Creative Nonfiction Podcast – Page 26 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 95—Mike Sager on the Magical Nature of Creating, Suspending Disbelief, and Preaching Beyond the Choir

The legendary Mike Sager talked about his career doing long features for magazines and newspapers.

Tweetables by Mike Sager (@therealsager):

“That’s the most rare and wonderful element you can have is finding the thing you want to do because then you can just do it.”

“Journalism was a sport. Then it was an art.”

“I have a body of work that’s based on work.”

“I try to have a spoonful of medicine with the sugar.”

“I can’t get on the bandwagon because the bandwagon is gross.”

Hey, today I bring you the incomparable Mike Sager, @therealsager on Twitter. He of The Sager Group. He of the National Magazine Award. He of he talks you listen.

In Episode 95 of the creative nonfiction podcast he talks about his humble start in journalism, suspending disbelief, the power of creating something, and journalism as sport.

His collections of journalism include: The Lonely Hedonist, which includes all new material, Wounded Warriors, The Someone You’re Not, Stoned Again, The Devil and John Holmes, and Revenge of the Donut Boys, which features the iconic profile of Rosanne Barr, a feature that feels timely with the reboot of the show.

Famous articles of Mike’s include “Last Tango in Tahiti,” “The Man Who Never Was,” “I Am Large. I Contain Multitudes,” and about a billion others.

His collections are an education. You wanna be good? You wanna be great? You gotta read Mike’s work, after you listen to this episode of course.

Episode 90—Mary Pilon Brings You “The Kevin Show”

Mary Pilon returns to the podcast to talk about her latest book “The Kevin Show.” Photo credit to Julie Goldstone Koch

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Mary Pilon (@marypilon):

“I can’t think about writing a big project. It’s too overwhelming for me but I can think about a thousand words a day and then this magical thing happens which is you end up with 90,000 words.”

“I think you have to have the basics down as a writer before you can even think about playing with how to tell it. I would say I spend 80 percent of my time on this one reporting and another the other 20 writing.”

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast (subscribe) is the show where I speak to the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction: leaders in narrative journalism, essay, memoir, radio, and documentary film to tease out origins, habits, routines, key influences, mentors, self-doubt, so you can say, ‘Oh, that’s pretty cool. I’m not alone. I’m not a loser.’ And apply those tools of mastery to your own work. Continue reading “Episode 90—Mary Pilon Brings You “The Kevin Show””

Episode 89—Sarah Minor Isn’t Your Typical Writer

Sarah Minor is a writer who works in visual forms, or a visual artist who works in writerly forms. Ah, you’ll just have to listen.

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Sarah Minor (@sarahceniaminor):

“I have to remind myself that I have to be a little nuts to do this. I think all writers have to be a little crazy.”

“Really what I’m always looking to go back to when I read is a book that is very sure of its own voice.”

“I have rarely began with structure.”

Yo. Wanna help the podcast? Leave an honest review on the iTunes, send me proof, and I’ll coach up a piece of your writing of up to 2,000 words OR give you a fancy transcript of any single episode of the podcast you like. That was easy. Let’s go.

It’s that time again, what’s up CNFers, my CNF-buddies, this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast and I am your radio-handsome host Brendan O’Meara. This is the show where I bring you talented creators of nonfiction—leaders in narrative journalism, essay, memoir, radio, and documentary film—and tease out origins, habits, routines, influences, books, mentors—so that you can pick some of their tools of mastery, add it to your cart, and checkout free of charge.

That sounds fun, right?

This week I bring you Episode 89 with Sarah Minor, @sarahceniaminor on Twitter and @sarahcenia on Instagram). She is a professor and a writer and her essay “Threaded Forms: Decentered Approaches to Nonfiction,” looks to knitters, stitchers, and quilting bees to discover new and subversive models for writing memoir.

In this episode we talk about:

Visual Essays
How boredom dictates her direction
Losing voice and finding it
And the ever-present battle of dealing with social media

Let’s do this.

Books Mentioned

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit by Aisha Sabatini Sloan
You Animal Machine by Elena Sikelianosk
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Next American Essay edited by John D’Agata

Documentaries

Tickled

Episode 88—Rachel Corbett says, “Stop Trying So Hard”

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables from Rachel Corbett (@RachelNCorbett):

“There is some advantage to saying nothing and letting people go on forever.”

“It’s usually when you stop trying so hard that you something happens.”

“You have to go away for a few days and then come back and look at it fresh and see what’s magical about the information.”

Hey, there CNF-buddys, I’m comin’ at you live from my shiny new digs. New house up in Eugene and I’ve got a nice little office I can call my own. There’s no foam on the walls yet, so please pardon the audio, but we’re making strides to be the best.

Part of that is me shutting the front door and getting the hell out of the way. I still haven’t quite figured out a way to completely edit myself out of these interviews. But I’m working on it.

Don’t worry…

…

Rachel Corbett joins me this week for Episode 88 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in the world of narrative journalism (like Bronwen Dickey here and here), essay, memoir, radio, and documentary film where I try and tease out origins, habits, routines, mentors, key influences, so you can apply some of their tools of mastery to your own work.

Rachel is a freelance journalist whose work appears in a few rags you might have heard of: The New Yorker, the New York Times, etc. She’s also the author of You Must Change Your Life, The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin.

Rachel hits on some key points about:

Carving out your own niche
How things come easier when you stop trying so hard
Listening vs. talking
Getting away from the work so you can come back refreshed
And the power of being dumb and defeated (some of us were born this way)

So…you dig the show? I ask that you leave an honest rating (10 seconds) or a review (<60 seconds).

A review = an editorial consult/coach sesh of up to 2,000 words

An @CNFPod transcript of you choice.

Merely show me evidence (a screenshot) of your review, and I’ll respond.

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Writers Mentioned

Annie Proulx
Cormac McCarthy
William Gass
Geoff Dyer

Episode 86—Noah Strycker on his Big Year in Birding, Community, and What to Leave Out

Noah Strycker, author of “Birding Without Borders,” hopped on the podcast this week.

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Noah Strycker (@noahstrycker on Twitter and Instagram):

“I had to be pretty brutal about picking out the things I thought were the highlights. 3 1/2 weeks in Columbia was distilled to one or two sentences.”

“The momentum generated its own momentum.”

“I’m not a very fast writer. If I write 500 words in a day I’m pretty happy.”

“My best advice to people who want to write in any capacity. Just do it. Get started. It doesn’t matter where you’re published.”

My guest today for Episode 86 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is Noah Strycker, author of Birding without Borders: An Obsession, A Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World. [Free shipping anywhere in America! via Tsunami Books!] Continue reading “Episode 86—Noah Strycker on his Big Year in Birding, Community, and What to Leave Out”

Episode 84—Adam Valen Levinson: Young and Restless

Adam Valen Levinson is the author of The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah.

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Adam Valen Levinson (@a_v_levinson):

“I made a religion out of indecision.”

“I believe in soup: You stew everything together and then you get real complex flavors and the truth.”

“I’m driven by an emotional connection to what I’m doing.”

It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in the world of narrative journalism, memoir, documentary film, radio, and essay and try tease out the origins and habits so that you can apply those tools of mastery to your own work. Continue reading “Episode 84—Adam Valen Levinson: Young and Restless”

Episode 73—Patsy Sims on Book Research as Mini-education, Not Giving Up, and “The Stories We Tell”

By Brendan O’Meara

“The novel I always wanted to write didn’t have to be fiction.”

“What they gave women was pitiful.”

“Sure, you have everything on the tape recorder, but that’s the beauty of it and it’s up to me to be selective.”

“Transcribing is another point of getting this in your head.”

“I guess the lesson there is perseverance. Not giving up.”

Hey, CNFers, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction. I try and tease out the origins and tactics from leaders in narrative journalism (like S usan Orlean), personal essay (like Elizabeth Rush), memoir (like Andre Dubus III), radio (like Joe Donahue), and documentary film (like Penny Lane), so you can apply their tools of mastery to your own work. Continue reading “Episode 73—Patsy Sims on Book Research as Mini-education, Not Giving Up, and “The Stories We Tell””

Episode 50—Ted Conover’s Deep Dive into Immersion

Author Ted Conover. Photo by Jay Leibold

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Ted Conover:

How could I write a thesis and get out of the library?

What if I’d been a little more cautious? I probably would’ve missed out and I can’t tell you what I’d be doing today. I hate to think about it.

Experience that doubles as research is really cool.

You have to see that team spirit as a tool for learning about people.

When you take notes, you’re writing to yourself. These are notes to the person who’s going to write about this.

If the experience is the raw material, do I have enough to create a finished product?

For the 50th episode of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, we had to go big and that’s what we did.

Ted Conover (@tedconover on Twitter), author of so many books (Rolling Nowhere, Coyotes, Newjack) including his latest Immersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep, joined me to talk about why he wrote the book and how he has employed those tactics for the past 40 years.

“The research you do is determinative, right?” Conover says. “It defines what you’re going to be able to write in many ways.”

Thanks for listening. Please share, subscribe, and leave a review on iTunes.

Episode 47—Shawna Kenney on ‘Zines, Advice, and Finding Your Tribe

By Brendan O’Meara

Tweetables by Shawna Kenney:

“The punk scene became a pre-Internet web of people for me to connect with.”

“Like any reader, I liked that [words] could take me away.”

“I’m much better on the page than I am verbally.”

“I always wanted to be Hunter S. Thompson without the drugs.”

“It’s not like I pitch an outlet and sit there waiting hopefully.”

“There’s no one right way to do your art.”

Shawna Kenney, author, writer, teacher, coach, editor, joins me on The Creative Nonfiction Podcast to talk about her origin story as a teenage fanzine founder, punk rock, and her delightful short essay “Never Call Yourself a Writer, and Other Rules for Writing,” a brilliant piece of satire.

She grew up in a conservative family in small-town Maryland, so the nearby punk scene in Washington D.C. held tremendous appeal. “I always wanted to be Hunter S. Thompson without the drugs,” Shawna tells me.

Her work has such an edge that I was surprised that she didn’t have that edge in conversation. “I’m much better on the page than I am verbally,” she says, which isn’t true at all. She’s great on the page, and she’s a great conversationalist.

Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, the New York Times, Vice, and Playboy, just to name a few. Be sure to follow Shawna on Twitter @ShawnaJKenney and go to her website to read more about her and her work.

Thanks for listening!