Written by Brendan O’Meara
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
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Written by Brendan O’Meara
“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.
As always, thanks for listening.
Written by Brendan O’Meara
“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.
Continue reading “#CNF Episode 13—Greg Hanlon on the Audacity of Voice and the Value of Struggle”
Written by Brendan O’Meara
“I never imagined that I would write this book. I never imagined actually that I could write any book. The idea of book-length work terrified me.” —Sarah Einstein (@SarahEM2 on Twitter)
“I believe you have to give memory time to mellow and age and become a narrative.” —Sarah Einstein
Here I’ve got Sarah Einstein, author of Mot: A Memoir, a book that explores the friendship between Sarah and a homeless, mentally ill man named Mot (Tom backwards). He’s a brilliant, fascinating, resourceful man and an unlikely source of stability for Sarah during this period of her life.
In any case here’s the streaming player and notes from the show:
People mentioned:
Kevin Oderman
Dinty Moore
Sara Pritchard
Maggie Messitt
Books Mentioned:
Safekeeping and Three-Dog Life by Abigail Thomas
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Jane Erye by Charlotte Bronte
Subscribe to the show and sign up for the monthly newsletter from this very website. What a world!
Written by Brendan O’Meara
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.
Thanks!
Written by Brendan O’Meara
“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.
Joe’s BftA
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Character Studies by Mark Singer
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Best American Sports Writing of the Century
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life by Richard Ben Cramer
Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets by Mark Singer is a New Yorker profile Joe re-reads over and over again.
The Man Who Knew Too Much by Marie Brenner
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.
Written by Brendan O’Meara
“You know what? It’s like when you ask a girl on a date. How scary it can be. It’s terrifying sometimes.”—John Scheinman
“I was always a conversation person. I would literally say this, ‘I’m going to earn your trust and you will never be misquoted.’ They loved it!”—John Scheinman
This week I interview my friend and colleague John Scheinman, who won the Eclipse Award for feature writing for his piece about legendary Maryland horse trainer Dickie Small. The piece, titled Memories of a Master, is a long, sweeping profile that took John about three months to craft. Give it a read.
We get into the use of voice recorders versus notebooks, something I find fascinating as different reporters use different methods for gathering information. We also talk about the anxiety that comes from having to interview people and I think that may be particularly helpful to others who feel the same way.
And, of course, there’s John’s Bookshelf for the Apocalypse, the books he’d keep in his survival pack that he could never part with should the world melt down around us. He is the second person to say this is a stupid question in two weeks. Does that mean I should give it up? Not yet. If next week’s guest says it’s stupid maybe I’ll consider.
The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Luc Sante
Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
The Honest Rainmaker: The Life and Times of Colonel John R. Stingo by A.J. Liebling
Life by Keith Richards
The Great Deep: The Sea and Its Thresholds by James Hamilton-Patterson
Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Leroi Jones
Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story by Nick Tosche
Thanks again for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my email newsletter that brings you my book recommendations for the month and anything you may have missed from the podcast.
Written by Brendan O’Meara
Quoteables by Maggie Messitt:
“I really embrace the shitty first draft.”
“I was always into true stories, almost at an obsessive level.”
Maggie Messitt wrote a gem of a book in The Rainy Season: Three Lives in the New South Africa.
We talk about a lot of stuff, certainly about process and the challenge of writing book-length narrative. Maggie is a writer, author, teacher, hiker, dog owner, reporter, super kayaker, all-round liver-of-life.
Also I introduce a new segment called the Bookshelf for the Apocalypse. What’s this? Should the world be ravaged by global pandemic, zombies, meteor strike or nuclear winter, and you were allowed ten books to keep in your survival pack, what would they be?
Hmm….
Below you’ll find a list of books Maggie mentioned that you may want to check out. Thanks for listening and I ask that you please subscribe to the podcast and sign up for the email newsletter.
Thanks so much!
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadimann
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, A Writing Life, all by Annie Dillard
Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Open City by Teju Cole
Portrait with Keys by Ivan Vladislavic
What is Justice? by Robert C. Solomon and Mark C. Murphy
Being in the orbit of NYC gives me access to things that being in Upstate New York doesn’t. Specifically there was a talk by Glenn Stout, series editor of the Best American Sports Writing anthology, at Le Poisson Rouge.
I took some notes (I appeared to be the only one taking notes, this in a room full of reporters) and I was the only one who wasn’t drinking beer (this makes me the freak in a room full of reporters.)
Here’s some great quotes from the great Glenn Stout.
On what makes a great story:
“Thorough reporting, you can’t have a story without thorough reporting, even if you’re working on memoir.”
“Leave them [the reader] some place they haven’t been before. Stories are made of stories. You need scenes.”
“It’s written from within. They’re confident from the first word as if every word is destiny.”
“You miss the words and you feel immersed in the experience. It’s like walking into water that is body temperature.”
“It unfolds and answers question. Creates a three-dimensional picture, plays to and involves the senses. We’ve got five senses, use a couple of them.”
“Every story has a sound, singular, emerge transformed like you have forgotten to breathe.”
“You’d better give them something at the end.”
“Every story I put forward is because I want to read it again.”
“The best written stories sound well. it’s gotta stick. It’s the one you want to share.”
“Long form refers also to the time spent reporting.”
So, that’s a chunk of what the talk was about. Good stuff. Share those quotes with someone you love.
Written by Brendan O’Meara
Richard Gilbert is the author of Shepherd, a memoir about his days on an Ohio farm fulfilling a lifelong dream to become a farmer. He raised flocks of sheep, got hurt, dealt with ragweed allergies, the list goes on and on. It’s a wonderful book and I think after listening to Richard you’ll want to devour it and also follow his great blog, Draft No. 4, and follow him on Twitter @richardsgilbert.
The audio to the podcast kinda sucks. For that I’m sorry. There are some points where my Skype connection got real choppy. Other times the audio gets uneven. I’m sorry, but brighter days are coming. Subscribe to Hashtag #CNF on iTunes and sign up for the weekly emailer that updates you on the week’s posts. That’s it! Enjoy!