Friday, March 21, 2025

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Link to mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 459.

“I could suddenly see — and this is how I know when I’m supposed to start writing — is that words start putting themselves together in my head, and I just have to get them out, right? Which doesn’t happen all the time, but it did for this,” says Cassidy Randall, author of the masterpiece new book Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali (Abrams Books).

Cassidy has been on the podcast before (and she be on a third time in about two months since she has ANOTHER Atavist story coming out).

Cassidy (@_cassidyrandall) is an adventure and outdoors writer, primarily, and focuses much of her reportorial eye on women, who for so long were discounted as “weaker” in every sense of the word. And it’s Cassidy’s writing of Thirty Below that illustrated just how ignorant and misogynistic the establishment was (and, likely, still is to a degree).

In this episode we talk about:

The beginning and ending
Sticky notes
The post-book funk
Interviewing
And so much more

Her work has appeared in The Atavist Magazine, where her story was selected for The Year’s Best Sports Writing in 2023. More stories appear in National Geographic, the New York Times, the Guardian, and Outside Magazine, just to name a few. She’s also the co-author/ghost writer for Oksana Masters’s The Hard Parts.

Probably a topic for the next time we speak, but Cassidy is a working writing. Her work is so varied, filled with the work we tout (like books and Atavist stories) and other more quiet, contract work for brands (work that really tends to pay the bills). Seriously, check out her website and you’ll see what it takes.

Please enjoy this episode, and don’t be shy. HMU on Instagram, Bluesky, or send an email.

Parting Shot: On Submitting an Essay and Being Shitty at Presentations

Submitted an essay to Short Reads last week. I’m always amazed at the buzz I get from submitting a piece of work. It’s not unlike when I used to play the horses or the occasional sports bet (before apps, at actual sports books). You place these bets and in your mind there’s no way they can lose, so you’re full of possibility and hope.

It’s a good essay, but these things always come down to things that are out of your control: editor taste, what other things have been submitted, what has already run, what is scheduled to run, all stuff that has no bearing on you as a writer, but impossible not to internalize on some level.

Writing essays always feels like trying on a new outfit that’s not quite my style. I look in the mirror and I’m like, that’s not the person I’m used to, he’s not wearing his fat pants of shame with loose-fitting hoodie. Likewise, this Power of Narrative presentation I’m giving feels similarly out of my comfort zone.

As I’ve been rehearsing it, it just feels flat and boring. It’s about writing unauthorized biography, generating an idea, some tactical organization stuff, and finally the ethics of it, drawing from conversations I’ve had on the show and reading I’ve done. I’m not a natural teacher or a performer. Part of that has to do with not doing this kind of thing often. I’m pretty terrified. I hope to cap off my talk between 40-45 minutes allowing people time for questions and/or leave early and get a burrito.

I’ve thought of it like three mini-TED talks back to back to back. I’m having a very hard time memorizing it and I only have one more week to get ready. I don’t feel great about it yet. It might come down to how snappy the slides I draw are. They might be my cues so I don’t have to memorize everything word for word. Anyway, this was a parting shot about clothes not fitting right.