Katie Baker is a staff writer for The Ringer and damn good writer.
By Brendan O’Meara
“Working outside of journalism before working in journalism can be a useful thing in terms of seeing how the world works.” —Katie Baker (@katiebakes)
Hey there, CNFers, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories, whether that’s narrative journalists, documentary filmmakers, essay and memoir writers and radio producers, I try unpack their lives and their work so you can apply those tools of mastery to your own work.
Here we are again, welcome to The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories. I’m Brendan O’Meara.
I gotta say right up top that there’s been some serious issues with my hosting, Podomatic for those in the know, with the RSS Feeds. Shows are coming up unavailable in Apple Podcasts and it disappeared from Google Play and Stitcher. They say they’re on it, but it’s been three days with no improvement.
You can still stream the episodes from the embedded player on my website, brendanomeara.com, but in the meantime, downloading through the most popular and widely used platform—Apple Podcasts—is impossible until Podomatic gets it fixed. You might say I’ve been shopping around for other options.
Episode 104 brings back Elizabeth Rush to the podcast. Her new book Rising: Dispataches from the New American Shore (Milkweed Editions) is out. She could be coming to a city near you so check the show notes for the Rising Tour. I think that’s what Bruce Springsteen called his tour when his Rising came out. In this episode we talk about:
Rising sea levels
How to turn bleak material into something beautiful
How Elizabeth finds teaching energizing
And sexual harassment while doing fieldwork, something she’s never been asked about and was happy to get to talk about.
So that’s where we’re at. Please bear with me on the RSS nonsense. If you follow the social feeds, that links you up to my website so go find @CNFPod and @BrendanOMeara on Twitter and @CNFPodcast on Facebook. Follow Elizabeth @ElizabethaRush on Twitter for all things Rising.
Here she is: Episode 104.
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.
If you made it this far I suspect you might like the show and want to help it out. Would you mind leaving an honest review on Apple Podcasts? That helps with validation and visibility. Let’s try and get to 100. We’re 57 ratings away at the moment. If a small fraction of you take out your phones, click on the star you deem appropriate, hit submit, that’s all you gotta do and you will have helped out the show in a major way. That takes like 10 seconds, if you want to leave a review, I will still edit a piece of writing up to 2,000 words for your kindness and time. Just send me a screenshot of the review with the date and we’ll get started.
I also have a great monthly reading list newsletter where I send out four book recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. I don’t get any kickbacks or anything, so it’s just things I dig and endorse for your pleasure. First of the month. No Spam. Can’t beat that.
“I think the real trick is telling stories chronologically, letting them unfold as they really happened.”
“I’d rather find the story and excavate it than make it up.”
“I think every story is a struggle and a puzzle.”
It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I talk to the best artists about telling true stories and tease out origins, tactics, and habits so you can apply those tools of mastery to your own work.
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.
“Anybody who goes into journalism for fame or fortune or awards right off the bat I write off as an idiot.”
“The pipeline has changed.”
“I think it took two years to be comfortable with freelancing.”
Okay, so what’s the meaning of this? Mary Pilon again? For one I could listen to 52 episodes of Mary, but when we recorded I spliced the interview in two parts to shorten it and I’m glad I did at this point because my guest this week cancelled. What’s the lesson kids? Get interviews in the can. When I can it’s brilliant. Can’t always happen. Continue reading “Episode 91—Mary Pilon’s Freelance Rumspringa and the Best Advice She Got from David Carr”
“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.”
“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…
…
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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
Working with Prolematic Writers and How Not to be One
Mercenary Writing
And what she learned working with New Yorker editor David Remnick
How she organizes her titanic feats of research and much more
People are taking advantage of my free hour of editorial work and coaching, about a $50 value. Want in? All you have to do is leave an honest review on iTunes and have it postmarked by the end of December. Send me a screenshot of your review and you’ll be on your way. Reviews validate the podcast and increase its visibility so we can reach more CNFin’ people. I’m not even asking for a 5-star review, merely an honest one because that comes from a more authentic place.
All right, enough of my stupid face, time to hear from Louisa Thomas, thanks for listening.
I also have a monthly newsletter where I send out my book recommendations and what you might have missed from the podcast. Head over to brendanomeara.com to subscribe. There you’ll also find show notes to all the episodes of the podcast. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
