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”
“I do a lot of encouraging people to journal and to just write it out, sing it out, dance it out, whatever you need to do,” says Carolyn Holbrook, author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify: Essays (University of Minnesota Press).
Continue reading “Episode 241: Carolyn Holbrook and the Indispensable Nature of Writing and Teaching”By Brendan O’Meara
David Duchovny, the author, actor, musician, recently said about himself when he was young, “I had a way with words with nothing to say.”
There are any number of people who can write a nice sentence, maybe even in the MFA programs where they think beauty or lyricism can carry the day.
Fact is, if you don’t live a life on which to make art, you won’t have anything to say.
And you don’t need trauma in your life to have something to say. Someone recently told me that they were writing an essay and they said it wasn’t going to be personal since there wasn’t any trauma in the piece.
I resisted saying that a piece does not have to be traumatic to be a personal story. In fact, I appreciate the skill it takes to make something seemingly innocuous into a compelling story.
That isn’t to devalue the trauma, but you don’t need to trauma to make things interesting.
The technique will come. All you need is to live a life worth writing about.
It’s been a long time coming, but, at long last, here is the inaugural Creative Nonfiction Podcast Audio Magazine!
The essays take you to edges of isolation and what that means to these five brilliant contributors.
I’m very proud of this, and I’m thrilled to keep improving the product and developing it.
As you know, this is the show where I usually speak to badass writers about the art and craft of telling true stories. So it’s my esteemed pleasure to bring you true stories on the feed.
Now, this inaugural issue will forever be free for all, but subsequent issues will only be available for members in the Patreon community. The first tier grants you exclusive access to the 2021 audio mag, which I hope will publish around June/July. The new theme and submission guidelines are at the end of this audio mag. Very exciting!
You’ll want to keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod and let me know what you think of this exciting enterprise.
Continue reading “Audio Magazine Issue No. 1: Isolation”
Elisa Gabbert is back, baby.
She’s got a new book out called The Unreality of Memory (FSG, 2020). It’s a killer collection of disaster essays and what we’ve come to expect from Elisa, which is to say deeply intellectual, observant, incredibly researched with just a dash of the personal.
As always, be sure you’re subscribed to this podcast wherever you listen and consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across the big three. I’ll be emerging from my social media detox soon since I finished the latest draft of my memoirvel.
If you have questions or just want to say hello to the show, click on the appropriate button, leave a message, and I’ll be sure to address the best questions I get. Don’t be shy 🙂
I brought back the Bookshelf for the Apocalypse, a CNF Pod deep cut of how I’d ask guests what books were so important to them that they’d pack them in their survival pack for the end of the world. You have that to look forward to towards the end of the show. Enjoy, friend.
Moby Dick
Howards End
Collection of John Ashbery’s work
Collection of Susan Sontag’s early work
The Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Word Pretty
The Self Unstable
L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems
Stepping up to the plate this week is Melissa Faliveno (@melissafaliveno), author of Tomboyland, a collection of essays published by Topple Books.
It’s a love letter to her midwest roots and the topics are so wide ranging, yet have this connective tissue that once you’re in the thick of reading it you like “How the fuck did she do this?”
Seriously.
In this episode we talk about how she finds the groove, her workspace, the books she keeps on her desk, softball, BDSM, and F5 tornados.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across them all. If you feeling kind, link up to the show and consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. A complimentary editing consult awaits you: Just screenshot your review, email it to the show, and I’ll reach back out.
You’ll also want to subscribe to my monthly newsletter that goes on the first of the month. Book recommendations, cool articles, podcasts, and what you might have missed from the world of this podcast. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Melissa’s work has appeared in Bitch magazine, the Millions, Prairie Schooner, Isthmus, DIAGRAM, Midwestern Gothic, and Green Mountains Review. She’s a Best American Essays notable writer as well.
Please enjoy this conversation, friend.
Ruby McConnell is here.
She’s @rubygonewild across the socials. She and I jam a bit on Twitter, so I’ll link up to that. Here.
Ruby’s got a new book out: Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of a Life (Overcup Press, 2020).
It’s a damn good book and I’ll take you to the woodshed if you think otherwise.
Sorry.
Feeling aggressive.
Ruby is also the author of A Woman’s Guide to the Wild.
We had a pretty rad conversation where we talk about how dance taught her the discipline it takes to be a writer and how geology is a, perhaps, the most writerly science. She’s a native Oregonian and a fellow Eugenian and, I don’t know, I had about as good a time as I’ve ever had on this show with Ruby.
Be sure you’re subscribed to the show wherever you get your pods and if you’re feeling kind, leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts. They’ve stalled and it’d be nice to crest that 100-rating threshold.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all @CNFPod. And if you sign up for the newsletter, you’re automatically — and perpetually — entered in a raffle to win books. I give out reading recommendations and news you might have missed from the world of the podcast. It’s fun. You’ll dig it.
Hey, CNFers, Kristina Gaddy (@kgadz) is here to drop some sick riffs on the craft. She’s also here to talk about her new book Flowers in the Gutter: The True Story of the Teenagers Who Fought the Nazis. I know, right? So selfish.
This was a fun one as we dig into her reading habits, her writing routine, her obsession with that writing software, and her passion for research.
Be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter, up there, down there, pop up.
What else? You can join the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
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.
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.
I hope you enjoy this final episode of 2019.
“Time is doing so much work.” — Elisa Gabbert (@egabbert)
Here we are again, friend. Elisa Gabbert is here to talk about how she comes up with her ideas for essays and not being afraid to cast a book aside because there’s so little time to waste time not finding a mind-blowing book.
You can pre-order her new book, which comes out in August 2020. We don’t talk about what it is, but you can still pre-order the thing. The Unreality of Memory.
We talk about her essay collection The Word Pretty, quite a bit, and how she goes about the work while having a full-time job in a non-writing field. It’s good stuff.
You might want to pair this episode with Elena Passarello or Leslie Jamison or Natalie Singer.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. It’s all @CNFPod. I’d love to hear from you.