“There are all kinds of people who can easily out-write me, but there are very few who can outwork me.”—Bronwen Dickey.
“Henry Rollins said ‘Music is made by the people music saved,’ and I think stories are written by the people stories saved in the same way. And stories saved me from loneliness and boredom.”—Bronwen Dickey
It’s been a long time between episodes, but here’s a good one with author/journalist Bronwen Dickey.
We talk about her new book Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon, which will hit book shelves on May 8. The book isn’t what you think it’s about, and we dive into that and many, many other things.
Enjoy!
Books Mentioned
The Brothers Karamazov
Riverside Shakespeare
Slouching Toward Bethlehem
The Collected Essays of Annie Dillard
Dispatches
Breath
The Fire Next Time
The Undertaking
First off, I’m like WAY behind in blog posts. I have to draw up one for Mary Pilon and Brian Mockenhaupt, but I’ll start with the latest episode and work backwards.
I speak to Glenn about dealing with dead people and how he approached a topic that, on its surface, felt saturated.
“You look at what seem to be time-worn topics and almost without fail you find something and you tell a better story, a newer story, a truer story,” says Glenn.
The first 30-35 minutes of the episode deal with the Babe, but the latter part riffs on random stuff.
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“Surprise is one of the biggest weapons you have as a journalist to affect people emotionally.” — Brin-Jonathan Butler
“The juice for me with journalism is not money or recognition. My ego is tied into access.” — Brin-Jonathan Butler
Butler is one of the smartest people I’ve ever spoken with. There’s a level of thinking and depth you don’t often hear from someone who’s in their mid-30s. You expect it from, say, George Saunders, but listening to Butler speak was a treasure for me and I hope so for you.
Like Holland, Glenn Stout, and Charles Bethea, Butler never studied journalism, yet he’s one of the best at his craft. I sense a theme that some of the best at this craft aren’t journalists by trade, but people who have a keen sense for language, are widely read, and think long and hard about the work. They aim for impact, not a sound bite.
You should also listen to him on the Longform Podcast from back in 2014. Pairing that interview with mine will give you tremendous insight into Butler’s mind.
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“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 documentaryFair Chase, about persistence hunting. If you read Born to Runby 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.
“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:
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
“Nothing about doing this makes any logical sense. It doesn’t. It didn’t then. It doesn’t now.”—Glenn Stout
“You can only control one thing: And that’s your effort. There’s one thing you can control. You can’t control anything else…anything else.”—Glenn Stout
Glenn Stout is sort of a demi-god among writers because of his ability to coach the best of them. He’s also a GREAT writer and we delve into how he got his start, reading poetry in a baseball uniform outside Fenway Park while taking swigs from a bottle of bloody Marys.
“Putting in the work is confidence building.”—Greg Hanlon
“You struggle and struggle until the end product comes close to your original expectation. It’s all about the struggle.”—Greg Hanlon
Greg Hanlon is a crime editor at People Magazine and also a freelance sports writer. His piece “Sins of the Preacher” was anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing 2015 edition. His “The Many Crimes of Mel Hall” was a notable selection.
The subject at hand is Carrie Hagen, author of We is Got Him. She and I met at grad school where she began fleshing out the story for We is Got Him. It’s her first book, but you’d think it was her third or fourth. I’ll let her do the talking.
As always I’d love for you to sign up for email updates (they arrive on Tuesdays if they arrive at all). Also be sure to subscribe to the podcast that way you’ll get the latest episodes of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast beamed straight to your favorite audio device.
“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.
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.
