narrative – Page 11 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 345: Sarah Souli

Sarah Souli (@sgsouli) is here to talk about her new feature for The Atavist Magazine called “A Matter of Honor.” Man, how’d she pull this off?

Three Afghan women were murdered at the border of Greece and Turkey and Sarah doggedly pursued the story to give names, faces, lives to lives of these three women. It’s not a story you’d read to your kid at night, but maybe once you put them to bed?

We dig into how she went about the reporting, how she faced the rejection of this story and kept going, refiled, and landed it with Seyward Darby and The Atavist. Lots of goodies here I think you’ll enjoy, like the clanging monkey hitting cymbals in her head. Yeah, it’s a thing.

Episode 343: Kristina R. Gaddy

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By Brendan O’Meara

You know this, CNFers, always nice when we can welcome a guest back. So here’s Kristina R. Gaddy, back with her new book Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History (Norton).

We talk about the late Philip Gerard, what she learned from Book 1 to Book 2, structure, and why do we even write books?

You could say I’m souring on writing books but like everything in my life I’m sure it’ll pass and I’ll be back to saying writing books is the ONLY thing that matters.

Episode 342: Remembering Philip Gerard

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By Brendan O’Meara

Man, we lost another wonderful, brilliant, generous member of the writing community, CNFers. Philip Gerard passed away earlier this week.

A few weeks ago we lost Matt Tullis, a wonderful writer of narrative nonfiction, and a teacher of longform journalism. When he was working on what would become his memoir Running with Ghosts, he attended an MFA program out of Wilmington, NC, spearheaded by Philip Gerard.

Phil was someone who had always been one of those dudes I could call on if I had a question on writing, dating all the way back to 2008 when I wrapped up my MFA, right through 2017 and 2019 when he was one of the best guests on this very podcast. I never had him as a mentor in grad school, but he was always someone whose brain I liked picking. He never discounted you on wisdom and encouragement.

Episode 340: J.B. MacKinnon

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By Brendan O’Meara

It’s that Atavistian time of the month! And this time we have J.B. MacKinnon, author of the feature “True Grit.”

This piece chronicles the harrowing journey a few feral cows made during a hurricane in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Let’s just say cows can swim … a LONG time if needed.

J.B. is the author or coauthor of five books of nonfiction. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in such publications as the New Yorker, National Geographic, and the Atlantic, as well as the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches feature writing.

Episode 339: Jeff Pearlman

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By Brendan O’Meara

What a surprise! Jeff Pearlman (@jeffpearlman), author of The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, came by the show to talk about writing biography (but don’t bring up the word craft, okay?).

This was a wonderful conversation from a brilliant writer and reporter, and a great advocate for the writing community at large. He’s the host of Two Writers Slinging Yang.

Writing this story was the hardest one he’d ever reported. He wrote it in backwards chronology, a la Memento. Did you know I did something similar back in 2016? True story. Jeff got $4 a word for his 3,000-word story; I got $200 for a 5,000-word story. That should give you an idea what kind of astral plane Jeff Pearlman works from. He’s a pretty cool dude.

Episode 337: Ander Monson

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By Brendan O’Meara

Who doesn’t love an obsessive deep dive? Who doesn’t love a good rabbit hole? And what a rabbit hole Ander Monson‘s Predator: A Memoir, A Movie, An Obsession (Gray Wolf Press) is!

Ander (@angermonsoon) watched “Predator” more than 150 times so you don’t have to. It’s a great movie and Ander’s analysis of it reveals just how brilliant and salient it is. Sure, on the surface it reeks of brawn and would appear to be a rolling advertisement for gun perversion. But Ander folds in his experience into this unconventional memoir while we watch the movie with him.

Can’t recommend the book enough and this conversation should having you getting to the choppah to visit your favorite book seller.

Episode 336: Cassidy Randall

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By Brendan O’Meara

Cassidy Randall is a freelance writer based out of Montana, and her piece for The Atavist Magazine, “Alone at the Edge of the World,” just dropped.

It’s a harrowing piece and one that really flexes the muscles of what a reporter/writer can do to re-create scenes when they weren’t present for the “main action.”

We talk about how reading fiction helps her with her nonfiction, dealing with rejection, attention to rhythm in sentences, pacing, and a whole lot more.

Episode 335: Steve Brusatte

Steve Brusatte, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs” and “The Rise and Reign of the Mammals.”

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By Brendan O’Meara

Steve Brusatte came on the show back in 2018 for his Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. And he’s back! This time to talk about The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, From the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us.

Hey … that’s us!

Great conversation about how he pivoted from primarily dinosaurs to primarily mammals, climate change, and how dinosaurs and mammals got so damn big.

You can find Steve @SteveBrusatte on Twitter.

Episode 334: Katrina Miller

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By Brendan O’Meara

It’s always fun when scientists come on the show. We’ve had a volcanologist on in Jess Phoenix. We’ve had a guy who studies meteors in Greg Brennecka. We’ve had a paleontologies in Steve Brusatte (and he’s coming back). Now we have a physicist/writer in Katrina Miller!

Katrina (@__katrinarenee) is a brilliant writer whose essay tracks her journey as a physics PhD candidate, along with other pioneering Black women physicists. It’s a beautiful piece and it’ll be great to see what Katrina comes up with next. She’ll be wrapping up her dissertation soon, but she plans on pivoting to more science writing vs. academia.

Episode 333: Malaka Gharib

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By Brendan O’Meara

Cartooning is the best.

And Malaka Gharib (@malakagharib on IG) is one of my favorites. She’s funny, quirky, and wicked smaht.

She’s got a great newsletter (aren’t they ALL the rage these days?), A List of Beautiful Things.

In 2019, her first graphic memoir, I Was Their American Dream, was highly noted by all the notables. And her latest graphic memoir is It Won’t Always Be Like This (Ten Speed Press).