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Episode No. 16: Charles Bethea on Late-Night Pitching, the Anxiety of Reporting, and the Magnitude of Breakfast

“I was a poetry major in college which was of course of great concern to my parents.” —Charles Bethea

Here we are with the first episode of 2016, No. 16, sweet sixteen, Charles Bethea. This was a fun episode as we talk about Charle’s start in freelancing, his love of breakfast, and one of his favorite quotes of all time.

Like Eva Holland, Charles’ writing takes you places. He’s funny and his writing has a smooth feel to it. Suddenly you’re done with the piece and it felt like nothing, like gravity did all the work for you.

Aside from having his work published in The New Yorker (where he has a regular sports column on its website), the now-defunct Grantland, and Outside Magazine, he was also a producer on the short documentary Fair Chase, about persistence hunting. If you read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, you know that this is a theory about man’s early hunting by wearing down and overheating four-legged prey.

Anyway, point being Charles is a busy man with serious chops.

Here’s the link to the episode since folks with mobile devices still can’t stream it from the blog post (Podomatic is NOT on its game with this bout of customer service). Here’s the embed anyway.

Also here are links to a sampling of Charles’ work. You can find more at his website charlesbethea.com.

Selected Work

Fair Chase from Outside
Obama’s In-Box from The New Yorker
The Many Lives of Aubrey Lee Price from Atlanta Magazine
Star-Maker from The New Yorker
Will Shortz and the Ping-Pong Prodigy from The New Yorker

Books Mentioned

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Proud Highway by Hunter S. Thompson
No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie
Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade by Robert Sabbag
Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell

Episode No. 15: Eva Holland on the Nature of her Hustle, Being Super Analog, and liking Faramir

Written by Brendan O’Meara

“It’s been a long process at feeling at all stable.” —Eva Holland

“I don’t know how you keep going if you don’t think your work is good. you have to believe that you’re good.” —Eva Holland

Here were, yet again, with another episode of #CNF, this time with Eva Holland. Eva is a rising star and if you have a chance to buy stock in Holland, now’s the time.

Why read more of my guff when you can read hers? Here’s a list of some her work:

Unclimbable
Hellbent, But Not Broken
Why We Play
No Sleep Till Fairbanks

There’s a good primer.

Writers mentioned

Matt Power
Ian Frazier
David Grann

Books Mentioned

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Gone to New York by Ian Frazier
The Big Year by Mark Obmascik
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please subscribe to the podcast and subscribe to my website. No spam, just good, good stuff.

#CNF: Take Us to the Bridge!

Transcribe Face.

A photo posted by Brendan O’Meara (@brendanomeara) on Dec 17, 2015 at 9:35am PST

Written by Brendan O’Meara

Soooo…Here’s the latest quasi-episode of the #CNF Podcast. Drop the embed…

Okay, now that I’ve done that, be sure stay tuned, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the email newsletter so you can see super awesome Transcribe Face (see above) pics.

Listen to the little mini-sode, stay tuned for more, but also, go listen to Glenn Stout, Carrie Hagen, Maggie Messitt, and many, many (sort of) more.

As always…you da bomb. As always Part II, thanks for listening

Episode 10—Joe DePaulo on Talese, Kramer, and What It Means to be Edited

Written by Brendan O’Meara

“There’s no downplaying that moment for me. There’s no humble bragging that. It’s a straight-up brag, a measure of pride for me.”—Joe DePaulo

“I can’t abandon it. For me, I don’t know what else I’d do.” —Joe DePaulo

Maybe my favorite part of my conversation with Joe happens toward the end where we briefly touch upon drafting one particular writer in a Fantasy League for Narrative Nonfiction. I should’ve expanded on this, but I figure it’s going to be a much longer segment in the future.

This was a fun one. We talked about writers who inspired Joe and the harsh financial realties of the freelance game. (You can hear Episode 9 guest John Scheinman shed insights into this as well.)

I’ve shortened by Bookshelf for the Apocalypse segment to five books. Good stuff here.

Joe’s BftA

The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Character Studies by Mark Singer
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Best American Sports Writing of the Century
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life by Richard Ben Cramer
Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow

Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets by Mark Singer is a New Yorker profile Joe re-reads over and over again.
The Man Who Knew Too Much by Marie Brenner

Here’s Joe’s SB Nation Longform archive, which includes his profile on Mike Francesa, a story that earned Joe a notable selection in the 2014 volume of Best American Sports Writing.

So let’s get to it. Enjoy!

Hey, if you get a chance subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and throw down your email here at the website. I know that’s asking a lot, but it would mean a lot to me.