By Brendan O’Meara
Cassandra King Conroy is the author of several works of fiction and, most recently, the memoir Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy.
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“These guys were screaming at me from beyond the grave.” —Bob Batchelor (@CultPopCulture)
“I worked to write the longest screenplay possible.” —Bob Batchelor
By Brendan O’Meara
Here we are again, CNFers! What’s new?
We’ve got Bob Batchelor here talking about The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius (Diversion Books)
Crazy story, a story that partly inspired The Great Gatsby, perhaps, maybe.
I hope you check it out.
We dig into lots of great things: How John Updike showed Bob the way, singing a kind of Pennsylvania song, and dealing with a real rotten teacher who made Bob’s life miserable until he got out from under her and made something of himself with mentors who saw his potential in college. It’s a great story.
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To get over jealousy and the malicious feeling towards the other who always makes it feel like they’re winning, while your stuck knee-deep in the swamp, you can take perhaps the greatest piece of wisdom out of Chase Jarvis’ Creative Calling.
He writes about the skate culture he grew up around, “Nailing an ollie is essential for doing more advanced tricks, so if you can’t learn it you’re stuck. Luckily for me, it was easy to ask for help in a community like that one. … There’s a sense that when one person succeeds, the whole community wins together.”
And so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that maybe the best way to get over these toxic feelings is to feel buoyed by what is possible, that it isn’t zero sum.
The freelance writer A.C. Shilton echoed this very sentiment saying:
Somebody else’s success does not really take away from your own. Yes, there are limited bylines, I should be using their success to push myself to be better. Right? So that doesn’t mean that I haven’t silenced the occasional person on Twitter who is winning at all things all the time and I need a break.
From Episode 171 of CNF.
It isn’t that somebody else had a win and you lost. It should be, ‘Oh, that person had a win, so that means I can too, so long as I work hard and maybe have a little luck on my side.’
And it echoes back to the skate culture: If you learn a new trick, we all win. So if you get that coveted by-line in The New York, we win as a result.
Good on ya, friend, nice trick.
Hey, CNFers! Look who’s back! It’s Sonja Livingston, whose latest book The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion (University of Nebraska Press) is the subject of our conversation.
This is a nice, tight thirty-minute interview. If you want a little more background on Sonja, check out Episode 56. It’s that special kind of memoir that has some journalistic components, something you might find in books by Leslie Jamison or Meredith May.
We dig into what brought Sonja to this story and how she rediscovered a long dormant devotion to Catholicism. The book doesn’t read like some icky treatise on becoming born again. It’s not evangelical in the least. It’s a person on a journey, a literal and figurative journey. And in the hands of a writer like Sonja,
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Could that be it? I think so.
“Like all writing is re-writing. All reporting is re-reporting.” —Christopher McDougall (@chrismcdougall)
This was a thrill. This was a blast. I know you’re going to love this too. Christopher McDougall, the bestselling author of Born to Run, Natural Born Heroes, and Running with Sherman is here to talk about his books, but also the speed bumps of his career.
How did he get his start? Where were the hiccups, and how did getting fired from a pretty steady gig in Philly turn him loose to write the book that effectively changed his life? Yeah, it’s all here, baby.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod and @BrendanOMeara. Instagram has been a little lax of late, but that’s @cnfpod. It’s all a mess, man!
Hope you’ve been enjoying the CNF Snacks that I’ve been putting out on Monday. Creating without Judgement and Be a Fan are the first installments. The tapas of CNF Pod.
Thanks to Bay Path University for the support and for Riverteeth’s promotional support.
“At the end of the day, you need to get paid for you work because it is work. And one assignment is not going to change your resume.” —AC Shilton (@ACShilton)
“Somebody else’s success doesn’t limit your own.” —AC Shilton
AC Shilton steps onto the @CNFPod main stage this week, dropping freelance bombs like Ian Frisch and Seyward Darby, just to name a couple.
We talk about her farm and her chickens, but also her role in the Netflix documentary The Innocent Man, as well her New York Times piece on arrival fallacy and whether or not we’ve reached peak PBR, her first “viral” story.
You know what to do, subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts and link up to the show on social media.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod and on IG @cnfpod. It’s a lousy place to promote a show, but it’s a great place to have a dialogue and talk about what resonated with you.
Chase Jarvis shares some wisdom about creating without judgement, from his excellent book, Creative Calling.
Let me know what you think! Twitter @CNFPod.
“Essays took on this energy for me in part because they’re unofficial and in part because they brought me in contact with the world that felt really generative.” — Leslie Jamison (@lsjamison on Twitter)
Always nice when you can have straight-up badasses like Leslie Jamison on the show. I’ve spoken with some great essayists on the podcast, like Elena Passarello, Elizabeth Rush, Natalie Singer, among others.
In this episode we riff on how she had to let language to the work for her and not let the language be this shiny veneer without substance, the bounded infinity of nonfiction, and much, much more.
Her new book is Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, 2019) and it’s a joy to read. Leslie is also the bestselling author of The Empathy Exams, The Recovering and the novel The Gin Closet.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter by tagging me and the show @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod. Digital fistbumps for those who do it. I hope I’ve made something worth sharing with your people, so please link up to the show and encourage your CNFin’ buds to subscribe!
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By Brendan O’Meara
Can you believe it? Chase Jarvis (@chasejarvis) is here! He’s here to talk about his incredible new book Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Life + Work.
I can’t recommend it enough. Do yourself and a friend a favor and buy this book. You might want to listen and subscribe to his great podcast too, Chase Jarvis Live Show. He’s been doing this for ten+ years. Amazing stuff.
He made his bones as a photographer and might be most known for (these days) for founding Creative Live, the great online learning platform. I’ve purchased several classes that have helped me immensely.
As always, keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod, Instagram @cnfpod, and Facebook @CNFPodcast. Sign up for the monthly newsletters where I share reading recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast.
And if you’re feeling froggy, leave a kind review on Apple Podcast. We’re knocking on the door of 100. It’s a long knock, but we’re getting there. Let’s do this!
You’re going to love how Chase went about writing this book as we break open the pinata of what makes this book — and Chase — so special.
“My writing life is being surrounded by 15 half-empty coffee cups which I keep dipping my paint brush into accidentally.” —Rachel Dougherty (@racheldoughertybooks)
I don’t have kids, but I love the idea of writing nonfiction books for kids. If that’s your jam, or a jam worth undertaking, then Rachel Dougherty is going to Blow. Your. Mind.
This was a fun episode where we talk about day jobs, confidence (or a lack thereof), finding time to do work that matters, and so much more.
Rachel is the author and illustrator of The Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge. She’s a Philadelphia-based illustrator, children’s author, and lifelong knowledge-hunter. She works in acrylic paint, ink, and pencil smudges, using humor and color to inspire curious young minds. Rachel is passionate about US history, scruffy little dogs, and board games. [I didn’t ask her about board games. I wish I had.]
Listen, social media is a lousy way to promote a podcast, but it’s a great place to keep the conversation going. I hope I’ve made something worth sharing, so let’s keep it up on Twitter @CNFPod, Instagram @cnfpod, and Facebook @CNFPodcast. Tag me and the show and I’ll jump in the fire.
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