“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.
“I’m one of those weird people who loves revision. To me that’s where the work comes alive.”
“I think it’s important to get perspective from people who don’t write exactly what you write.”
“We write for readers.”
You know the drill…It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with leaders in the field of nonfiction about telling true stories: narrative journalists, doc film makers, essayists, memoirists, and radio producers to tease out tactics, habits, and routines, so you can apply those tools 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.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas spoke about her latest book “The Hidden Life of Life.”
By Brendan O’Meara
“What I wanted to do was show the commonality of all life on earth…it seemed important to me that we’re related.” —Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
You’ll excuse that there’s not traditional intro and outro to this show. You might even prefer it. I’ve had what I can only hope is a MINOR complication with recent oral surgery and don’t want to talk and thus compound the problem at hand. I won’t bore you.
It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to artists about telling true stories. Leaders in narrative journalism (like Bronwen Dickey), memoir (like Maddy Blais), essay (like Erica Berry), radio (like Joe Donahue), and documentary film (like Penny Lane) talk about their origins, routines, processes, and key influences so you, kind listener, can apply those tools of mastery to your own work.
Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words, writes, “We are lucky to have shared some time on Earth with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas…Reading her is like looking through a telescope and realizing that the brightness you see actually happened long, long ago and has taken all this time to reach your own eyes.”
Dig the show? Leave a review for a review! What’s that? Consider leaving an honest review on iTunes and I will coach up a piece of your writing up to 2,000 words. Reviews are the currency that drives the podcast economy and I’d be thrilled if you added your two cents. Show me proof via electronic mail and we’ll get it done. You give me a minute of your review time, I’ll give you a few hours of mine (that’s how long it takes to read a piece three times and give good notes.) You give you get.
Also, in an effort to be less dependent on social media (@CNFPod, @BrendanOMeara, @CNFPodast, and @BrendanOMeara), my monthly newsletter is the bedrock of my little community here. It’s my monthly book recommendations and what you’ve missed from the world of the podcast. I’d love it if you signed up. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Maybe I’ll be able to talk next week. In the meantime, enjoy Episode 93, and if you want to hear far more from Elizabeth, be sure to check out Episode 80 with her.
“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”
“Going toward solitude and away from excuses has really helped me.” —Victoria Stopp
Hey there, CNFers, my CNF buddies, hope you’re having a CNFin’ great start to the new year. Jan 1 is just a day like any other, but we as a culture have assigned supreme import to that day.
If you’re coming here for the first time because your resolution is to listen more podcasts or you want to kickstart projects in the genre of creative nonfiction, then let me tell you the deal: This is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast—hello—the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction: leaders in the worlds of narrative journalism, documentary film, radio, essay, and memoir and try to tease out habits, routines, and origins so that you can use their tools of mastery in your own work. Continue reading “Episode 83—Victoria Stopp on Battling Chronic Pain, Being Disorganized, and Writing in a Camper”
Rachel Wilkinson, whose essay “Search History” won Creative Nonfiction’s Best Essay for Issue 65 Science and Religion, joined me on Episode 81. Photo by Morgan Kayser.
“It’s kind of like the Internet is everybody’s dad.”
“I think of research as this open-ended, beautiful thing.”
“Research is this vehicle that allows you to follow your interests however long you want to follow it.”
“If you can’t love the grind, you’re doomed.”
For Episode 80 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction, I spoke with Rachel Wilkinson, a writer and research based out of Pittsburgh, PA.
Her essay, “Search History,” won Best Essay for Creative Nonfiction Magazine’s Science and Religion contest for Issue 65. It’s Google as religious experience, how the very act of asking questions is very faith-based, and, if we’re getting grim and dystopian, how this technology, which is getting increasingly sentient, might supplant us some day. #spitoutthebone (Metallica reference for all y’all.)
In our conversation we talk a lot how she crafted this essay and how it hangs on a big idea rather than sheer character drive, David Foster Wallace, The War of Art, the fun of research, embracing failure, and trusting—yes, trusting—self-doubt.
Self-doubt is my spirit animal.
Hey, are you digging the show? I’d love it if you subscribed to the show, shared it with a fellow CNFer. Leave an honest review on iTunes and I’ll give you an editorial consult on the house. Just send me a screenshot of your review and I’ll reach out.
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.
“That sense of discovery when you come across a story you had no idea existed.”
“The book project was my last hope for getting to do the type of writing I wanted to do.”
“I’ve kind of learned to live with the self-loathing I think.”
“I try to picture myself telling the story to someone at the bus stop.”
It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast where I speak to the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction. Leaders in the world of narrative journalism, memoir, essay, radio, and documentary film share their tools and tricks with you so you can improve your own work.
