Lee Gutkind (@LeeGutkind) has returned to the show after a long, long time, this time to talk about his wonderful new book My Last Eight Thousand Days: An American Male in His Seventies (University of Georgia Press).
We talk about a lot of stuff, like voice. Lee says:
Continue reading “Episode 233: Lee Gutkind on Magical Moments, the Rope Test, and ‘My Last Eight Thousand Days’”
For the 30th and final edition of what we have come to know as The Best American Sports Writing series (Best American Paper, or Houghton Mifflin. Harcourt, (Amazon says Best American Paper, HMH’s website says it’s theirs. I don’t know anymore.), 2020), CNFPod bestie Glenn Stout returns to the show to talk about BASW and the evolution of journalism, or the evolution of the medium.
He also has a new book coming out in March: Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America’s Original Gangster Couple. It is available for pre-order.
If you want your fix of Stout, he’s been on the show here, here, and here. All worth listening to. There’s nobody better at distilling what this mess is all about.
Continue reading “Episode 232: Change is the Only Constant with Glenn Stout”
By Brendan O’Meara
“Talent is not enough. You have to have luck. You have to have drive.” —Allie Rowbottom (@allierowbottom)
In this 159th episode of CNF, I welcome Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls: A Family History.
We had a nice time talking about journaling, competition, jealousy, and finding the page as a safe place.
As always, keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod and let me know what you thought of this episode. Share it across your social media profiles and me sure to tag the show so I can jump in the fire with you.
If you’re feeling kind, take a less than five minutes and leave a kind review or rating on Apple Podcasts. With your help, we can reach 100 of them.
Enjoy the show!
By Brendan O’Meara
“The possibilities of doing something similar [to fiction] in nonfiction really did appeal to me.” —Tracy Kidder
“I don’t look for subjects. I look for people.” —Tracy Kidder
Are you riffin’ kiddin’ me!?
By virtue of today’s guest I’m assuming there might be a new CNFer or two to our little marauding gang of turbulent souls in this corner of the Internet.
Welcome. We play heavy metal music, we kick maximum ass, and we will, we will rock you. This is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast (subscribe!), the show where I speak to bad ass tellers of true stories about where they came from, what and who inspires them, and how they approach the work, so that you can apply those tools of mastery to your own work. I’m your mutha-riffin’ host Brendan O’Meara, hey, hey.
Continue reading “Episode 122—Tracy Kidder on Writing Badly and Looking for People Over Subjects”
By Brendan O’Meara
Tweetables from Scott Neumyer (@scottneumyer):
“The more you do, the more apt you are to get an assignment.”
“I want to make something happen and I just work really hard to do it.”
Today’s guest has a voice as smooth as velvet. It’s a voice you want to listen to over and over again and you know what? You can!
Today I welcome Scott Neumyer to the show. Scott is a writer who has been published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, GQ, Esquire, Wired, Men’s Fitness, and many more publications. He is a contributor to the anthology Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Struggles, which Simon Pulse published in 2018. He is also the creator and host of the popular Anxiety Diaries Podcast. He lives in central New Jersey with his wife, two daughters, and two cats.
This is the show where I speak to the best creators about telling true stories, how they’re told, and why it matters so you can apply those tools of mastery to your own work.
Scott has been working hard on his new podcast, Anxiety Diaries, and it’s raw, it’s honest, and it showcases interesting people across the mental health-sphere.
In this episode we dig into his origin as a writer, influential writers, lots about the craft of interviewing, and how to launch a successful podcast.
If you dig the show, please subscribe and leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Joe Rogan (love you Joe!) doesn’t need anymore. I need them. Me. Okay, CNFers, thanks for listening, let’s get right into it.
Thanks for listening CNFers. Thanks again to Hippocamp 2018 for the support. Be sure to use that CNFPOD coupon code to save $50 on your registration fee.
Again, if you’d leave a review on Apple Podcasts, I’ll edit a piece of your writing of up to 2,000 words. Just send me a screenshot and I’ll coach up your writing. That’s only fair.
I Am Royce White
Anxiety Makes the Holidays Harder
The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is sponsored by Hippocamp 2018. Now in its fourth year, Hippocamp is a three-day creative nonfiction writing conference that features 50+ speakers, engaging sessions in four tracks, interactive all-conference panels, author and attendee readings, social activities, networking opps, and optional, intimate pre-conference workshops. The conference takes place in lovely Lancaster, Pennsylvania from Aug. 24 through the 26th.
Visit hippocampusmagazine.com and click the “Conference” tab in the toolbar and if you enter the keyword CNFPOD at checkout you will receive a $50 discount. This offer is only good until Aug. 10 or until all those tickets are sold. There are a limited number so act now!
Hippocamp 2018: Create. Share. Live.
By Brendan O’Meara
Tweetables by Mary Karr (@marykarrlit):
“If I can get through the horribleness of the first draft, I have a chance.”
“I literally do fifty drafts of a poem.”
“Reading was socially sanctioned disassociation.”
Whoa, boy, CNFers, it’s Episode 100 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast. 100? Here for the first time? This is my jam, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories: leaders in narrative journalism, memoir, doc film, radio, and personal essay to tease out tactics, habits, origins, and routines so you can improve your own work. I’m your host Brendan O’Meara. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your pods and share with a fellow CNF Buddy.
Man…Are you serious? 100 episodes and for this special occasion we here at CNF Pod HQ bring you Mary Karr. I’m sure 99.9% of you know who she is, but if you don’t here’s the rundown:
She’s the best-selling author of The Liar’s Club, Cherry, Lit, The Art of Memoir, and five books of poetry, including her latest, Tropic of Squalor published by Harper.
Mary is a professor at Syracuse University and is best known and most responsible for the boom in memoir when The Liar’s Club kicked all our asses and showed us what a personal story could be.
We talked a lot about:
She’s @marykarrlit on Twitter and Facebook and her website is marykarr.com. Be sure to stick through the end of the show where Mary reads two amazing poems from Tropic of Squalor. You don’t want to miss out on that tasty goodness.
If you head over to brendanomeara.com you’ll find show notes as well as a chance to subscribe to my monthly reading list newsletter. And, no, if you click through and buy books I don’t get any kickbacks so you can rest assured that I’m selecting books that I enjoyed and get no compensation for. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat that.
You can also support the podcast by leaving a review on iTunes as that helps our little corner of the internet get a little bit bigger. If you leave an honest review and send me a screenshot, I’ll coach up a piece of your work of up to 2,000 words. No diggity.
That’s gonna do it, CNFers. Here’s to the next 100 CNFin’ shows up in your ears.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by the 2018 Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference. Now in its 6th year, the CNF Writers’ Conference is three days celebrating the art, craft, and business of writing true stories. May 24th through 26th in downtown Pittsburgh. Details at creative nonfiction.org/conference. Listeners of this podcast receive 20% off the registration price by entering coupon code CNFPODCAST during checkout.
Promotional support is provided by Hippocampus Magazine. Its 2018 Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction is open for submissions until July 15th! This annual contest has a grand prize of $1,000 and publication for all finalists. That’s awesome. Visit hippocampusmagazine.com for details. Hippocampus Magazine: Memorable Creative Nonfiction.
Dean Young
Etheridge Knight
Robert Haas
Louise Gluck
Terrance Hayes
By Brendan O’Meara (@BrendanOMeara or @CNFPod)
Tweetables by Jeff Geiger (@j.c.geiger on IG):
“If you’re not doing something that scares you, at least a little bit, then you’re wasting your time artistically.”
“You can be just as successful cutting words as adding.”
“You are the subject and the scientist at the same time.”
So, imagine a candle and it has two wicks, one on the top and one on the bottom. Now picture me lighting the candle at both ends. Do you see this fresh imagery?
It’s almost as if this candle will burn out before its time.
I only wish this represented something.
What’s this? It’s not Friday! What is the meaning of these CNFin’ shenanigans? Well CNFers, I’m going to try and kill myself and do two episodes a week. Is this sustainable? The short answer is, of course, no, but if it can be managed that’s twice as many CNF buddies, twice the reach, twice the insights and double the insanity. Continue reading “Episode 97—Jeff Geiger on Oral Storytelling, Failure, and Fear as Fuel”
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:
Let’s do this.
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
“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 Susan 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””
“You have to be out in the world and engaged in the world.” —Glenn Stout
“The truth always tells a better story.”—Glenn Stout
First off, I’m like WAY behind in blog posts. I have to draw up one for Mary Pilon and Brian Mockenhaupt, but I’ll start with the latest episode and work backwards.
Enter Glenn Stout. [Hear our first interview…here]
His latest book The Selling of the Babe: The Deal That Changed Baseball and Created a Legend (St. Martin’s Press) comes out this week.
I speak to Glenn about dealing with dead people and how he approached a topic that, on its surface, felt saturated.
“You look at what seem to be time-worn topics and almost without fail you find something and you tell a better story, a newer story, a truer story,” says Glenn.
The first 30-35 minutes of the episode deal with the Babe, but the latter part riffs on random stuff.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Antonin Artaud, No More Masterpieces
Rainer Maria Rilke
James Wright
The Poetics of the New American Poetry
Langston Hughes
Michale Graff
Jeremy Collins
Eva Holland
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