Jordan Michael Smith (@WriterJMS) stops by for this month’s extra podcast to celebrate his piece for The Atavist Magazine.
It’s called “The Snitch,” and details the story around the serial killer Scott Kimball, but, more specifically, the mistakes made by the FBI, thus turning this true-crime yarn on its head.
Jordan talks about:
Continue reading “Episode 260: Jordan Michael Smith Spins a True-Crime Yarn for The Atavist”
Lilly Dancyger (@lillydancyger) is here to talk about her new book Negative Space. She also edited the collection Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger.
Negative Space is a detective story as Lilly seeks out her father’s past. He passed away when she was a very young girl. He was a brilliant artists, but tortured by addiction.
Continue reading “Episode 259: Lilly Dancyger on Building Community and Finding Her Father in ‘Negative Space’”
Every now and again you read a book that blows your brains out. Brian Broome‘s (@bbromb) Punch Me Up to the Gods is one of those books.
It deals with identity, Black masculinity, shame, family, oppression, racism, and community. What a book, man, what a book.
We also dig into Brian’s writing process and how he goes about the work.
“I’m the queen of the run-on sentence,” he says.
And the grind of it all.
“I’m the queen of quitting,” he says.
Consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/cnfpod for transcripts and for exclusive access to the audio magazine. Your dollars go into making the production possible and put money in the pockets of writers. Patrons also get a chance to submit questions that I ask of guests and coaching.
Sponsorship for this episode is brought to you by West Virginia Wesleyan College’s MFA in Creative Writing.
Promotional partner is HippoCamp 2021! Go register!
Joe Drape is back to talk about his latest book, The Saint Makers: Inside the Catholic Church and How a War Hero Inspired a Journey of Faith.
Joe is a sports writer for The New York Times covering college football and horse racing, among other feature assignments.
In this episode we talk about diagramming stories the way you would diagram a sentence and
Joe is the author of several books including American Pharoah, Our Boys, and Black Maestro.
I want to give a shoutout to Hippocamp 2021! It is happening! Registration opens May 15. It’s a writers’ conference for CNFers like you. Check it out.
Maddy Crowell comes by the show to talk about her new piece for The Atavist Magazine titled “Invisible Kid.”
I also speak with Jonah Ogles, the lead editor of this piece, and Ed Johnson, the designer who led the way in the redesign.
This episode is packed with goodness, much like its Atavistian predecessors in Scott Eden, Phil Hoad, and Lindsay Jones.
Consider subscribing to The Atavist and its once-a-month blockbuster piece of narrative nonfiction. Once a month, can’t beat it … sounds like my newsletter!
Anyway …
We dig into a lot of might juice, and I hope it brightens up your day and wherever you are on your writer journey.
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.
By Brendan O’Meara
Ximena Vengoechea is here to talk about her new book Listen Like You Mean It: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection (Portfolio).
I’ll be honest … this book made me realize what a horrible listener I am. For real.
But I put on my big-boy pants and started applying many of the tools in this wonderful book.
So far as self-helpy-type books go, Ximena’s is right up there with Seth Godin’s The Practice and Annie Duke’s How to Decide.
Continue reading “Episode 249: Ximena Vengoechea on Life Audits, Listener Drain, and Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection”
“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”
By Brendan O’Meara
How’s this for a pull quote from Jason Naylor (@jasonnaylor on Instagram):
How do you find your style? How do you find your voice. And the truth is, I think that you don’t find it until you stop trying to find it. You just make work. If you’re a writer, you just keep writing. If you draw, then you just keep drawing, and the more you do it, you start to see patterns, you start to see a rhythm in what you’re doing. And then one day you look back and you realize, ‘Oh, I actually I can see that I have a voice.’
How brilliant is that?
Continue reading “Episode 247: Jason Naylor, In Living Color”
She’s a freelancer and she is not a struggling freelancer in the ways that many of us identify as a struggling freelancer, which is to say: we po’.
Jenni, @jenni_gritters, along with her co-pilot on The Writers’ Co-op Podcast Wudan Yan, are thriving. Through strategy and rigor, Jenni is a six-figure earner, this during the pandemic, this when many writers are struggling to make a go of it.
She turned her skill into money, which allows her to double down on her skill and do more projects that are more personal-driven.
I like to think of some content/branded writing gigs like when Jake Gyllenhaall does a blockbuster movie so that he can then do the art-house stuff he probably wants to do. Book your Marvel movie, then go write your memoir. Haha.
Continue reading “Episode 246: Jenni Gritters on the Freelance Life, Not Waiting for Perfect, and Sh*t Sandwiches”