Bradford Pearson (@bradfordpearson) on Twitter and IG, is the author of The Eagles of Heart Mountain. Must be a story of a gritty football team, right? Well, sorta, the subtitle is a true story of football, incarceration, and resistance in World War II America.
OK, that still might not get at the 100% heart of the tragedy of this book. It’s about the incarceration of Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1945, whereupon thousands upon thousands, many of which were naturalized American citizens, were stripped from their homes largely on the west coast and moved inland to often inhospitable lands, namely heart mountain in northwest Wyoming living in horrible conditions and subject to impossible racism and prejudice.
For us football fans out there, we know that watching the grid iron on a Saturday or a Sunday provides some relief and distraction, so too did the Eagles of Heart Mountain.
This conversation I did as part of Goucher College’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction. It was a live event, rebroadcast with my slick editing skills for you.
Wil has been a long-time reporter for The Washington Post, where his piece on Eugene Allen, the butler for several presidents in the White House became a book and was the basis for Lee Daniels The Butler, starring Forrest Whittaker and Oprah Winfrey. You might have heard of them.
Wil has also written books on Sugar Ray Robinson and Thurgood Marshall and Sammy Davis Jr. His talent, ability, and rigor might only be surpassed by his generosity. How generous? He blurbed my book Six Weeks in Saratoga way back in early 2011 before the book came out that summer.
Mike Damiano brings 2021 to a close with his piece for the Atavist Magazine about an unlikely revolutionary who helped the people of Easter Island earn rights they deserved from an oppressive Chilean naval regime. It’s the story of Alfonso Rapu a school teacher turned revolutionary via nonviolence. It’s called “We Wish to Be Able to Sing.”
Mike is a staff writer for Boston Magazine, but like many people writing stories for the Atavist, he’d been working on this Easter Island story for years. Atavist becomes like this benevolent foster home for stories that are too long for traditional magazines and too short to be books. And Seyward and Jonah say, come here little story, we’re gonna make you a STAR!
The show has a new Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod.
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She the author of the memoir Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day (Mad Creek Books) and it’s one of the best experiences I had reading a book in 2021.
She’s an incredible writer and reporter. She’s a senior staff writer for The Ringer. On top of that, she’s generous and insightful, and she brought all of that and more to this episode of the podcast.
We talk about failure and persistence and writing and ledes. This is a dream conversation if you’re into the nuts and bolts of writing and reporting long features and books.
He came by the studio and brought his own very good microphone, so the two of us got to make eye contact. What a concept!
Sure, this is a very specific book that will have appeal largely — if not only — for Oregonians, but we do riff on whether or not political cartoons are journalism, his creative process for working through ideas, getting people to have better “art self esteem,” and a lot more.
The show has a new Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod.
And you know I’d rather you sign up for my Up-to-11 Newsletter. 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. I just paid out the writers from the last audio magazine. You make that possible. The show is free but it ain’t cheap.
Annelise Jolley and Zahara Gomez teamed up to create “A Feast for Lost Souls” for this month’s piece for The Atavist Magazine.
What an incredible story about a group of women who hunt for the bodies of their “disappeared” loved ones, but find ways to honor them through cooking. The Memory Recipe Book is what Zahara helped develop, along with the widows and mothers, to pay tribute to their lost sons and husbands.
Zahara also created a few mini-documentaries as part of this story to go along with Annelise’s incredible reporting and writing of the piece.
After much deliberation and deep thoughts (haha), I’m taking the audio magazine 100% public.
Why?
Well, it comes down to reach. Writers want to be read (in this case heard). The Patreon audience is going to be significantly smaller than the public feed for the podcast.
I polled the Patreon audience because I didn’t want to violate their trust and what they signed up for. 100% of them said to take it to the largest possible audience.
They will get other goodies and perks as a result.
That’s a conversation for another time.
So, for now, enjoy original work from Jake Gronsky, whose essay deals with the end of his minor league baseball career, Krystina Wales, whose day at the beach reveals more than she bargained for, Carrie Hagen, whose found a savior in the unlikeliest of places, and Matthew Denis, who takes us to a special place of his childhood summers. Add to that three original poems from Jorah LaFleur, and you have you a summer-themed issue bound to warm you up.
Hope you brought your sunscreen!
The Patreon audience makes it possible to pay writers for their work, so please consider becoming a member and all that comes with it. Lots of bang-for-buck, IMO!
