By Brendan O’Meara
A great pleasure to welcome back Elena Passarello to the show to talk about … jeez … just about everything.
This was very much a shoot-the-shizz pod, but when it comes to Elena, there are few people you’d rather be listening to. So if you dug episodes with Bronwen Dickey and Peter Brown Hoffmeister, you’re in the right place, CNFers!
Continue reading “Episode 254: Elena Passarello on Weird Freelance Work, Podcasting, and Oatmeal Brain”
Julie DiCaro came by the show to talk about her new book Sidelined: Sports, Culture, and Being a Woman in America.
It’s a fine read, written by someone who definitively has something of value to say. You can find her on Twitter @juliedicaro.
It’s an engaging, entertaining, and sobering read about feminism and the sorry state of women’s representation in sports journalism.
Continue reading “Episode 253: Julie DiCaro Won’t Be ‘Sidelined’”
Rob Harvilla (@harvilla), a Ringer staff writer and the mastermind behind the Spotify Original 60 Songs that Explain the 90s, comes by the show to talk about the flannel-clad 90s. As an aside, most of my wardrobe is flannel. I still wear some of my old flannel from this time. Anyway …
His podcast is great, especially if you love the 90s or came of age in the 90s, as I did.
So you know we dig into some of the great 90s vocalists, what these songs say about the 90s and Rob, and also how this podcast is actually stealth memoir over music criticism.
Hope you enjoy it. If you do, consider linking up to the show and tagging it @CNFPod. And if you want access to forthcoming audio magazines and want to support that endeavor (and pay writers!), head over to patreon.com/cnfpod.
Glenn Stout returns for his fifth time to the podcast, this time to talk about his thrilling new book The Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America’s First Gangster Couple.
The book takes us to the 1920s, a time when wars were supposed to be a thing of the past, a pandemic wiped across the globe, and veterans coming from the Great War had little support at home. I’m glad all those things are a relic of the 20th century.
Continue reading “Episode 251: Glenn Stout Brings to Life The Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America’s First Gangster Couple”
Lindsay Jones took a deep dive into the cottage hospital industry in Canada, specifically in Newfoundland, and what she found was shocking, alarming, but ultimately heart warming.
It was not unlike when the great journalist Earl Swift spent time on a small island town in Chesapeake Bay and said, “The process of being a fly on the wall doesn’t rely on folks forgetting you’re a reporter.”
And not unlike when Scott Eden made the trip down to Peru, or when Phil Hoad shadowed a couple pet detectives, Jones takes us to a new place, small, intimate, and beautiful.
Oh, and the writing is great, too.
Continue reading “Episode 250: Lindsay Jones and Her Atavist Story ‘The Lives of Others’”As with anything, sometimes the growth the comes when you step away and rest.
For instance, when you’re lifting heavy weights, you don’t grow during the workout; you grow when you’re sleeping, when you’re recovering, assuming, of course, you’re nourishing those muscles with the right kind of nutrients.
And isn’t that the perfect metaphor for this entire enterprise?
You stretch yourself, push yourself, but then you have to replenish the stores, fill back up. In our case, that’s reading, that’s watching good movies, that’s taking notes on things that inspire us, that’s actually going through and reading those notes, reading those Kindle highlights. That’s sleeping on it. That’s taking long walks.
And maybe that means not writing for a day, or a week, or a month.
I remember I was plateuing with my deadlift. I stopped deadlifting for an entire month and just swung kettlebells, 10,000 swings over the course of four weeks. I then re-tested my deadlift and PRed by 30 pounds, this after not deadlifting for an entire month.
What I’m saying is: stepping off that treadmill and stopping might be the best way to move forward.
So with that, I’m closing Vol. III of Casualty of Words. There are 47 of these little guys in this volume and many more from Vol. I and Vol. II. Check those out if you need a fix. Subscribe and share because I will be back after I do some more reading, do some more writing, and come back stronger than ever, another casualty of words.
My stock and trade is conversations.
I typically know what I want to coach out of a guest to best celebrate her work while also providing the most possible value for the listener.
But what’s the map?
Sure, the interstate system of highways is straight, efficient, and fast. You can drive 90 miles per hour in Montana.
But what if you take the back roads? The scenic route? Well, now you’re getting into the weeds, the great details, the scenery is richer. You’re going slower so you can take more in. I guess you can say it’s speed dating vs. that rich first date.
You still need to get somewhere, but one is far more revealing and less superficial. Depending on your goal and the time you have, consider the back roads.
Writing prompt: How can you turn more conversations from interstates to back roads?
“My mind is a very bad neighborhood and I should not go there alone,” says Bronwen Dickey in her fourth trip to the podcast
She was here for Ep. 21, 45, 137 and now 248.
It’s always a good time when I get to catch up with her.
Continue reading “Episode 248: Humble and Important Gifts with Bronwen Dickey”If you’re anything like me, you get a bit distracted by the shiny new thing.
You get excited at the possibilities of the new hobby, the new story because it’s that thing that’s going to bring you the satisfaction you want.
If I shared with you the myriad things I do and/or want to do, you’d wonder how I get anything done at all.
And that’s when I always go back to professional athletes or people with singular drive and singular vision. Prima ballerinas aren’t consumed with baking bread or writing or drawing or web design. Bodybuilders aren’t consumed with woodworking, welding, or making baked goods. Professional athletes, let’s just say in season, focus on their game, preparation, study, not gardening, painting, or book binding.
Yes, we need hobbies. We need ways to distract ourselves and to relieve tension.
But I think many of us stay in the mud because we lack a certain ruthlessness to finish the job, to truly master our craft. While we flitter over here, our main skill, the main reason we got into whatever mess we got into, it operates at a fraction of its potential, and yet we wonder why we don’t thrive.
I guess what I’m saying is this: It’s a long life, if we’re lucky, and I think we’d be better served giving our entire selves over to the thing for as long as the thing means something to us. Reevaluate. Does this still serve me? If not, there’s no shame in quitting. Your identity isn’t tied to your art. Your identity is tied to your generosity and willingness to share.
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You remember quidditch, right? It’s the wizard game at Hogwarts that is sorta like lacrosse and hockey and soccer and capture the flag … but on brooms.
It’s really cool. That said, it’s only cool for so long when it comes to the story.
J.K. Rowling described quidditch matches in great detail early in the series. As did the movies. The movies used them as bigger set pieces early in the run.
But what can you really do with them after the novelty wears off? It’s like any sports book. You might want to recount all the games, all the races, all the events, but what you’ll find is they get very repetitive. They start sounding the same. There’s only so much these games can show the reader or the viewer.
So you need to use them sparingly. Once that novelty wears off, they must only be used to illustrate character and to move the story forward.
Otherwise, you’re left with what I call the Quidditch Problem.
So ask yourself: Am I putting in a game of quidditch because it moves the story forward or because I just think it’s cool?