podcast – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

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

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’

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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 433: The Perils of Playing it Safe with Chase Jarvis

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By Brendan O’Meara

What a joy to have Chase Jarvis (@chasejarvis) back on the show. He is the author of Creative Calling, and his second book is Never Play It Safe: A Practical Guide to Freedom, Creativity, and a Life You Love (Harper Business). It’s available wherever you buy books, and if you head to https://chasejarvis.com/never-play-it-safe/ you can get some bonus materials. Trust me. You’ll want them.

Chase was the founder of the pioneering online learning platform Creative Live. He sold the company, and that catalyzed an entirely uncertain path. The book tracks that journey as he embodies the message at the core of the book that playing it safe is most dangerous thing we can do … creatively speaking. Not, you know, cycling without a helmet or courting disaster down a dark alley.

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

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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.

Episode 431: Sean Enfield, Author of ‘Holy American Burnout’ Hates the Word Burnout

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By Brendan O’Meara

Sean Enfield (@seanseanclan) is the author of Holy American Burnout (Split/Lip Press), a fine essay collection that pushes the boundaries of form and is a cross-section of teaching, music, race, and a whole lot more.

Sean is an educator, a bassist, a poet, an essayist, and a whole lot more.

In this conversation, we talk about how Sean hates the word burnout, how he encourages his students to be creative kleptomaniacs, and a whole lot more.

Episode 430: Louisa Thomas Knows How to End a Story

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By Brendan O’Meara

Nice to have Louisa Thomas back on the show to talk about profile writing, teaching, and kickers. Louisa is a staff writer for The New Yorker and one of my “appointment reading” writers: I see her byline, I make a date with it.

In this episode we talk about a profile she wrote on Nikola Jokic, perhaps the best player in the NBA. In talking about kickers, we riff on her column about the ennui of the Oakland Athletics and a smattering of other kickers. She says she’s not good at them and credits her editor more than herself, but I think she’s just being modest.

Louisa also is the author of the brilliantly biography Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams and a co-editor of Losers: Dispatches from the Other Side of the Scoreboard.

Episode 429: What Does It Mean to be a ‘Hungry Author’?

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By Brendan O’Meara

What is a “hungry author”? Setting aside pre-breakfast jokes, what does it mean?

Authors Ariel Curry (@arielkcurry) and Liz Morrow (@liz_morrow), it’s:

A writer who is determined to succeed. They want to and will be published. They take feedback well and don’t shy away from the hard work. You will find their butts in the chairs and fingers on the keyboard. They believe in their ideas and know they will impact others.

And so it is in their book Hungry Authors: The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book (Rowman & Littlefield). Lots of great, juicy tidbits in this book that really makes you think your Big Idea through.

Ariel and Liz also co-host the helpful Hungry Authors (@hungryauthors) podcast, another fine resource to lean into.

Episode 428: Brin-Jonathan Butler Remembers Flacco the Owl

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By Brendan O’Meara

Brin-Jonathan Butler is a frequent guest of the podcast, and he returned to talk about Flacco the Owl, among other things.

Brin is the kinda guy I can just listen to for ours. He’s operating on another level, certainly a level far above my Windows 95 operating system.

Brin is the author of a few books, namely The Grandmaster and The Domino Diaries.

Episode 427: Kelsey Rexroat on Dealing with the Monstrosity

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By Brendan O’Meara

Kesley Rexroat brings you a beautiful love story for The Atavist Magazine, this one titled “Love, Interrupted.” The dek reads, “Two women promised they would see the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time once they were together. They had no idea how long that would take.”

It’s a wonderful, redemptive story that proves the power of commitment and following one’s true path.

Kelsey is a “meticulous copy editor and dynamic content writer based in San Francisco, California. She specializes in technology, health, and lifestyle.”

Episode 426: Asking for Blurbs, Unauthorized Biographies, and the Mystery of Aaron Rodgers with Ian O’Connor

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By Brendan O’Meara

Ian O’Connor is a modern-day master of the sports biography, the unauthorized sports biography. Unauthorized is not a dirty word, though the industry needs to rebrand around it. We’ll workshop that …

Unauthorized = true journalism, no editorial input from the central figure, more likely closer to the truth instead of the central figure’s truth. It is not a collaboration.

This is the biography you want to read.

And in the hands of someone like Ian, there’s no better reader experience. Ian handled his latest mammoth figure in Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers (Mariner Books) with utmost fairness and showed the grayness of Rodgers’s character, which makes for a gripping and complicated read.