Tweetables by Elizabeth Rush (@elizabetharush on Twitter):
“I’m just a mule. I just show up every day and climb very, very slowly up that mountain.”
“I know writing is about your writing, but it’s also about your networking.”
“My first draft is the Ugly Middle.”
“I feel like I turn to writers to help me solve problems that I’m having.”
Continue reading “Episode 71—Working Backward with Elizabeth Rush”
By Brendan O’Meara
Tweetables by Erica Westly (@westlyer on Twitter):
“That sense of discovery when you come across a story you had no idea existed.”
“The book project was my last hope for getting to do the type of writing I wanted to do.”
“I’ve kind of learned to live with the self-loathing I think.”
“I try to picture myself telling the story to someone at the bus stop.”
It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast where I speak to the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction. Leaders in the world of narrative journalism, memoir, essay, radio, and documentary film share their tools and tricks with you so you can improve your own work.
Continue reading “Episode 70—Erica Westly on Softball and Structure”
Tweetables by Matthew Mercier (www.matthewwmercier.com):
“You have to live a life in order to tell stories.”
“I’ve always been selfish about the writing.”
“Where can I fit in the writing time? That’s always the first question, and then I work in everything around that.”
“The object of a Moth story is you take out.”
“The Moth saved me from my isolation as a writer.”
“What works on the stage doesn’t necessarily work on the page and vice versa.”
Continue reading “Episode 69—Matthew Mercier: From Edgar Allan Poe’s Basement to The Moth Stage”
Tweetables by Peter Brown Hoffmeister (@pbhoffmeister on Twitter):
“After you’re in it for a while and you actually become better, you realize how bad you are.”
“I think that’s how a writing career starts: You’re just a pathetic little freshman.”
“Being a career writer is all about staying hungry.”
“I guess there are people who write strong first drafts, but that’s not me.”
“If you’re competitive with other writers, it’s not going to be healthy.”
“I don’t feel great at the end of the day if I haven’t written or haven’t read.”
What’s up CNFers, hope you’re having a CNFin’ good week.
Continue reading “Episode 68—Peter Brown Hoffmeister on Failure as Fuel, Staying Hungry, and Wolf Naps”
Tweetables from Brin-Jonathan Butler (@brinicio):
“It was completely surreal, like being in the games room of the Titanic after it struck the iceberg. Nobody gave a shit.”
“Obsession has always fascinated me, whether it’s more a dance with your virtues or your demons.”
“Maybe you have to con your ways into finishing a lot of things in life.”
“My worst ideas happen when I’m sitting at the computer. I need to go for a walk, have a cigarette, or play with my cat.”
Hey, hey, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists—leaders in narrative journalism, essay, memoir, radio, and documentary film—and tease our their stories, tips, and tricks and how you can apply those tools to your own work. I’m your host @BrendanOMeara, Brendan O’Meara in real life. Continue reading “Episode 66—Brin-Jonathan Butler on the Risk of Chess, Obsession with Obsessives, and the Blessing of Struggle”
By Brendan O’Meara (@BrendanOMeara)
Tweetables by Matt Tullis (@matttullis):
“To be a great writer, you just have LOVE writing. You have to be passionate about it, so you’re going to do it a lot.”
“When I write a story, I want it to get as big an audience as possible.”
“I don’t have any problem whatsoever with being a shameless self promoter. I know a lot of writers who don’t like to do that.”
“I think some people who are super competitive can also get jealous of people who are more successful.”
“I love it when people who I like and respect and like to read, I love it when their stuff gets big.”
“If you hang around long enough, you’re gonna understand what the story is.”
“I feel good justifying my own survival by telling the stories of those who didn’t survive.”
It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists—journalists, documentary filmmakers, essayists, memoirists, and radio producers—about creating works of nonfiction.
Have we got a good one for you today. Episode 64 with journalist Matt Tullis (@matttullis) on Twitter. His first book, Running With Ghosts: A Memoir of Surviving Childhood Cancer published by The Sager Group, tells the story of how Matt got slammed with a form of leukemia at age fifteen, and subsequently what he did what that survival as many of his friends, who had previously been in remission, started passing away as the cancer came back. A couple of Matt’s caretakers, people who spent hours, and weeks, and months ensuring his survival, also died of cancer leaving Matt to wonder why he was spared.
There were several times in this book that burned your host’s eyes, not gonna lie, but Matt honors his life and his friends by turning his reporter’s eye inward, and outward, telling the story of his life and his friends.
Matt is a professor at Fairfield Univeristy and host of Gangrey the Podcast. His work has appeared in SB Nation Longform among many other places.
You’re gonna dig this episode as we talk about what it takes to be a great writer, letting events unfold in the face of preconceived expectations, competition, jealousy, and self promotion.
Fractals
The Things They Carried
Pulphead
Tom Junod
Chris Jones
Kelley Benham French
Wright Thompson
John Jeremiah Sullivan
Paul Auster
William Bradley
Glenn Stout
Tim O’Brien
Tweetables by Bronwynn Dean (@bronwynnhdean):
“Pretty much anyone I interact with is fair game for ending up in a story.”
“Okay, here’s how to get in the facts, but also make it really funny.”
“Having that permission for adventure, I never lost that.”
“You have to see the value in the end product enough to make yourself suffer.”
This episode is brought to you by Hippocamp 2017, a conference for creative nonfiction writers. It takes place in lovely Lancaster, PA, and runs from September 8 through September 10. Spots are still available for the third annual conference, so if you want to check out speakers like Tobias Wolfe and Dinty W. Moore, you better sign up! Hippocamp: Create. Share. Live.
Bronwynn Dean stopped by the podcast to talk about the power of performance and her work-in-progress about the world of marijuana. It’s titled Potted.
Her work has appeared in Pitkin Review and Soundings Review. She cites Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe as major influences and I think you’ll dig how she was able to be the only one of about forty writers to land an agent. What went right? What was wrong about the other 39? Good stuff.
Okay, friends, you know the drill: Please leave a nice review over at iTunes and sign up for my monthly newsletter where I give out my book recommendations. It’s short, to the point, no spam.
Share this with a friend and sit back and enjoy Bronwynn Dean.
By Brendan O’Meara
Tweetables by Susan Orlean (@susanorlean)
“What can I do with the tools I was given as opposed to the tools I was expecting?”
“If a story is just exactly what I expected it would be, I don’t think of that as all that interesting.”
“Entrepreneur, I had the instincts of an entrepreneur.”
“OK, this is how you do it…you make a connection, you think of stories that would work for a bigger audience.”
“In very practical terms, if you’re gonna be a person doing longform journalism, you will be running a small business.”
“Look at it as a business you’re running, but you also happen to be the raw material the business is producing.”
“Each story starts from zero. It never stops being exciting.”
Hello, CNF-buddies, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction—journalists, essayists, memoirists, radio producers, and documentary film makers—and how you can use their tools of mastery and apply it to your own work.
That’s right, you are in for a treat. Well, let’s face it, you’ve always been in for a treat, but this week you’re in for an Easter basket and Halloween sack all rolled into one verifiably true candy locker.
New York Times bestselling author of Rin Tin Tin, The Orchid Thief, (which was made into the movie Adaptation), Saturday Night, My Kind of Place, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, and the children’s book Lazy Little Loafers. She’s a staff writer for The New Yorker (full archive here) and she came by the podcast to share her wisdom and experiences from a career writing deeply reported features. You can find Susan online @susanorlean on Twitter and visit her website Susan Orlean dot com.
What are some takeaways? Susan talks about always having an audience in mind, having supreme focus, and needing to see yourself as a business person if you plan on doing this type of work and that it’s actually freeing, not stifling, in order to do the kind of work that excites you and feeds your ambitions.
Before we get to that, I ask that you please subscribe to the podcast, share it with a friend, and leave a rating or, ideally, a nice review on iTunes, like this one from Meredith May. She said, “Real conversations among professional writers about the essence of craft. A behind the scenes look at the way stories come together, from inception to publication, that doesn’t shy away from the truth about the difficulties and triumphs of making a living from words. One of the hardest concepts for my podcasting students to grasp is how differentiate between a story and a topic—this podcast helps them find that X-factor that makes a story sing.”
Wow. Shoutout to that five-star review. If you leave one, I might just read it on the air! It’s time for the show, episode 61 with Susan Orlean!
By Brendan O’Meara
Hello, friends, fellow CNFers, it’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction and the actionable insights they share to help you with your work.
Today I welcome back Jessica Lahey (@jesslahey) of Episode 51 fame, author of the NYT bestseller The Gift of Failure and, most recently, the author of the essay “I’ve Taught Monsters,” which appeared in Issue 63 of the literary magazine Creative Nonfiction.
For this episode, Jess reads the essay in its entirety and she gives a knockout performance. I noodled around with music for a bit, but I couldn’t find the perfect tracks for it, so I just let it stand: Jess simply reading her wonderful essay.
Before we get to her reading I want to ask you something: What are you struggling with? Is there something in your work that’s giving you trouble or are you hitting road blocks? I want to know. Ping me on Twitter or email me. Maybe I can help.
Also, be sure to share this with a friend, leave a review on iTunes if you got any value out of this, and let me know if you dig these author readings.
Also, it’s Saratoga horse racing season and some of you might not even know that I write words too. My first book, Six Weeks in Saratoga: How Three-Year-Old Filly Rachel Alexandra Beat the Boys and Became Horse of the Year came out in 2011 courtesty of SUNY Press. It’s a timeless story about the track and the 2009 season. Want to support me and the podcast? Buy a book! It’s in paperback.
That’s it, here’s Episode 59 as Jessica Lahey returns to read from her essay “I’ve Taught Monsters.”
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By Brendan O’Meara
Dinty W. Moore (@brevitymag) runs the creative writing program at Ohio University. He founded Brevity Magazine, an online magazine dedicated to short (<750 words) nonfiction. He’s written a dozen books.
Dinty’s book, The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press), will help diagnose—and cure!—common ailments in your project, whether you’re far along in a book (as I am) or you’re just getting starting.
Continue reading “Episode 49—Dinty W. Moore on the Gift of Feedback, Reading Like a Mechanic, and Patience”