Ten years.
Ten years since “20 Minutes at Rucker Park” by Flinder Boyd (@FlinderBoyd) for SB Nation Longform for the incomparable editor Glenn Stout.
It felt like a good time to knock on Flinder’s door and have a conversation about what the past ten years has been like for him and what the next ten might look like.
Continue reading “Episode 355: Flinder Boyd”
Are you holding onto a railing? OK, good, Isaac Fitzgerald (@IsaacFitzgerald) is here, CNFers! He’s the author of the incredible memoir-in-essays Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional (Bloomsbury).
Isaac is a frequent contributor on The Today Show, offering book recommendations to the masses. His CV has The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, BuzzFeed Books, among others. He’s also the author of How to be a Pirate, Pen and Ink, and Knives and Ink.
Continue reading “Episode 353: Isaac Fitzgerald”Become a Patron!View on Zencastr
Blink and you might miss Lauren Fleshman (@laurenfleshman). She’s a champion runner and the author of Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World (Penguin Press).
Her new book explores how broken our athletics systems are as they relate to women. By overlaying the female experience over the man’s construct (speak nothing of trans athletes, which is whole other ball of wax for another day), Lauren unpacks what a disservice that is for young women.
Lauren can officially boast that her book is a New York Times best seller, which is pretty bad ass. She wrote the book herself without a ghost writer, so, mad props. And in this episode we talk about:
Continue reading “Episode 352: Lauren Fleshman”Become a Patron!
By Brendan O’Meara
You’re in for a treat because Damon Brown is back on the show!
Damon’s laundry list of accolades and books and projects is too long to type. Too long, CNFers. But! He’s awfully proud (and he should be!) of his YouTube show Bring Your Worth. He’s got 300 episodes and counting.
Damon’s also the author of Career Remix: Get the Gig You Want with the Skills You’ve Got.
Continue reading “Episode 350: Damon Brown”
It’s that Atavistian time of the month! This time we speak with Madeline Bodin, a freelance journalist based out of Vermont.
Her piece “The Curious Case of Nebraska Man” is the story of a fossilized tooth that spurs the debate over evolution and creationism and, as often happens in this country, pins science into a corner where it must be defended again, again, and again.
In this pod, I also speak with editor-in-chief Seyward Darby. Sidebar: She has a new piece in The Guardian about abused beagles. Is there nothing she can’t do? Maybe play drums …
Continue reading “Episode 349: Madeline Bodin”That took a long time, didn’t it? At long last, Issue 3 of the audio magazine is here on the theme HEROES!
Big ups to our contributors who made the issue to those who submitted who didn’t make it into the final product.
Here’s a little bit of information from each of the writers:
Continue reading “Audio Magazine Issue 3: Heroes”
It’s been a long time since we featured a writer from the Pipe Wrench Magazine roster, so it was it nice to welcome Emily Fox Kaplan to CNF Pod HQ to talk about her piece “Searching for Zarahemla.”
It’s a trippy travel piece that has a very David Foster Wallace vibe to it, though Emily hasn’t read any DFW. Just as well. Far be it from me to be a the bro to say, ‘You gotta read him.’
But read his tennis writing …
Continue reading “Episode 347: Emily Fox Kaplan”
Hey CNFers, Lyndsie Bourgon (@lbourgon) is here to talk about Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods (Little Brown Spark).
This was a nice conversation that dug into the serendipity of reporting, getting our heads around organizing research, as well as the cultural identity that’s tied to logging and how that leads to timber poaching, a $1 billion “industry” in the U.S.
Continue reading “Episode 346: Lyndsie Bourgon”
By Brendan O’Meara
Rachel Dickison is here to talk about her new book The Loneliest Places: Loss, Grief, and the Long Journey Home. It’s is published by Three Hills Press.
No way to sugar coat what this book deals with: Rachel’s son Jack died by suicide in 2012. He was 17. And this book stays within the boundaries of Rachel’s experience, her headspace, her grief.
Yes, her three daughters and her husband were deeply affected by this tragedy, but you won’t hear from them much, not really until the end of the book where Rachel interrogates her selfishness and withdrawal and, in some cases, abandonment. It would be easy to judge Rachel in this book, even her editor wondered how “likeable” she was as a character and that speaks to how honest Rachel was about her processing of this unthinkable experience.
This is something I’ve never done before, but I think it should be brought up, as I have heard other podcasts do this. If you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts and may harm themselves, call or text 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988. This will route people to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline where they can speak with a trained counselor.
Continue reading “Episode 344: Rachel Dickinson”
You know this, CNFers, always nice when we can welcome a guest back. So here’s Kristina R. Gaddy, back with her new book Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History (Norton).
We talk about the late Philip Gerard, what she learned from Book 1 to Book 2, structure, and why do we even write books?
You could say I’m souring on writing books but like everything in my life I’m sure it’ll pass and I’ll be back to saying writing books is the ONLY thing that matters.
Continue reading “Episode 343: Kristina R. Gaddy”