By Brendan O’Meara
Tweetables by Lisa Romeo (@LisaRomeo on Twitter, @lisaromeowriter on IG)
“I’m one of those weird people who loves revision. To me that’s where the work comes alive.”
“I think it’s important to get perspective from people who don’t write exactly what you write.”
“We write for readers.”
You know the drill…It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with leaders in the field of nonfiction about telling true stories: narrative journalists, doc film makers, essayists, memoirists, and radio producers to tease out tactics, habits, and routines, so you can apply those tools to your own work.
If you don’t already subscribe to the show, do it on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Stitcher, and very soon, Spotify. If the episode—or episodes—strike a chord, share it with your friends. You are the social network, not those other goons.
Episode 98 feature Lisa Romeo (@lisaromeo on twitter), whose memoir Starting with Goodby: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss (University of Nevada Press, 2018) tells the story of her late father and the continued relationship Lisa has with him in memory. It’s not a downer. Lisa writes it with such great tact that you never feel weighed down. Quite the opposite, really.
She talks about:
- Brain dumps
- Writing right away as a form of note taking even while close to the trauma
- Getting perspectives from people outside your genre
- And the Power of Paper Habits
That’s it! The first week of two episodes (Here’s the one from True Story Tuesday with Jeff Geiger) in the bank and I’m still alive, though just barely.
Thanks for listening and thanks to Lisa for sharing her story and strategies.
Sign up for my monthly reading list newsletter up in the Smaht Bah or the pop up window. Operative word monthly. I send out my reading recs along with what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. You can even ask for my new CNF Pod Zine! Issue No. 1 is out.
Also, if you leave an honest review on iTunes and send me a screenshot of it, I’ll coach up a piece of your writing of up to 10 pages or about 2,000 words. That’s not reserved for five-star reviewers. You can leave a two-star review and I’ll still honor the deal, though if you made it this far you likely think the show has more than two stars worth of value, but whatever. These are things that move the meter in the podcastosphere, so those are deeply appreciated.
