Tag: writing

Episode 225: Amalia Andrade Dances with Her Fears

By Brendan O’Meara

What a pleasure to have Amalia Andrade (@amaliaandrade_ on Twitter) on the podcast to talk about her new book What You Think About When You Bit Your Nails: A Fear and Anxiety Workbook (Penguin Life).

She’s so damn cool and her style of drawing and writing is so fun and whimsical. I think you’re gonna dig her.

We talk about:

  • Her childhood growing up in Columbia
  • Fear and anxiety
  • Ira Glass and the creative gap (video below)
  • Developing along with her audience
  • And how drawing can alleviate your anxieties

Consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts so more CNFers like YOU will see it. Subscribe to my monthly newsletter where you’ll get great reading recommendations, be entered in raffles for books and maybe, just maybe, be invited to a Zoom Happy Hour on the first of the month, the day the newsletter goes out. You’ll have to subscribe, open the newsletter, and follow the link at the appropriate time.

Cheers!

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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.

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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.

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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

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Episode 212: Kevin Guilfoile on Uncovering the Chaos and ‘A Drive into the Gap’

Kevin Guilfoile

By Brendan O’Meara

Kevin Guilfoile (@kevinguilfoile) is the author of the memoir A Drive into the Gap (Field Notes, 2012).

It’s a wonderful story about memory, fathers and sons, and the hunt for the identity of Roberto Clemente’s bat, the one that struck his 3,000th and final hit.

Kevin shares stories about his time growing up in Cooperstown, home of the baseball Hall of Fame and dealing with a young Barry Bonds while an intern for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He’s written two novels and one movie and I loved it when he said, “You become a writer by writing.”

It’s the same sentiment that Austin Kleon espouses: In order to be the noun, you have to do the verb.

Keep the conversation going on on social media @CNFPod and consider leaving a kind a review on Apple Podcasts.

And sign up for my monthly newsletter where I raffle off books, share reading recommendations, writing tips, and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast.

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Episode 210: Stephanie Gorton Looks to the Past with ‘Citizen Reporters’

Stephanie Gorton (Photo credit Rachel Hulin)

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

Want the transcript to this episode?! PayPal brendan at brendan omeara dot com $5 and I’ll send you the PDF!

“But there was a sense that I had let down my younger self and ought to find a way to make writing at least in some way, a part of my part of my life.” — Stephanie Gorton.

By Brendan O’Meara

Stephanie Gorton (@sdgortonwords) is the author of Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America. It’s a ripping-good yarn.

In this conversation we talk about her Page Turner piece for New Yorker dot com about an H.P. Lovecraft conference in Providence, her home city. We riff on what it was like for her to go from publishing to writing. We talk about the social media and why anyone with platform would trust a journalist with their stories. It’s good, clean fun.

Keep the conversation going on social media by linking up the show and tagging it @CNFPod.

This podcast was sponsored in part by Scrivener, made by writers for writers! It’s also sponsored by Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry.

Be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to my monthly newsletter for book recommendations, writing tips, and what you might’ve missed from the world of the podcast. You’re also entered to win books. What’s not to like?! Sign up below.

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Episode 209: The Evolution of Beth Roars

Beth Compson Bradford
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This episode is sponsored by Scrivener, by writers for writers.

Beth Compson Bradford, better known as Beth Roars, comes on the podcast because she embodies the new way creatives need to be creative to make a living.

She’s a vocal coach and performer, but she’s best know for her YouTube channel where she reacts to various vocal performances. Like this one:

Be sure to keep the conversation going on Instagram, all @creativenonfictionpodcast.

Things Beth and I talk about:

  • Self-doubt
  • Taking tiny steps
  • Giving up on her dreams

Subscribing to my monthly newsletter gets you reading recommendations, podcast news, and enters you into raffles for free books. Sign up below, friend.

Episode 208: From Floundering to Freelance Superstar with Wudan Yan

Wudan Yan

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

“That was always my understanding that if you want to be a freelance journalist, you’re probably going to have to do a lot of things that you don’t want to do, so it creates time, space, and resources for you to dig into the things that you want to do.” — Wudan Yan

By Brendan O’Meara

You know when an episode is especially juicy? Of course you do! and this is one of them.

Wudan Yan is a freelance superstar. You can find her on Twitter (an amazing follow) @wudanyan. She’s one of those wicked smaht people who breaks things down and makes things supah approachable and, damn, maybe you can make a go of it, too.

She’s a Seattle-based journalist and co-host of The Writer’s Co-op, a business podcast for writers. Wudan got internet famous for a blog post she wrote about chasing late fees for the $5,000 she was owed. Unfortunately this is the ugly side of freelancing, chasing late payments like Pac-Man on a ghost.

Instead of me linking up to so much of her incredible work, just go here and dig in. Get some coffee. Pour in some delicious vegan creamer into your coffee (I prefer Oatly’s barista creamer) and settle in for some world-class journalism, bruh.

Be sure you’re subscribed to the show wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a nice review on Apple Podcasts. They help.

Keep the conversation going on social media, @CNFPod across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Sign up for that newsletter, too. Book raffles, reading recommendations, writing tips, and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. First of the month. No spam. Can’t beat it.

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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.

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Episode 206: Neal Bascomb on Deep Research, Failed Novels, and Locking into Nonfiction

Neal Bascomb

By Brendan O’Meara

Hey there, CNFers! How are you? You hanging in there? That’s good. Keep wearing a mask.

For Episode 206, I welcome Neal Bascomb, author of Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020). It’s a great read. I really loved the characters.

In this episode we also talk about his soiree in novel writing and how writing four failed novels put him on the path he’s on now. We talk about his approach to research and how he organizes is. Lots of great stuff here.

I hope ya dig.

As always, be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and if you’re feeling kind, leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts.

Keep the conversation going on social media by pinging the show @CNFPod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And if this show means anything to you and your circle of CNFers, please share it. This only spreads hand to hand.

Books by Neal Bascomb

The Racecars
The Escape Artists
The Winter Fortress
The Perfect Mile
Hunting Eichman
Red Mutiny
The New Cool
Higher

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