One of the sample covers of the anniversary issue of The New Yorker, a brilliant tech-riff on the classic Eustace Tilley, by Kerry James Marshall.
Monday, Feb. 24, 2025
There’s a gag in the brilliant Michael Schur’s philosophy-and-ethics vehicle The Good Place where one of the torture scenarios for the Bad Place was a room where issues of The New Yorker won’t stop delivering. It’s impossible to keep up. Michael (a character on the show played by Ted Danson), a demon, laughs and says something to the effect of, “They just keep coming!”
That’s always the feeling. I barely have time to read the cartoons before the next issue arrives at my door. The hundreds and hundreds of unread New Yorkers that have come through my house is upsetting and dispiriting. I’m wasting the gift subscription my mother-in-law gives me every year. It’s not a cheap subscription.
But with all the hullabaloo surrounding the 100th anniversary of The New Yorker, I put my foot down and said, “THIS is the week I read The New Yorker cover to cover.” And I did!
These “now in paperbacks” are a nice reprieve for me work-wise and time-wise, and it’s nice to scroll through my Pocket Casts apps and go, “Oh, that’d be a snazzy one!”
And so we’re here with Susan Orlean’s first rodeo at CNF Pod HQ. Great stuff, like:
always having an audience in mind
having supreme focus
and needing to see yourself as a business person if you plan on doing this type of work
Naturally, a lot more stuff to gnaw on. There was no book to promote, so this is really a writing and craft-centered pod. Future pods dig into her recent work, being The Library Book and On Animals as of this date, Nov. 24, 2023.
The show’s Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod. Or not … you know what’s better? Keep reading …
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my Up-to-11 Newsletter.Here’s the latest. Signup form is below you and to your right. Book recs, book raffles, cool stuff curated by me for you, CNFin’ happy hour or writing group, writing prompts, fun and entertaining. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Consider supporting the show via Patreon patreon.com/cnfpod. Shop around if you want to support the community. You make that possible. The show is free but it ain’t cheap.
Free ways to support the show?
Subscribe and download and share across your socials. And don’t forget to consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Those go a LONG way.
The best way to get your style as an artist is when you’re on a deadline that’s very short and you don’t have time to overthink and get all of your influence in it. You just fully present yourself.”
Tad Friend (@tadfriend) needs little introduction, but here it goes: He’s a staff writer for The New Yorker and has written some of my favorite pieces. There’s the profile on Bryan Cranston, Master Class, and Impossible Foods.
Most recently, he’s the author of the memoirIn the Early Times: A Life Reframed(Crown). In it, Tad tries to better understand his father, but comes to grips with his own role as a father and husband, a writer and … squash player. It’s a wonderful book, but, then again, did you expect anything less?
In this episode we talk about structure, tension, reporting and running toward the doom. Lots of great stuff to unpack and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
“I think the real trick is telling stories chronologically, letting them unfold as they really happened.”
“I’d rather find the story and excavate it than make it up.”
“I think every story is a struggle and a puzzle.”
It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I talk to the best artists about telling true stories and tease out origins, tactics, and habits so you can apply those tools of mastery to your own work.
“What can I do with the tools I was given as opposed to the tools I was expecting?”
“If a story is just exactly what I expected it would be, I don’t think of that as all that interesting.”
“Entrepreneur, I had the instincts of an entrepreneur.”
“OK, this is how you do it…you make a connection, you think of stories that would work for a bigger audience.”
“In very practical terms, if you’re gonna be a person doing longform journalism, you will be running a small business.”
“Look at it as a business you’re running, but you also happen to be the raw material the business is producing.”
“Each story starts from zero. It never stops being exciting.”
Hello, CNF-buddies, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction—journalists, essayists, memoirists, radio producers, and documentary film makers—and how you can use their tools of mastery and apply it to your own work.
That’s right, you are in for a treat. Well, let’s face it, you’ve always been in for a treat, but this week you’re in for an Easter basket and Halloween sack all rolled into one verifiably true candy locker.
What are some takeaways? Susan talks about always having an audience in mind, having supreme focus, and needing to see yourself as a business person if you plan on doing this type of work and that it’s actually freeing, not stifling, in order to do the kind of work that excites you and feeds your ambitions.
Before we get to that, I ask that you please subscribe to the podcast, share it with a friend, and leave a rating or, ideally, a nice review on iTunes, like this one from Meredith May. She said, “Real conversations among professional writers about the essence of craft. A behind the scenes look at the way stories come together, from inception to publication, that doesn’t shy away from the truth about the difficulties and triumphs of making a living from words. One of the hardest concepts for my podcasting students to grasp is how differentiate between a story and a topic—this podcast helps them find that X-factor that makes a story sing.”
Wow. Shoutout to that five-star review. If you leave one, I might just read it on the air! It’s time for the show, episode 61 with Susan Orlean!
