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Episode 356: Siku Allooloo

Siku Allooloo (@discobou) puts the “multi” in multi-hyphenate. She’s a writer, a poet, a filmmaker. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Briarpatch Magazine, and Canadian Art Magazine, among others.

In this episode, we talk about the essay “Caribou People,” which appeared in the collection Shapes of Native Nonfiction (University of Washington). We also talk about “Living Death,” which won a creative nonfiction prize for Briarpatch Magazine.

These essays rhyme in dealing with patching together ancestral holes and colonial trauma. This is a very illuminating conversation from a great thinker.

Episode 355: Flinder Boyd

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By Brendan O’Meara

Ten years.

Ten years since “20 Minutes at Rucker Park” by Flinder Boyd (@FlinderBoyd) for SB Nation Longform for the incomparable editor Glenn Stout.

It felt like a good time to knock on Flinder’s door and have a conversation about what the past ten years has been like for him and what the next ten might look like.

Episode 354: Nile Cappello

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By Brendan O’Meara

Nile Cappello (@liketheriver_) is back!

You might remember her from this:

Here’s a link to that story, “The Girl in the Picture.”

And she’s back, this time to talk about kidfluencer culture in “Crushed.” Brace yourself, CNFers, this one’s a doozie.

Episode 352: Lauren Fleshman

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By Brendan O’Meara

Blink and you might miss Lauren Fleshman (@laurenfleshman). She’s a champion runner and the author of Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World (Penguin Press).

Her new book explores how broken our athletics systems are as they relate to women. By overlaying the female experience over the man’s construct (speak nothing of trans athletes, which is whole other ball of wax for another day), Lauren unpacks what a disservice that is for young women.

Lauren can officially boast that her book is a New York Times best seller, which is pretty bad ass. She wrote the book herself without a ghost writer, so, mad props. And in this episode we talk about:

Episode 351: Leah Sottile

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By Brendan O’Meara

Not rare to have repeat guests, but somewhat rare to have them back so quickly, and what a treat! It’s Leah Sottile (@Leah_Sottile)! You might remember her from Ep. 322 when we talked about her book When the Moon Turns to Blood. You also might remember her from the podcast series Bundyville.

And she’s back with another killer podcast called Burn Wild, taking a look at far-left extremism, particularly the environmental movement of the 1990s with the Environmental Liberation Front.

It’s what I’ve come to expect from Leah: Deeply researched and thoroughly written, delivered in her pull-up-a-stool narration.

Episode 350: Damon Brown

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By Brendan O’Meara

You’re in for a treat because Damon Brown is back on the show!

Damon’s laundry list of accolades and books and projects is too long to type. Too long, CNFers. But! He’s awfully proud (and he should be!) of his YouTube show Bring Your Worth. He’s got 300 episodes and counting.

Damon’s also the author of Career Remix: Get the Gig You Want with the Skills You’ve Got.

Episode 343: Kristina R. Gaddy

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By Brendan O’Meara

You know this, CNFers, always nice when we can welcome a guest back. So here’s Kristina R. Gaddy, back with her new book Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History (Norton).

We talk about the late Philip Gerard, what she learned from Book 1 to Book 2, structure, and why do we even write books?

You could say I’m souring on writing books but like everything in my life I’m sure it’ll pass and I’ll be back to saying writing books is the ONLY thing that matters.

Episode 342: Remembering Philip Gerard

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By Brendan O’Meara

Man, we lost another wonderful, brilliant, generous member of the writing community, CNFers. Philip Gerard passed away earlier this week.

A few weeks ago we lost Matt Tullis, a wonderful writer of narrative nonfiction, and a teacher of longform journalism. When he was working on what would become his memoir Running with Ghosts, he attended an MFA program out of Wilmington, NC, spearheaded by Philip Gerard.

Phil was someone who had always been one of those dudes I could call on if I had a question on writing, dating all the way back to 2008 when I wrapped up my MFA, right through 2017 and 2019 when he was one of the best guests on this very podcast. I never had him as a mentor in grad school, but he was always someone whose brain I liked picking. He never discounted you on wisdom and encouragement.

Episode 340: J.B. MacKinnon

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By Brendan O’Meara

It’s that Atavistian time of the month! And this time we have J.B. MacKinnon, author of the feature “True Grit.”

This piece chronicles the harrowing journey a few feral cows made during a hurricane in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Let’s just say cows can swim … a LONG time if needed.

J.B. is the author or coauthor of five books of nonfiction. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in such publications as the New Yorker, National Geographic, and the Atlantic, as well as the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches feature writing.

Episode 337: Ander Monson

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By Brendan O’Meara

Who doesn’t love an obsessive deep dive? Who doesn’t love a good rabbit hole? And what a rabbit hole Ander Monson‘s Predator: A Memoir, A Movie, An Obsession (Gray Wolf Press) is!

Ander (@angermonsoon) watched “Predator” more than 150 times so you don’t have to. It’s a great movie and Ander’s analysis of it reveals just how brilliant and salient it is. Sure, on the surface it reeks of brawn and would appear to be a rolling advertisement for gun perversion. But Ander folds in his experience into this unconventional memoir while we watch the movie with him.

Can’t recommend the book enough and this conversation should having you getting to the choppah to visit your favorite book seller.