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Episode 376: John Vaillant

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An interview, well done, elevates everybody. The interviewer gets what they want, they get this material and this deep detail, but the older I get, the more I realize that pretty much 90% of what human beings want out of life is to be seen and heard.
John Vaillant, Ep. 376

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By Brendan O’Meara

John Vaillant is here, CNFErs, to talk about Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (Knopf). It’s an incredible feat of writing, reporting, and research and takes us to the devastating 2016 wildfire that tore through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.

John is the author a The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed, and The Jaguar’s Children.

You can find him on Twitter @johnvaillant and in this conversation he notes how Twitter actually helped him (what?!), and we also dig into interviewing for scene, not treating interviewing as an extraction industry, but more renewable, and fire, lots of fire.

Episode 375: Hattie Fletcher and Stephen Knezovich

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You don’t have a lot of room to fart around and throw in stuff that doesn’t matter, you have to focus on what you’re doing and get it done, and then get out.
Hattie Fletcher, Ep. 375

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By Brendan O’Meara

Got a two-for-one deal here, CNFers. It’s Hattie Fletcher and Stephen Knezovich, two of the brilliant minds behind Short Reads, a weekly email missive of flash nonfiction.

They are formerly of Creative Nonfiction Magazine until a failure in leadership forced Hattie, Stephen, and a handful of others to leave the magazine. What came of that experience is Short Reads.

So in this episode we talk about email marketing, building an email list, writing short nonfiction vs. long nonfiction. It’s a concentrated dose of goodness.

Stephen also is an accomplished collage artists, so be sure to check out his website to get a sense of what his work is about. Collage is the bomb.

Episode 373: Seth Godin

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Honey is not the purpose of a hive. Honey is a sign that the hive is functioning well.
Seth Godin, Ep. 373

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By Brendan O’Meara

What a treat! Seth Godin returns, this time to talk about leadership in his new book The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams (Portfolio).

Seth talks about leadership vs. management and also how we develop leadership like a muscle. There’s a tension when someone wants to lead, but maybe doesn’t know how for fear of failure, fear of rocking the status quo, fear of judgement. Seth makes the impossible feel possible. It was a thrill and honor to spend some time with this wonderful person.

Episode 372: Anna Altman

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I try to break it down into sections, when you get the end of a 1,000, or 1,500 words, you’ve made it to the next drop cap, and that feels important.
Anna Altman, Ep. 372

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By Brendan O’Meara

Anna Altman (@bananaaltman) is a freelance journalist and a social worker in training, and she just wrote and reported her second feature for The Atavist Magazine called “The Quality of Mercy.” It deals with compassionate release for the terminally ill and the one man at the center of it advocating for his fellow inmates.

In this episode we dig into how she arrived at this story and the unique challenges of reporting this piece in the ten-minute chunks Anna had with her central figure, Gary Settle, as they spoke through the prison phone system.

Episode 371: Jen A. Miller

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If you can turn in clean copy on time, you will be 95% ahead of everybody else.
Jen A. Miller, Ep. 371

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By Brendan O’Meara

Jen A. Miller (@byJenAMiller) is back with another ebook, Freelance Writing for Laid-Off Journalists (and Those Who Want to Quit).

If Jen is good at anything, it’s breaking down how possible it is to make a nice living as a freelance writer. I mean, I SUCK at it, but that’s not Jen’s fault.

Discovery and Writing Before You’re Ready

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By by by Brendan O’Meara

Hey CNFers, I didn’t have an interview in the can for this week, so I figured I’d try something a little new. Kinda new. Sorta.

This podcast is something of a craft essay. It’s similar to my parting shot … if I only published the parting shot. (Sidebar: This has me thinking, maybe I should bottle up my parting shots and run them on, say, Wednesday, as a mid-week pick me up. If they’re craft based, not if it’s personal. You can email me if you think you’d like that, similar to my flounder (defunct?) Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry. How did it not catch on?)

Episode 370: Christopher McDougall

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Tell the story from the beginning. Don’t tell it from the end. Tell it from where you were when you didn’t know anything. And that stuck with me.
Christopher McDougall, Ep. 370

By Brendan O’Meara

Love that Christopher McDougall (@ChrisMcDougall) came back to the pod. You might remember from Ep. 172. Is that right? 198 episodes ago? Can’t believe that.

Episode 369: Akeem S. Roberts

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The best way to get your style as an artist is when you’re on a deadline that’s very short and you don’t have time to overthink and get all of your influence in it. You just fully present yourself.”
Akeem S. Roberts, Ep. 369

By Brendan O’Meara

Akeem S. Roberts (@akeemteam) is a brilliant cartoonist and wouldn’t you know that he and I are now cosmically connected:

Oh, by the way did I tell you I won The New Yorker caption contest?

Episode 368: Tyler Hooper

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My first rough draft is my outline. That’s what I’m learning about myself. My first drafts are very rough. It’s literally a dump from my head of what I want to say how I want to say it, how I think it should be structured.
Tyler Hooper, Ep. 368

By Brendan O’Meara

Hi there, CNFers, we’ve got Tyler Hooper (@thoope r8) in the house to talk about his piece “The Titanic of the Pacific” for The Atavist Magazine.

Tyler cites the great Erik Larson as an influence and you can feel the pulse of that throughout this nautical-disaster piece about the sinking and tragedy surrounding The Valencia. Tyler writes a bit of the backstory at his Medium page here.

Tyler is a writer, podcaster, and storyteller living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. He has a master’s degree in history and has worked as a journalist.

In this episode we talk about :

Episode 367: Reid Mitenbuler

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I’m always thinking about the pleasures of reading. It’s almost like customer service to your reader, right? I’m doing this for you to give you a place. Bring them into that world.
Reid Mitenbuler, from Ep. 367

By Brendan O’Meara

Reid Mitenbuler (@reidmitenbuler or @mitenbuler) is here to talk some shop around his book Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age (Mariner Books). It’s a gripping read that follows Peter Freuchen through the bulk of the 20th century as he traverses the unforgiving terrain of Greenland, stands up to the Nazis, and writes screenplays and even acts during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

He’s kinda sorta like Forrest Gump.