This was a fun book, especially if you like Malcolm Gladwell-style books that orbit one idea. This book takes you all over the place, not just basketball, so I think you’ll have a lot of fun with it. If I didn’t already put in the last newsletter, I’ll be sure to include it in the next one.
In any case, don’t forget that we’re putting out our very first audio-mag on the theme: Social Distancing, essays from/on isolation. They must be 2,000 words or fewer (that’s a 15-minute read) and be original work. Email you submission to creative nonfiction podcast at gmail dot com, ya dig?
That’s as good a time as any to say that I’m thinking of all you out there. Some have it pretty rough. I can’t complain. I have shelter, food, clothes and a job (for now) that lets me work from home. And I’ve got this podcast that I get to make for you.
This show only work if you share it hand to hand. Be an Ambassador CNFer and spread what we’re doing around. @CNFPod on all the social platforms.
“Selection is as creative as generation,” says Michael Schulman on the podcast.
Michael Schulman is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of Her Again, a biography of the early life of Meryl Streep. Go check it out. I haven’t read it yet, as I came to Michael’s work through his profiles in The New Yorker.
As coincidence would have it, once I had lined up Michael to be on the show, he appeared on This American Life during the introduction to the Everyone’s a Critic show.
In any case, it was Michael’s profile on James Cordon that prompted me to reach out, but I also loved his work on Adam Driver and Bo Burnham as well.
In this show we talk about how his work is driven by joy, how he boils down each story down to a single, secret word, and how his background in theater led to his break at the magazine. Some great stuff here.
Follow the podcast on social media @CNFPod across all the various platforms and sign up for that newsletter.
And did you listen to the long introduction to this episode yet? I’m publishing the first CNF Pod audio magazine with the theme Social Distancing: Essays from/of Isolation. Word limit is 2,000 as we want the reading to be 15 minutes or less. Email submissions to creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com. DEADLINE IS MAY 1, 2020.
In this time of social distancing and isolation, hearing essays from this challenging time can bring us together. I hope you’ll submit your best work. I’d be honored to publish it three or four of however many submissions I receive.
OK, readyyyyyy, break!
PS: I’m having technical difficulties uploading photographs, so that’s why you haven’t seen author photos for the past few episodes. Hoping the host I pay money to will figure it out.
Hey, CNFers, citizens of CNF Nation! We’ve got Allison Fallon here for you. She offers brilliant insights into following your calling and finding your voice.
She’s the author of several books, most recently Indestructible.
Allison has taken control of her writing journey and I think you’ll find some juicy nuggets to apply to your life. Good stuff.
We met at HippoCamp 2019 and got to talking about a lot of the themes that you’ve come to love from this little podcast. Jeanette Hurt was also with us at the bar. Actually, I was with them since they’ve been creative partners for years and they co-talked a talk about earning money while you sleep. Passive Writer is the book they co-authored about it. Good stuff.
They were really sweet and attended my train wreck of a presentation. More on that another time.
Make sure you sign up for Damon’s newsletter, after mine 😉 and follow him on Twitter @browndamon.
Ander Monson wrote a killer essay for True Story titled “My Monument.” He also edits DIAGRAM and runs a series of essay contests and competitions. He’s what you’d call a great literary citizen.
We talk his essay and a lot of other cool junk.
I love it when I have nearly instant chemistry with someone, and that was certainly the case with Ander. I only wish we had more time!
If you have any questions or concerns (you might after listening to my intro. Don’t worry. Things are cool. #riesling email the show creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com. You may also find the show on Twitter, IG and Facebook, all @CNFPod.
If this show matters to you, please share with your CNFin’ friends and consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your pods and to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. Social media is @CNFPod, though, as many of you know, I’ve scaled back quite a bit on this.
I’m no dad, nor will I ever be one, but I’m a son, and I’d read about bricklaying if Tim O’Brien’s name is attached to it. This book is so expansive and tender and prescriptive without being didactic. It’s about reading, writing, fatherhood, sonhood, marriage, struggle, triumph, demons. It’s about Tim.
Remember, if you enjoy the show, consider linking up to it on social media and leaving a kind review over on Apple Podcasts.
And also be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter. I’ve scaled back social media (@CNFPod across the Big Three), but the newsletter is the real thing, the real one-to-one connection I’m after.
Hey, there’s a services tab up there, but you can go there now. I’d be honored to help you with your work. It’s time to level up you work and I want to help.
You might be wondering, what the riff? Why isn’t there an interview in this slot right now?
Well, this happens, at times, when people cancel on me or miss their appointment and my scrambling to fill the time slot comes up empty. In the creative vaccum that is the time in and around Christmas and New Years, it’s often a losing battle.
My advice to you is, maybe check out some of the interviews that have accumulated in your feed. There’s no shortage. A new interview will be here next week with Kristina Gaddy, and we’ve got exciting ones coming down the pipeline with Tim O’Brien, Pamela Coloff and Rachel Aviv, just to name a few.
Also, in my effort to better serve you, the listener, I’d love to know what I could be doing to better address your needs as a creator in this genre. Do you like the origin questions? Do you like the tactical stuff? Would you like things to stay the same? Am I hitting the right beats that make you energized about your own work? This podcast is for you. I make this for you. Without you there is no CNF. I want to make a show worth sharing and it’s only worth sharing if you are able to add those valuable insights to your cart and check out better for it. So please email the show creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail . com or brendan at brendanomeara . com with your insights. It doesn’t have to be long, but as the show enters its eighth year, I want to make sure I haven’t lost touch with the people who matter most: you.
But this is also a time for me to share a great quote from Charles Bukowski about writing and it goes to the heart of what I think it means to be a writer and an artist.
He writes,
Too many writers write for the wrong reasons. They want to get famous or they want to get rich or they want to get laid by the girls with bluebells in their hair. When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.
He goes on … then says:
It was cancer madness. And it was never work or planned or part of a school. It was. That’s all. We work too hard. We try too hard. Don’t try. Don’t work. It’s there. It’s been looking right at us, aching to kick out the closed womb. It’s all free, we needn’t be told. Classes? Classes are for asses. Writing a poem is as easy as beating your meat or drinking a bottle of beer.
So, as we approach this new year, maybe we don’t need to overthink it. We don’t need permission from anyone. We don’t need another online class from a “master” who, by the way, didn’t need an online class to do the work she’s so famous for. If we approach the work with generosity and rigor, and put our best word forward every time, then that’s the victory.
When four guys in northern california got together and started playing heavy metal music, sure, they had dreams of going out on the road, but it always about the music in that garage. Those guys, give or take because one got booted out of the band and one died in a bus crash, made it because they had always made it.
We make it in this business when we decide. There’s no arrival. Malcolm Gladwell is jealous of Michael Lewis.
So, we make it when we decided to arrive. I hope you decide right now to own it. Own the title. Own your shitty work. It won’t be shitty for long.
I wish you the best arrival in 2020 and beyond. Let’s get after it this year.
Sonia Hamer is here to talk about her essay “Pig: An Essay,” an installment of Creative Nonfiction’s True Story.
This is a nice tight 30, which I’m starting to like more and more.
She talks about how writing essays is a lot like putting ingredients into a Crock-Pot, or making a soup. Reminds me of Adam Valen Levinson when he came by.
