hanif abdurraqib – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 404: Hanif Abdurraqib’s Nod to Witnessing in ‘There’s Always This Year’

Kinda crazy, right? That someone like Hanif Abdurraqib (@nifmuhammad) would agree to be on this little podcast, which just turned eleven on March 20.

Hanif needs next-to-no introduction, but here’s a little bit about him. His book A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance was a finalist for the National Book Award. He’s the author of the essay collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and the poetry collections A Fortune for Your Disaster and The Crown Ain’t Worth Much. His latest book is There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Random House).

It’s a masterpiece; Hanif is a masterpiece.

In this conversation, we talk about productivity, envy, specificity, intentionality, and a nod to witnessing. It’s great stuff, great talk.

Episode 394: Athena Dixon is OK with the Plateau

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By Brendan O’Meara

Look who’s back! It’s Athena Dixon! Her latest book (as of 2023) is The Loneliness Files: A Memoir in Essays. It’s published by Tin House and edited by Hanif Abdurraqib.

It’s a quiet book, but don’t mistake that for meek. And we talk about the quiet authority of her book as well as:

Athena being OK with the plateau
Setting a concrete vision for your goals as a writer
How Hanif helped her with throat clearing
And how she edits clients without losing their voices

I Hate Author Readings (And How to Fix Them)

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Want some suds? Visit athleticbrewing.com and use promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout. I don’t get money, just points toward swag and beer.

By Brendan O’Meara

Maybe it’s my ADHD, but when it comes to author readings, I can’t focus. I can’t stay engaged no matter how hard I try. There are any number of reasons why they suck. Let’s dispense with, perhaps, my own shortcomings as an audience member, someone with a pathological inability to not drift off or fall asleep while in an audience. But in my defense, few writers are skilled in performance. You’re a writer! You work in the quiet hours! You prefer the quiet! And now you’re being asked to turn it on? Whose idea was this, anyway?

But OK set aside how bad readings are for a moment. We must attend them because OK here’s the cynicism YOU WANT PEOPLE TO ATTEND YOURS and you’re not an asshole, are you? We work hard to not be assholes in this biz.