By Brendan O’Meara
Leigh Baldwin and Sean Williams are here to talk about “Follow the Leader,” their latest piece for The Atavist.
Here’s the teaser for it:
“In the waning days of the Iron Curtain, Rainier Sonntag helped fuel the neo-Nazi movement that still plagues Germany today. He was also a Communist spy—and he was working for Vladimir Putin.”
Go ahead, TRY and not read it.
Continue reading “Episode 323: Leigh Baldwin and Sean Williams”Become a Patron!View on Zencastr
By Brendan O’Meara
Leah Sottile (a fellow Oregonian) is the author of When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Wild Faith, and End Times (Twelve Books). She’s the producer behind Bundyville seasons 1 and 2, and a superstar freelancer who work has appeared in Playboy, The Atavist, Outside Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine.
She’s basically everything I want to be in life … and look at those tattoos!
Leah (@leah_sottile) came to play ball and we dig into what it’s been like reporting on the far right, early freelancing wins, building reporting skills, and her heavy metal radio shows. It’s a good one, CNFers.
Continue reading “Episode 322: Leah Sottile”
By Brendan O’Meara
Well, well, well, look who came back to the podcast for her third time: It’s Ruby McConnell (@rubygonewild)!
She’s the author of the wonderful collection Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of a Life, as well as the author of A Woman’s Guide to the Wild. Past episodes with Ruby can be found here and here.
We had a nice conversation about juggling projects, when writing becomes a slog, style, ambition, and patience. If you’re a little frustrated, you’re going to enjoy this conversation.
Continue reading “Episode 321: Ruby McConnell”Become a Patron!
Howard Bryant is the author of many, many books, most recently Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original (Mariner Books).
It’s a tremendous books, one that delves into the life of the great lead-off hitter Rickey Henderson and puts his life into context, builds a world around Rickey.
Howard is the author of The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field, and The Heritage, among many others. He has covered baseball for many years, is a senior writer for ESPN, and is a contributor to NPR’s Weekend Edition. He also was the 2017 guest editor for Best American Sports Writing.
Continue reading “Episode 320: Howard Bryant”
By Brendan O’Meara
Many of you know I’m a newsletter junkie. I collect them like baseball cards.
And Neal Bascomb, author of Faster, Red Mutiny, and several other gripping books of narrative journalism, has newsletter out called Work/Craft/Life.
Neal (@nealbascomb) profiles regular people about the craft of their work. Each profile is a wonderful character sketch of how people go about their work. It’s like Humans of New York, Studs Terkel, This American Life, and Walt Harrington’s Acts of Creation rolled into one. It’s great, and Neal’s just getting started with profiles of an abstract artist, a chef, and an ER doctor. Soon, he’ll have one of a war reporter.
We talk about how this departure stemmed from book burnout, what energizes him about these profiles, and how he disagrees with John McPhee about tape recorders.
Continue reading “Episode 319: Neal Bascomb”
Brad Listi (@otherppl) is the author of my favorite book of the year to date, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything.
Brad also is the longtime host and producer of Otherppl, a podcast with in depth conversations with today’s leading writers. It’s one of my favorite podcasts. He’s been producing it since 2011, so even longer than us here at CNF Pod HQ.
Brad’s book is written in these chunklets and touches on being a creative person, the messiness of life and a creative life, reading, books, social media, fatherhood, and more.
We talk about a lot of themes in the book and the incredible prep it takes to bring one podcast into the world.
Continue reading “Episode 317: Brad Listi”
Guess who’s back? It’s Chip Scanlan (@chipscanlan), and he’s here to talk about 33 Ways to Not Screw Up Your Journalism.
It’s a zippy little book that uses contemporary examples that point out blindspots in our reporting and writing and help us fix them for the next day’s work, the next piece.
He hopped on the pod for Ep. 292 about his book Writers on Writing, which is a multi-vitamin of inspiration and writing tips. Actionable to boot.
Continue reading “Episode 316: Chip Scanlan”
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 memoir In 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?
Tad also is the author of Cheerful Monday: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor as well as the collection Lost in Mongolia: Travels in Hollywood and other Foreign Lands.
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.
Continue reading “Episode 315: Tad Friend”
Sponsor: Athletic Greens, athleticgreens.com/EMERGING
Listen … just discovered “Top Chef” (don’t judge) on account of Peacock.
I’ve always been inspired by chefs and how they go about the work. When I was watching “Chopped” several years ago, I remember one chef talking about how he was on onion duty in the kitchen. And instead of lamenting it, he vowed to be the best damn cutter of onions. It’s a great attitude, something we can all heed.
The parallels between high-level cooking and writing are similar. We started with Season 18, Top Chef: Portland. Why? Well, we live in Oregon so we jumped into that, spoilers of past winners be damned.
And in the first episode, Richard Blais, restaurateur and one of the judges told the chefs to have “authorship” of their dishes. Another, Melissa King, said you have to “edit” your plates and choose what to leave on the plate and what to leave off.
Sound familiar?
Continue reading “Episode 314: How ‘Top Chef’ Can Help Your Writing”
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Katia Savchuk speaks fluent Russian. She went to Harvard. She went to the Columbia School of Journalism. She’s written for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Forbes and … The Atavist!
And that’s what brings Katia (@katiasav) to the podcast this week as we talk about her piece “A Crime Beyond Belief.” It’s an incredible feat of reporting, writing, structure, tension, all the things.
We talk about her Talk of the Town in a recent issue of The New Yorker, “Vlog of War.” We talk about how her viral tweet got her grandmother and father out of Kyiv.
My 94 yo grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, is trapped in her Kyiv apartment with my father. She can’t really walk, and he can’t drive due to a disability. If anyone knows of any resources that can help with evacuation, please let me know.
— Katia Savchuk (@katiasav) March 5, 2022
A rare instance of social media doing some good in this world.
Anyway …
We also talk about tape recorders, empathy, organization, it’s a great chat.
The show’s Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod.
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