By Brendan O’Meara
Betsy Golden Kellem (@bgkellem) is an attorney, a historian, and a “scholar of the unusual.”
Her piece, “City on Fire,” chronicles “the night violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of Manhattan” … in 1864. It’s a wild piece that shows how history has a way of feeling very fresh.
Continue reading “Episode 432: Betsy Golden Kellem, Scholar of the Unusual, Closet Historian, Atavist Writer”
My first rough draft is my outline. That’s what I’m learning about myself. My first drafts are very rough. It’s literally a dump from my head of what I want to say how I want to say it, how I think it should be structured.
Tyler Hooper, Ep. 368
Hi there, CNFers, we’ve got Tyler Hooper (@thooper8) in the house to talk about his piece “The Titanic of the Pacific” for The Atavist Magazine.
Tyler cites the great Erik Larson as an influence and you can feel the pulse of that throughout this nautical-disaster piece about the sinking and tragedy surrounding The Valencia. Tyler writes a bit of the backstory at his Medium page here.
Tyler is a writer, podcaster, and storyteller living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. He has a master’s degree in history and has worked as a journalist.
In this episode we talk about :
Continue reading “Episode 368: Tyler Hooper”
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”
By Brendan O’Meara
Hey CNFers, welcome to CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast, the show where I usually speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I say usually because this week I don’t have a guest.
Booooo…
Hey, hey, hey before you start hurling tomatoes up that the stage, hear me out. My guest this week wasn’t feeling good so we had to reschedule. You might be like, “BO, thought you had some of these in the can. Get your house in order.” And yes, in an ideal world I have a few in the can, but you’d be surprised how many of these interviews are done the week of and packaged soon thereafter.
I could’ve scrambled for a guest but I wanted to try something new. I don’t think this’ll be a regular thing in the podcast feed. I DO think it’ll be a normal thing for the Patreon crew so consider heading to patreon.com/cnfpod to support the podcast to get special podcasts like this one you’re about to hear.
So what’s the deal? In an effort to up the production value and to make the show seem a little bit more zippy, I’ve always been inspired by the structure of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Here are these episodes that focus on one guest, they film all day, so hours and hours of footage, for what, 15 minutes of final product? What must that edit be like?
Continue reading “Episode 308: The Year the Mountain of Manure Was Hit by a Flood”
Glenn Stout returns for his fifth time to the podcast, this time to talk about his thrilling new book The Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America’s First Gangster Couple.
The book takes us to the 1920s, a time when wars were supposed to be a thing of the past, a pandemic wiped across the globe, and veterans coming from the Great War had little support at home. I’m glad all those things are a relic of the 20th century.
Continue reading “Episode 251: Glenn Stout Brings to Life The Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America’s First Gangster Couple”
Catherine Grace Katz, author of The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War, joins me to talk about her new book.
You can find her @Catherine_Katz on Twitter.
Catherine graduated from Harvard with a BA in history in 2013. She earned an MPhil in modern European history from Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge in 2014, and now is pursuing her JD at Harvard Law School.
You could say she was punching down in class coming by to speak with me.
She joins the ranks of several historians who have been on the show like Laura Hillenbrand, Bob Batchelor, and James Carl Nelson, to name a few.
We talk about her upbringing in Chicago and how stories were such an early part of her life, her dissertation on modern counterintelligence, research, and her Bookshelf for the Apocalypse. All great stuff.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across the Big Three and consider leaving the show a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Drop me a line if you have questions, want me to work with you on your book or essay, or you just want to say hello.
A Gentleman in Moscow
Emma
Anne Green Gables
The Martian
To Kill a Mockingbird
In Command of History
Brendan does not get a kickback for any book sales via affiliate links. This is why he fails.
This episode is sponsored by Scrivener, by writers for writers.
Want the transcript to this episode?! PayPal brendan at brendan omeara dot com $5 and I’ll send you the PDF!
“But there was a sense that I had let down my younger self and ought to find a way to make writing at least in some way, a part of my part of my life.” — Stephanie Gorton.
Stephanie Gorton (@sdgortonwords) is the author of Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America. It’s a ripping-good yarn.
In this conversation we talk about her Page Turner piece for New Yorker dot com about an H.P. Lovecraft conference in Providence, her home city. We riff on what it was like for her to go from publishing to writing. We talk about the social media and why anyone with platform would trust a journalist with their stories. It’s good, clean fun.
Keep the conversation going on social media by linking up the show and tagging it @CNFPod.
This podcast was sponsored in part by Scrivener, made by writers for writers! It’s also sponsored by Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry.
Be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to my monthly newsletter for book recommendations, writing tips, and what you might’ve missed from the world of the podcast. You’re also entered to win books. What’s not to like?! Sign up below.
“These guys were screaming at me from beyond the grave.” —Bob Batchelor (@CultPopCulture)
“I worked to write the longest screenplay possible.” —Bob Batchelor
By Brendan O’Meara
Here we are again, CNFers! What’s new?
We’ve got Bob Batchelor here talking about The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius (Diversion Books)
Crazy story, a story that partly inspired The Great Gatsby, perhaps, maybe.
I hope you check it out.
We dig into lots of great things: How John Updike showed Bob the way, singing a kind of Pennsylvania song, and dealing with a real rotten teacher who made Bob’s life miserable until he got out from under her and made something of himself with mentors who saw his potential in college. It’s a great story.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod. And, if you’re feeling kind, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I hope I’ve made something worth sharing, so please share it with your own network.
By Brendan O’Meara
“The more you can immerse yourself in a story the better you can write about it.” —Julian Smith (@julianwrites)
“You gotta fall in love with your subject and sometimes people have to pull you out.” —Julian Smith (juliansmith.com)
Julian Smith is a freelance journalist covering science, conservation, and adventure for publications like Smithsonian, Wired, Outside, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Traveler, and The Washington Post.
He co-authored Aloha Rodeo with David Wolman, a fellow journalist he worked with before on this Epic Magazine piece about two warring ice cream trucks. It’s…epic.
Julian is also the author of Crossing the Heart of Africa and Smokejumper.
“For a writer, ignorance and curiosity are a magical combination.” —Philip Gerard
“I always tell my students if you can’t find it, you don’t have it.” —Philip Gerard
Hey, CNFers, I’m thrilled to welcome back Philip Gerard. Philip joined me nearly 120 episodes ago and it’s great to have him back to talk about his latest book The Last Battleground: The Civil War Comes to North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
His historical novel, Cape Fear Rising, is celebrating its 25th anniversary, so we dive into that as well. It is published by Blair.
Philip is also an accomplished musician and recorded this song and video as a trailer for The Last Battleground. Check it out:
Be sure to subscribe to show, CNFers, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. I make this show for you, so I’d deeply appreciate it if you shared it across your social channels. If you have a spare moment, leaving a rating or review helps with the show’s packaging. Helps validate the entire enterprise.
You can join me on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod, Instagram @cnfpod, and Facebook @CNFPodcast. If you tag me or the show I’ll be able to give you digital fist bumps.
Too many to list! So visit this link to browse.