narrative – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 443: Jared Sullivan and the Subtle Art of the Cold Call

Promotional support is brought to you by the Power of Narrative Conference, celebrating its 26th year on the last weekend of March 28 and 29. 300-400 journalists from around the world are coming. Keynote speakers Susan Orlean, Connie Schultz, and Dan Zak will deliver the knowledge. Listeners of this podcast can get 15% off your enrollment fee by using the code CNF15. To learn more visit combeyond.bu.edu … and use that CNF15 code.

https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/

https://brendanomeara.com/episode-281-susan-orlean-tackles-ledes-generating-story-ideas-and-on-animals/

By Brendan O’Meara

Jared Sullivan is here. https://jared-sullivan-kisp.squarespace.com/about

He is the author of Valley So Low: One Lawyer’s Fight for Justice in the Wake of America’s Great Coal Catastrophe. It’s published by Knopf.

https://bookshop.org/book/9780593321119

Jared’s book has gotten a prime review in The New York Times and was one of those four featured books in a recent issue of The New Yorker. You know the Briefly Noted section toward the back. It doesn’t matter what issue. What matters is that it was THERE.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/books/review/valley-so-low-jared-sullivan.html

Episode 442: Steven Hyden Revisits Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

We’ve got Steven Hyden today (@steven_hydenwriter on IG). He returns to the show to talk about There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springtseen’s ‘Born in the USA’ and the End of the Heartland. It is published by Hachette Books.

Episode 441: Seth Wickersham Gets Them Out of the Building

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

Seth Wickersham (@seth.wickersham on IG) didn’t always want to be a sports writer, but he found his way to it by being a high school quarterback, covering the University of Missouri Tigers, and “crashing the party” at the Super Bowl with fellow writers Wright Thompson and Justin Heckert.

This episode was a chance to revisit his amazing story on its ten-year anniversary, “Awakening the Giant,” about Y.A. Tittle. Seth also is the author of It’s Better to be Feared about the New England Patriots dynasty, a book twenty years in the making. He’s a senior writer for ESPN.com and often collaborates with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Don Van Natta Jr. — he of The Sunday Long Read — on deeply reported pieces on the NFL.

Episode 440: How to be a Truffle Pig with Kate McQueen

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

It’s that Atavistian time of the month, and we’ve got Kate McQueen on loan from the Pollen Initiative to talk about “The Good Traitor,” how a group of journalists in Nazi Germany sought to free one of their own from a concentration by means of … winning him the Nobel Peace Prize. Where do people find these stories?

Kate has a Ph.D. in literature from Stanford University and a master’s in journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She’s the editorial director of the Pollen Initiative, “a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating media centers inside prisons across the country.”

Episode 439: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith Bring a Graphic Interpretation of “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” to Life

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

It being a week before Americans, by and large, celebrate a major Thursday holiday, it seemed like great timing to have Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith on the show to talk about the graphic interpretation Roxanne’s seminal text An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press).

Here’s a link to the source text and a link to the graphic text. Both incredible, must-read books, learning that takes place, as Roxanne writes, “outside the academy.”

Episode 438: How It’s All Connected with Taiyon J. Coleman

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

Hey, CNFers, very happy to introduce you to (in case you haven’t met) Taiyon J. Coleman, a leader, instructor, professor, and the author of Traveling without Moving: Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America (Univ. of Minnesota Press).

It’s a fine collection that highlights systemic injustices that go largely invisible to people of privilege, like myself. So it’s all the more important to read about the experiences of our fellow Americans, to find a greater sense of empathy and feel the weight of their truths. We need to mainline other truths, people! The book is heavy and buoyant, and I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy.

Episode 437: Much Ado About Fact-Checking with Wudan Yan

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

Wudan Yan (@wudanyan on IG) reached out to me over the summer saying she was starting a fact-checking agency. I had long wanted to speak with fact checkers about fact-checking (and I plan to speak with more), but this seemed a good opportunity since Wudan wants to drum up some attention to new business, Factual.

Nieman Storyboard, with a story penned by Madeline Bodin, gave Wudan a nice bit of attention and, by extension, important attention on facts, this in an age when many people are deeply distrustful of media and people can’t even agree on what a fact is.

Episode 436: Mira Ptacin and the Story of How One Town Drove Out a Nazi

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

It’s that Atavistian time of the month and Mira Ptacin (@miramptacin) is here! She is a writer, journalist, teacher, and did you see that sweater in her pic? Her story for The Atavist Magazine, “The Crash of the Hammer,” details how one town in rural Maine ran a new-Nazi (Christopher Polhaus, aka Hammer) out of town.

The crux of the piece is this notion of the paradox of tolerance. When you become tolerant of intolerant people (because tolerance) you invite the conditions for greater intolerance. Tolerating intolerance ultimately squashes out tolerance. Hence the paradox.

Episode 435: Seth Godin Travels at the Speed of Trust in ‘This is Strategy’

Become a Patron!

By Brendan O’Meara

What a treat to have Seth Godin back on the podcast, his third CNFin’ rodeo. He’s here this time around to talk about his latest (as of 2024) book This is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Author’s Equity).

It’ll make you think. Like … it’ll MAKE you think, if you follow me.

Episode 432: Betsy Golden Kellem, Scholar of the Unusual, Closet Historian, Atavist Writer

Become a Patron!

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.