“My writing life is being surrounded by 15 half-empty coffee cups which I keep dipping my paint brush into accidentally.” —Rachel Dougherty (@racheldoughertybooks)
This was a fun episode where we talk about day jobs, confidence (or a lack thereof), finding time to do work that matters, and so much more.
Rachel is the author and illustrator of The Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge. She’s a Philadelphia-based illustrator, children’s author, and lifelong knowledge-hunter. She works in acrylic paint, ink, and pencil smudges, using humor and color to inspire curious young minds. Rachel is passionate about US history, scruffy little dogs, and board games. [I didn’t ask her about board games. I wish I had.]
Listen, social media is a lousy way to promote a podcast, but it’s a great place to keep the conversation going. I hope I’ve made something worth sharing, so let’s keep it up on Twitter @CNFPod, Instagram @cnfpod, and Facebook @CNFPodcast. Tag me and the show and I’ll jump in the fire.
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“Let me be your sounding board for how the piece should come together.” — Seyward Darby (@seywarddarby)
“Writing reminds you what it’s like to stare at a blank page and how hard it is to create a first draft,” Seyward Darby said on Episode 162 of the podcast.
She’s the executive editor of The Atavist Magazine, an online jam that produces one longform feature a month. It’s awesome. It’s on my bucket list as a place to have work published.
So many great nuggets in this episode specifically about pitching/querying. It’s another master class in what she finds strong. See episodes with Evan Ratliff and Ian Frisch. You gotta have a good fastball, baby.
Subscribe to the show wherever you get your pods. Spot. App. Goog. Stitch. We like one syllable.
“This is not something that comes overnight. It’s a long, arduous road,” says Mark Kram Jr.
Mark Kram Jr., author of Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier, joined me for a great conversation about his early career and the struggles he overcame.
He learned on the job, more or less. He said he was a late bloomer (Something I can attest to. Still waitin’ on my bloom.)
Mark has won the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing and has been anthologized The Best American Sports Writing six times.
As always, if you dig the show, please share this across your social networks. Tag the show @CNFPod on Twitter and I’ll jump in the fire with you. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get our podcasts. If you leave a review of the show, I’ll coach up a piece of your writing of up to 2,000 words. Write the review, take a screenshot when it posts, email me the screenshot, and I’ll reach back out and get going.
Hey, CNFers, I’m Brendan O’Meara and this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I talk to badass writers, filmmakers, radio producers, and podcasters about the art and craft of telling true stories. I try and chart their journeys through the arts and reveal how they deal self-doubt, anxiety, and still manage to get the work done.
Be sure to go subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Oh, and I’m doing the thing again, that thing that where I offer editorial coaching of up to 2,000 words of your writing in exchange for a review on Apple Podcasts. Post your review. They take up to 24 hours and email me creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com with a screenshot of the review and i’ll reach out and help out with a piece you’re working on up to 2,000 words, a $150 value.
Okay, so I’ve got the amazing, incomparable and, jacked Jericho Brown. Here’s a little bit about Jericho, whose new book, The Tradition, published by Copper Canyon Press:
Jericho Brown is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Writer’s Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, TheNew Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection is The Tradition(Copper Canyon 2019). His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes ofThe Best American Poetry. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University.
jerichobrown.com
If you want to read poetry that knocks the wind out of you, read Jericho.
This is one of my all-time favorites as we approach 150 of these things. We talk about his exercise routine, how poets are a special kind of nerd, experiences over destinations, his invented poetry form the Duplex, discipline, and so much more.
You’re gonna want a notebook, man.
Go follow Jericho on Twitter @jerichobrown and keep the conversation going with me @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod on TWitter. IG is @cnfpod and Facebook is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast. Email the show creative nonfiction podcast @ gmail dot com and maybe I’ll read it on the air.
Share this show with a friend. You are the social network. I can tweet out a show all day long, but it comes down to you, friend. Rage against the algorithms.
How are you, CNFers? I’m Brendan O’Meara and this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, producers, and podcasters about the art and craft of telling true stories, chart their journey through this crazy world and offer a few tips along the way to help you get the work done.
Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow me and the show on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and @cnfpod. You can follow the show on Instagram too where I post some great quote cards and audiograms from the show’s deep bench.
If you’re feeling friendly, please leave a review or a rating on iTunes. I’d love to see it reach 100, but it’ll take you. It’ll take you going that extra mile for you buddy BO. You know I love you for it.
Okay, so Meredith May is here to talk about her career and her new book. She was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for a long feature she wrote back around the time of the second Iraq War for the San Francisco Chronicle. We talk about the toxic nature of the competition Olympics, and how writing about someone else in another book cracked open her memoir for her.
“If I fail, I want to fail because of me. If we succeed, I want to succeed because of us.”—Vlad Yudin (vladar.com)
“You can’t become best friends with the subject of a documentary. You have to make it objective. I like for the audience to make their own decisions.”—Vlad Yudin
Today’s guest is Vlad Yudin, a Russian-born documentary filmmaker best known for the trilogy of Generation Iron bodybuilding films. His Vladar Company makes and producers lots of films in the fitness industry and we unpack a lot of what makes him a particularly free spirit.
In case you’re new to the show, I should mention that this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, and producers about the art and craft of telling true stories, how they got to where they are, what struggles they deal with, and how they still manage to get the work done.
Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and keep the conversation going on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.
Pulling straight from Vlad’s bio on the vladar.com website:
Born and raised in Central Russia, filmmaker Vlad Yudin grew up in Moscow before moving to New York where he would pursue his career in film. In 2008, Yudin formed The Vladar Company to create a platform for production and distribution of various feature and documentary projects. Some of the produced titles include “Last Day Of Summer,” “Big Pun: The Legacy” and most recently the documentary box office hit, “Generation Iron” that went on to become one of the top five documentary’s at the box office for The Vladar Company in 2013. Vlad will continue to produce under the Vladar banner as well as handle the operations and overlook the expanding catalogue of Vladar’s media content.
Visit vladar.com for a list of all the movies he produces and to find links on where to find them. The first Generation Iron film and the Ronnie Coleman film are my faves, FWIW.
“I want to do right by these people. I want to tell a story that honors the stuff they did.”—Blake J. Harris (@blakejharrisNYC)
Ah, yes, it’s The Creative Nonfiction the show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, and producers about the art and craft of telling true stories. For episode 143 I have Blake J. Harris, author of Console Wars, and most recently The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality.
