Brad also is the longtime host and producer of Otherppl, a podcast with in depth conversations with today’s leading writers. It’s one of my favorite podcasts. He’s been producing it since 2011, so even longer than us here at CNF Pod HQ.
Brad’s book is written in these chunklets and touches on being a creative person, the messiness of life and a creative life, reading, books, social media, fatherhood, and more.
We talk about a lot of themes in the book and the incredible prep it takes to bring one podcast into the world.
Guess who’s back? It’s Chip Scanlan (@chipscanlan), and he’s here to talk about 33 Ways to Not Screw Up Your Journalism.
It’s a zippy little book that uses contemporary examples that point out blindspots in our reporting and writing and help us fix them for the next day’s work, the next piece.
He hopped on the pod for Ep. 292 about his book Writers on Writing, which is a multi-vitamin of inspiration and writing tips. Actionable to boot.
Tad Friend (@tadfriend) needs little introduction, but here it goes: He’s a staff writer for The New Yorker and has written some of my favorite pieces. There’s the profile on Bryan Cranston, Master Class, and Impossible Foods.
Most recently, he’s the author of the memoirIn the Early Times: A Life Reframed(Crown). In it, Tad tries to better understand his father, but comes to grips with his own role as a father and husband, a writer and … squash player. It’s a wonderful book, but, then again, did you expect anything less?
In this episode we talk about structure, tension, reporting and running toward the doom. Lots of great stuff to unpack and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Katia Savchuk speaks fluent Russian. She went to Harvard. She went to the Columbia School of Journalism. She’s written for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Forbes and … The Atavist!
And that’s what brings Katia (@katiasav) to the podcast this week as we talk about her piece “A Crime Beyond Belief.” It’s an incredible feat of reporting, writing, structure, tension, all the things.
My 94 yo grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, is trapped in her Kyiv apartment with my father. She can’t really walk, and he can’t drive due to a disability. If anyone knows of any resources that can help with evacuation, please let me know.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my rage-against-the-algorithm, Up-to-11 Newsletter.Here’s the latest. Signup form is below you and to your right. Book recs, book raffles, cool stuff curated by me for you, CNFin’ happy hour or writing group, writing prompts, fun and entertaining. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Consider supporting the show via Patreon patreon.com/cnfpod. Shop around if you want to support the community. I just paid out the writers from the last audio magazine. You make that possible. The show is free but it ain’t cheap.
Free ways to support the show?
Subscribe and download and share across your socials. And don’t forget to consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Those go a LONG way.
Ever have a dog that fundamentally changed the course of your life? One who disrupted just about everything you knew about dogs and about yourself and about your marriage?
Meredith thought she knew just about all there was to know about raising a golden retriever puppy, but Edie came along and showed everyone that dogs are very much individuals and sometimes we have to accommodate them. They don’t always integrate neatly into our lives.
Great book. You might also like The Honey Bus, her 2019 memoir about her grandfather and bees and so much more.
In this conversation, we talk about writing community, lifting people up, opening doors, changing expectations around dogs, the privilege of being able to afford the care some need, and lots more.
She’s practically running a school for writers with the incredible offerings she has over at janefriedman.com. If you want to be a better writer and, more importantly, have a greater understanding of what it means to marry your art with commerce, Jane’s work is required.
Though we didn’t delve into book proposals, a CNFin’ faux pas if there ever was one (my b), but I had taken a book proposal refresher with her as part of Creative Nonfiction Magazine’s offerings. She’s a pro. (@janefriedman)
So we dig into plenty of stuff that’s germane to your journey like author platform, building a newsletter audience, social media (and its trappings) and the tension you can glean from a show like Better Call Saul.
The Mandalorian and his kind live by a simple code, always punctuated by saying “This is the way.”
What codes do you live by? What codes were you at one time or another TOLD to live by? Do you admire codes and singular devotion, or do you feel unfairly shackled to a way of life? Has a code led you to the right path or down the wrong? Capt. Fantastic (“Power to the people. Stick it to the man.”) lived by a code, but it put his several children at odds with the world and nearly paralyzed one child.
Essays should be no longer than 2,000 words (a 15-minute read, bear in mind that, in the end, these are audio essays. Write accordingly.). Email submissions with CODE in the subject line to creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com. Original, previously unpublished work only, please.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but if your piece is accepted elsewhere or you’re holding out for a more “prestigious” publication, please let me know ASAP as I read these essays very closely and even give rejected essays detailed notes for improvement.
It’s not often this show features stone-cold, bad ass editors. But that’s what we bring you today. I’m sure Leah Flickinger (@LeahFlickinger) will recoil at the remark, but it’s true.
She has edited pieces that made their way to Best American Sports Writing, won the National Magazine Award, and, oh, by the way, the Pulitzer Prize.
So Leah is here to talk about how she developed these pieces and how she frames conversations with writers to get the most out of them and the pieces they’re working on.
Hey CNFers, welcome to CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast, the show where I usually speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I say usually because this week I don’t have a guest.
Booooo…
Hey, hey, hey before you start hurling tomatoes up that the stage, hear me out. My guest this week wasn’t feeling good so we had to reschedule. You might be like, “BO, thought you had some of these in the can. Get your house in order.” And yes, in an ideal world I have a few in the can, but you’d be surprised how many of these interviews are done the week of and packaged soon thereafter.
I could’ve scrambled for a guest but I wanted to try something new. I don’t think this’ll be a regular thing in the podcast feed. I DO think it’ll be a normal thing for the Patreon crew so consider heading to patreon.com/cnfpod to support the podcast to get special podcasts like this one you’re about to hear.
So what’s the deal? In an effort to up the production value and to make the show seem a little bit more zippy, I’ve always been inspired by the structure of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Here are these episodes that focus on one guest, they film all day, so hours and hours of footage, for what, 15 minutes of final product? What must that edit be like?
Ever been starved for knowledge about meteorites? You came to the right place!
Greg Brennecka is a cosmochemist studying meteoritics and the author of Impact: How Space Rocks Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong. It’s published by William Morrow.
Greg is wicked smaht and works as a staff scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He received the prestigious Sofia Kovalevskaja Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2014 to study the early Solar System at the Institute for Planetology in Munster, Germany, where he led the Solar System Forensics group for five years. His research has appeared in Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
We talk about how the moon formed, how meteorites shaped our culture, and how he goes about snagging a space rock for his research.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my Up-to-11 Newsletter.Here’s the latest. Signup form is below you and to your right. Book recs, book raffles, cool stuff curated by me for you, CNFin’ happy hour or writing group, writing prompts, fun and entertaining. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Consider supporting the show via Patreon patreon.com/cnfpod. Shop around if you want to support the community. I just paid out the writers from the last audio magazine. You make that possible. The show is free but it ain’t cheap.
Free ways to support the show?
Subscribe and download and share across your socials. And don’t forget to consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Those go a LONG way.
