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Episode 412: Leaving the Emotional Moments Unsaid with Lilly Dancyger

As you know, we love repeat guests on the show, and Lilly Dancyger (@lillydancyger) fit the bill with her new book First Love: Essays on Friendship (Dial Press). This is right up there for a CNFy award, my non-existent gala for the best I’ve experienced in creative nonfiction. Maybe the perfect Galentine’s Day gift.

Lilly’s collection, at least to me, doesn’t feel essay-ish. It’s prismatic, but it feels united, these essays about her girlfriends dating all the way back to her first best friend, her first love, her cousin Sabina.

Lilly also is the author of Negative Space and the editor of Burn it Down. She’s the nonfiction acquisitions editor for Barrelhouse Books and a teacher at Columbia University School of Arts. She also does freelance editor, mainly in the memoir/essay realm.

Episode 411: The Heart Part and Big Dreams with Isa Adney

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By Brendan O’Meara

Pretty rad guest here in Isa Adney (@isaadney). She has been a long-time listener of the show and wouldn’t you know she released a killer little book called The Little Book of Big Dreams: True Stories About People Who Followed a Spark (She Writes Press).

The book is a series of thematic profiles about courageous creators who followed their dreams. Isa interviewed more than 100 people for the book, but only a couple dozen made the cut. The book was a nine-year journey for her and a dream come true in and of itself.

Isa is a writer and documentary producer and is a person who takes agency in her creative work, profiling people for her blog as a means to show she has the chops. As Seth Godin says, if you want to be a marketer, do marketing.

Episode 410: Brian Fairbanks and “The Last Shall be First”

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By Brendan O’Meara

Brian Fairbanks is a freelance journalist and author and he is featured in The Atavist Magazine for his piece “The Last Shall be First” about a corrupt New Orleans cop and wreckage he left in his wake.

It’s a wild story and calls into question the structures that are supposed to keep citizens safe, as if we needed any more questioning. History repeats, so what do we do with that?

In this episode, we also hear from editor-in-chief Seyward Darby about the 150th issue of The Atavist, which is crazy, right?

Episode 409: Chain Smoking Book Projects with Earl Swift

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By Brendan O’Meara

Earl Swift is our guest for Ep. 409. He is the author of more books than you have fingers including The Big Roads, Chesapeake Requiem, Across the Airless Wilds, and his most recent book Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second Slavery. It’s published by Mariner Books.

Just when you think this country couldn’t find a way to let you down, well, just give it some time. In the spirt of David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Earl found a troubling story in its wicked cruelty, of a farmer, John S. Williams, who murdered 11 Black laborers rather than face charges for peonage. Earl expands on what this is in the book and in this conversation.

It got me thinking about the hidden histories of this country, atrocities and tragedies buried by the past. And it’s the serendipity of finding reference to these stories — research by catch — that people Earl can then expand and illuminate. Man, what a book.

Episode 408: North to Trees, South to Gold with Ruby McConnell

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By Brendan O’Meara

Well, isn’t a treat to hear from Ruby McConnell again? She’ got a new book out, this spring of 2024, Wilderness and the American Spirit (Overcup Books). It’s a book steeped in Oregon lore, but in that Oregonian-ness lies the universal of what the United States has inflicted upon the land, its Native peoples, and how the Applegate Road is the thread that connects seemingly disparate topics.

Ruby, @rubygonewild, also is the author of Ground Truth and A Woman’s Guide to the Wild. Ruby is one of the good ones, dude.

She’s a working writer with multiple projects going, small presses, big presses, freelance, teaching, organizing. She’s a buoyant spirit and always a treasure to have on these here airwaves.

Episode 407: Alex Squadron Respects the Grind

By Brendan O’Meara

Ever want to know the ins and outs, the hopes and dreams, of a minor league basketball player? Alex Squadron (@asquad510), a sports writer for Slam Magazine, brings that insight to his debut book Life in the G: Minor League Basketball and the Relentless Pursuit of the NBA. It’s published by University of Nebraska Press.

Alex follows a cohort of players for the Birmingham Squadron … total coincidence. He had tremendous access to this team and these players, something you categorically never see at the higher levels of sport.

Episode 406: When to Share a WIP with Darrell Hartman

By Brendan O’Meara

Darrell Hartman (@dwhartman on IG) is a writer and the author of The Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media (Viking).

This was Darrell’s first real ambitious project, having written nothing much longer than 3,000 words before. It’s a wonderful book that takes place in the early 20th century but feels incredibly of the moment. People worried about newspaper influence back then the way we worry about social media influence today.

Darrell also talks about when he’s ready to share a work in progress and simplifying the structure when it became evident that the structure was dictating the terms, not the story itself. Really rich stuff.

Episode 405: Hallie Lieberman and the Drawer of Dead Pitches

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By Brendan O’Meara

Hallie Lieberman (@hallielieberman) has now written for The Atavist Magazine twice, her latest chronicling the crimes of “The Handcuff Man” in her “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Hallie writes a lot about the sex industry and LBGTQ+ issues. She’s also the author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.

This conversation was a trip. Hallie is a force of nature, candid, and joy to speak with and, I hope, a joy for you to listen to.

In this episode we talk about the draw of dead pitches, rejection, perseverance, and how to find wills.

Episode 404: Hanif Abdurraqib’s Nod to Witnessing in ‘There’s Always This Year’

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By Brendan O’Meara

Kinda crazy, right? That someone like Hanif Abdurraqib (@nifmuhammad) would agree to be on this little podcast, which just turned eleven on March 20.

Hanif needs next-to-no introduction, but here’s a little bit about him. His book A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance was a finalist for the National Book Award. He’s the author of the essay collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and the poetry collections A Fortune for Your Disaster and The Crown Ain’t Worth Much. His latest book is There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Random House).

It’s a masterpiece; Hanif is a masterpiece.

In this conversation, we talk about productivity, envy, specificity, intentionality, and a nod to witnessing. It’s great stuff, great talk.

Episode 403: Elizabeth Rush Moves Toward Exactitude

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By Brendan O’Meara

Elizabeth Rush returns, friend. This is her third trip to the show, this time to celebrate The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth (Milkweed).

Liz also is the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore (Milkweed). Both are wonderful books.

The Quickening deals with climate change and motherhood and shines light on the lesser celebrated laborers that make treks to the Antarctic possible. Oh, yes, she was the writer in residence aboard a giant boat that went to the Thwaites Glacier.