#AmWriting – Page 9 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Discovery and Writing Before You’re Ready

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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 369: Akeem S. Roberts

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The best way to get your style as an artist is when you’re on a deadline that’s very short and you don’t have time to overthink and get all of your influence in it. You just fully present yourself.”
Akeem S. Roberts, Ep. 369

By Brendan O’Meara

Akeem S. Roberts (@akeemteam) is a brilliant cartoonist and wouldn’t you know that he and I are now cosmically connected:

Oh, by the way did I tell you I won The New Yorker caption contest?

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 362: Svati Kirsten Narula

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By Brendan O’Meara

What a treat to have Svati Kirsten Narula (@svatikirsten) on the podcast to talk about her Outside feature “A Mountain Called Her Home” about the life and death of Nanda Devi Unsoeld about “went went wrong during this controversial adventure, shedding light on an enigmatic young woman who lived without limits.”

This is a great chat about patience, not burning bridges, and the struggle of lobbying for access with people who have felt burned in the past and, despite a reporter’s best intentions, burning those people again.

Episode 361: Ari Shapiro

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By Brendan O’Meara

Ari Shapiro (@arishapiro) is the host of NPR’s All Things Considered. He’s covered presidents. He’s traveled all over the world. He sings with the band Pink Martini. Now he’s the author of The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening (HarperCollins).

It’s a great memoir and what amounts to a love letter to his craft, which is journalism. So in this conversation, we talk about how:

His kit is like scuba gear
He loves the impermanence of radio
He’s terrified of the permanence of books
Conversations can bridge divides
And much, much more

Episode 358: Erica J. Berry

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By Brendan O’Meara

Look who’s back! It’s Erica J. Berry (@ericajberry) and she’s here to talk about Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear (Flatiron Books).

Erica came on the show back in 2017 (I shudder to think of the audio) and it’s worth revisiting, and it’s nice that nearly six years later her work has evolved so greatly that we now get to talk about her magnificent book.

In this episode, we talk about: