives
How her parents escaped genocide in Uganda to start a new life in America
Empowering the marginalized
And what it means to be a watcher
Dig the show? Consider leaving an honest rating, or, for 60 seconds of your time, an honest review. Reviews help embolden and widen the community we’re building here at CNF HQ.
If you leave a review I’ll offer up a free editing sesh for up to 2,000 words. You usually have to pay double for that in Vegas, Cotton.
Also, I have a monthly newsletter where I send out my reading, doc film, and podcast recommendations, as well as what you might have missed from the world of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast. Lots are joining, so why don’t you? Once a month. No Spam. Can’t beat it.
