Tag: nonfiction

Episode 226: Edward Parnell’s In Search of a Haunted Country in ‘Ghostland’

Edward Parnell

By Brendan O’Meara

Edward Parnell, the author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country (William Collins), comes by the show to talk about the new book, a book that is part travel log, culture log, and memoir.

It is a haunting read, a mournful read, so naturally I dug it.

You can find Edward @edward_parnell on Twitter.

We talk about our shared love of Kurt Vonnegut, keeping the fun in writing, his approach to take this book away from the traditional grief memoir path, and lots more.

Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod and be sure to sign up for the monthly newsletter where I give out reading recommendation, podcast news, and writing tips. This month I plan to try something new: An exclusive Zoom link to have a little happy hour. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.

Other Books by Edward Parnell

The Listeners

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 223: ‘Why Are You Making it, and Who is it for?’ with Kristen Meinzer

Kristen Meinzer

By Brendan O’Meara

“I spend a lot of time thinking about promotion. This isn’t Field of Dreams,” says Kristen Meinzer, @kristenmeinzer on Twitter.

You might remember Kristen from her first soiree on the podcast a few months ago when she and Jolenta Greenberg came by to talk about the book they co-wrote, How to be Fine.

She’s back for a solo show to talk about her book So You Want to Start a Podcast: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story, and Building a Community that Will Listen (William Morrow, 2019).

I’m self-taught, been doing this thing for eight years, and I found so many incredible nuggets in this book. The thing is, it’s ostensibly about podcasting, but you can apply the principles to anything.

We talk about structure in writing and in podcasting, why are you starting a podcast and who is it for, pet peeves in podcasting, mistakes new producers make, promoting a show, and what exactly a producer does.

Good stuff.

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, tell a friend, and consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Keep the conversation going on social media. It’s @CNFPod across Twitter, IG, and FB.

Kristen’s Bookshelf for the Apocalypse or Library for the End of the World (in pictures!)

Leave the show a voicemail and I’ll answer your question on the show!

Gotta get that monthly newsletter! Here’s a link to the archive. It only goes back to March 2019, but you’ll get the drift.

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 222: Catherine Grace Katz on One-Word Distillations, the Thrill of Research and ‘The Daughters of Yalta’

By Brendan O’Meara

Catherine Grace Katz, author of The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War, joins me to talk about her new book.

You can find her @Catherine_Katz on Twitter.

Catherine graduated from Harvard with a BA in history in 2013. She earned an MPhil in modern European history from Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge in 2014, and now is pursuing her JD at Harvard Law School.

You could say she was punching down in class coming by to speak with me.

She joins the ranks of several historians who have been on the show like Laura Hillenbrand, Bob Batchelor, and James Carl Nelson, to name a few.

We talk about her upbringing in Chicago and how stories were such an early part of her life, her dissertation on modern counterintelligence, research, and her Bookshelf for the Apocalypse. All great stuff.

Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across the Big Three and consider leaving the show a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Drop me a line if you have questions, want me to work with you on your book or essay, or you just want to say hello.

Catherine’s Bookshelf for the Apocalypse

A Gentleman in Moscow
Emma
Anne Green Gables
The Martian
To Kill a Mockingbird
In Command of History

Brendan does not get a kickback for any book sales via affiliate links. This is why he fails.

This newsletter goes to 11!

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 221: Power Couple Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham Bring You ‘The Gay Agenda’

Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham

By Brendan O’Meara

Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham are the creative, queer and trans power couple behind the incredible and beautiful book The Gay Agenda: A Modern Queer History and Handbook (Morrow Gift, 2020).

You can follow them and their stationery story at ashandchess.com and follow them on Instagram @ashandchess.

We dig into where they grew up, how they met, the “so 2018” way their book came to be, and much, much more.

Keep the conversation going on social @CNFPod and consider sharing the show across your networks. If you tag the show, I’ll be sure to give you some love, most likely in the form of a James Hetfield GIF. Also consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. It would give me and the show a great boost.

Ash and Chess’s Bookshelf for the Apocalypse*

Amateur: A Reckoning with Gender, Identity, and Masculinity by Thomas Page McBee
The Twits by Roald Dahl
The Hike by Drew Magary
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
The Fireside Book of Children’s Songs
*: These are not affiliate links. Brendan does not get a commission based on book sales, though he acknowledges this is probably really stupid not to.

CNFin’ Monthly Newsletter!

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 220: The ‘Unreality’ of Elisa Gabbert

By Brendan O’Meara

Elisa Gabbert is back, baby.

She’s got a new book out called The Unreality of Memory (FSG, 2020). It’s a killer collection of disaster essays and what we’ve come to expect from Elisa, which is to say deeply intellectual, observant, incredibly researched with just a dash of the personal.

As always, be sure you’re subscribed to this podcast wherever you listen and consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts.

Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across the big three. I’ll be emerging from my social media detox soon since I finished the latest draft of my memoirvel.

If you have questions or just want to say hello to the show, click on the appropriate button, leave a message, and I’ll be sure to address the best questions I get. Don’t be shy 🙂

I brought back the Bookshelf for the Apocalypse, a CNF Pod deep cut of how I’d ask guests what books were so important to them that they’d pack them in their survival pack for the end of the world. You have that to look forward to towards the end of the show. Enjoy, friend.

Elisa’s Bookshelf for the Apocalypse

Moby Dick
Howards End
Collection of John Ashbery’s work
Collection of Susan Sontag’s early work
The Journals of Sylvia Plath

Other Books by Elisa Gabbert

The Word Pretty
The Self Unstable
L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems

CNFin Monthly Newsletter!

Brendan’s Monthly Newsletter: First of the month! No spam! Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 213: Tornados, BDSM Potlucks? Welcome to Tomboyland with Melissa Faliveno

Melissa Faliveno. Photo Credit: Maggie Walsh

By Brendan O’Meara

Stepping up to the plate this week is Melissa Faliveno (@melissafaliveno), author of Tomboyland, a collection of essays published by Topple Books.

It’s a love letter to her midwest roots and the topics are so wide ranging, yet have this connective tissue that once you’re in the thick of reading it you like “How the fuck did she do this?”

Seriously.

In this episode we talk about how she finds the groove, her workspace, the books she keeps on her desk, softball, BDSM, and F5 tornados.

Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across them all. If you feeling kind, link up to the show and consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. A complimentary editing consult awaits you: Just screenshot your review, email it to the show, and I’ll reach back out.

You’ll also want to subscribe to my monthly newsletter that goes on the first of the month. Book recommendations, cool articles, podcasts, and what you might have missed from the world of this podcast. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.

Melissa’s work has appeared in Bitch magazine, the Millions, Prairie Schooner, Isthmus, DIAGRAM, Midwestern Gothic, and Green Mountains Review. She’s a Best American Essays notable writer as well.

Please enjoy this conversation, friend.

First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 211: What to Do When You Hate the Work with Rose Andersen

Rose Andersen is the author of The Heart and Other Monsters.

This episode is sponsored by Scrivener, by writers for writers.

“Great, so you’re at the point in the writing process where you hate all your work. We all do that.” — Rose Andersen (@roseandersen)

By Brendan O’Meara

Rose Andersen is the author of The Heart and Other Monsters (Bloomsbury, 2020) and we jam about that, the writing process, deadlines, music, groove, and addiction.

It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, so you should listen here and then consider buying it for the memoir/true crime lover in your circle of CNFers.

And I’m bringing back the review-for-coaching deal. If you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, I will give you an hour of my editing/coaching time, a $50 value, so act fast!

Leave a review, wait for it to post, screenshot it, and email it to me creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com. Then I’ll reach out. Keep the work to 2,000 words or fewer.

Also, if you’re feeling kind, link up to the show on social media, tagging the show @CNFPod so I can give you the props and elbow bumps you deserve!

First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it!

* indicates required

Episode 207: Every Story is a Workshop with Roy Peter Clark

Roy Peter Clark

This episode is sponsored by Scrivener, created by writers for writers.

By Brendan O’Meara

In this conversation, Roy Peter Clark, author of Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser (Little, Brown), he says, “Every story is a workshop.”

What a great way to approach reading and writing. I love it.

Roy is the author of several books on writing including Writing Tools, The Glamour of Grammar, Writing Short, Help! for Writers, and The Art of X-Ray Reading.

In this episode we talk about a deep dive he took on a 19-year-old college freshman’s brilliant story of a man washing the stain of blood from the sidewalk after a killing.

There’s lots of great stuff I know you’ll dig in this episode, so I’ll leave you to it.

Be sure to keep the conversation going on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, @CNFPod.

If you dig the show, consider leaving a nice review on Apple Podcasts. I make it a point to review shows I like, so I’m not just asking for reviews and not dishing it out!

Also subscribe to my monthly newsletter to be entered in book raffles, and to receive reading recommendations, and podcast news.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Episode 205: The Art of Biography with Larry Tye

Larry Tye

By Brendan O’Meara

Hello, there, CNFers, we’ve got the incredible biographer Larry Tye joining us in conversation.

He’s the author of Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020).

Larry has written several biographies including ones on Satchel Paige, Super Man (!), and Bobby Kennedy, you know, your average ditch diggers.

In this episode we talk about book proposals, his approach to organizing his notes, and how being a reporter was like being in a “candy store.” Good, good stuff.

I had a lot of fun, and I hope you do, too.

If you’re feeling, leave a review on Apple Podcasts and consider signing up for the monthly newsletter. And keep the conversation going on social media. @CNFPod on Twitter, IG, and Facebook.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Episode 202: Ruby McConnell — … And Nothing but The ‘Ground Truth’

Ruby McConnell

By Brendan O’Meara

Ruby McConnell is here.

She’s @rubygonewild across the socials. She and I jam a bit on Twitter, so I’ll link up to that. Here.

Ruby’s got a new book out: Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of a Life (Overcup Press, 2020).

It’s a damn good book and I’ll take you to the woodshed if you think otherwise.

Sorry.

Feeling aggressive.

Ruby is also the author of A Woman’s Guide to the Wild.

We had a pretty rad conversation where we talk about how dance taught her the discipline it takes to be a writer and how geology is a, perhaps, the most writerly science. She’s a native Oregonian and a fellow Eugenian and, I don’t know, I had about as good a time as I’ve ever had on this show with Ruby.

Be sure you’re subscribed to the show wherever you get your pods and if you’re feeling kind, leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts. They’ve stalled and it’d be nice to crest that 100-rating threshold.

Keep the conversation going on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all @CNFPod. And if you sign up for the newsletter, you’re automatically — and perpetually — entered in a raffle to win books. I give out reading recommendations and news you might have missed from the world of the podcast. It’s fun. You’ll dig it.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.