Sonia Hamer is here to talk about her essay “Pig: An Essay,” an installment of Creative Nonfiction’s True Story.
This is a nice tight 30, which I’m starting to like more and more.
She talks about how writing essays is a lot like putting ingredients into a Crock-Pot, or making a soup. Reminds me of Adam Valen Levinson when he came by.
I hope you enjoy this final episode of 2019.
By Brendan O’Meara
Jake Gronsky joins me this fine CNFriday to talk about his transition from playing professional baseball in the Minor Leagues to becoming a writer.
It’s good stuff.
He’s the co-author of A Short Season: Faith, Family, and a Boy’s Love of Baseball.
Jake made the notable selections for Best American Sports Writing 2019 with his two-part feature titled Nine Days in Cape Cod.
We dig into lots of good stuff and the craft of writing, about getting out of the way of the story and always having that apprentice mindset.
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If you have questions you want answered, shoot me an email, CNFer.
By Brendan O’Meara
Amy Fish is here to talk about her book I Wanted Fried With That (New World Library).
We talk about her approach to writing the book, revisiting old essays, dealing with the flood of rejections and the art of the crafty complaint.
We brought up her 100 rejections in a year manifesto, something she said at HippoCamp 2019, something she took from Lisa Romeo.
Amy talks about drawing inspiration from David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, and the mystery genre.
Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast (wherever!) and, more importantly, the monthly newsletter. You can subscribe at the form at the bottom of this post. You can subscribe by this link. Or you can put your name in the task bar at the very top of this web page. It’s that easy.
Thanks for listening, CNFers. It means the world to me. Seriously.
By Brendan O’Meara
[email creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com for questions you want answered!]
Lindsay McCrae is here to talk about his year with the penguins in My Penguin Year: Life Among the Emperors (William Morrow, 2019).
We talk a lot about his eleven months in Antarctica and the grind that was. We learn about how he got into this line of work, of being a freelancer, and helping the penguins when they were in peril.
I hope I’ve made something worth sharing. I’ll be taking an indefinite leave of social media starting in 2020, so feel free to follow @CNFPod, but if I don’t respond, you know why. I’m not being rude. In fact, I want to keep in touch via email or via the newsletter. The newsletter is where it’s at, so please subscribe to that and the podcast. Duh.
Lindsay always wanted to write a book and he wrote a fine one here.
Thanks for listening and thanks to Bay Path University’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing for the support.
John O’Connor is here to talk about his essay “Everything Gets Worse,” Issue 32 of Creative Nonfiction’s True Story.
In this episode we talk about the genesis of this essay, what it says about him and finding a donkey for your story.
Towards the end, he also brings up Jenny Odell and wanting to read her book How to Do Nothing. You can listen to my conversation with Jenny if you’d like. No presh. You might also like Eric Ducker, who wrote a great profile on Jenny for The Ringer.
Support the show by linking up to it on your social platforms, engaging with the show on Twitter, IG or Facebook, and consider leaving a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. We’re real close to 100. Let’s get there and see what happens.
“Time is doing so much work.” — Elisa Gabbert (@egabbert)
Here we are again, friend. Elisa Gabbert is here to talk about how she comes up with her ideas for essays and not being afraid to cast a book aside because there’s so little time to waste time not finding a mind-blowing book.
You can pre-order her new book, which comes out in August 2020. We don’t talk about what it is, but you can still pre-order the thing. The Unreality of Memory.
We talk about her essay collection The Word Pretty, quite a bit, and how she goes about the work while having a full-time job in a non-writing field. It’s good stuff.
You might want to pair this episode with Elena Passarello or Leslie Jamison or Natalie Singer.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. It’s all @CNFPod. I’d love to hear from you.
By Brendan O’Meara
Steven Moore is here to talk about his memoir The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier (University of Georgia Press, 2019).
It’s in my Top 3 Memoirs of the year. My faves were Meredith May’s The Honey Bus and Leslie Jamison’s The Recovering.
In any case, Steven and I randomly met in November 2018 in line at a talk during the Portland Book Festival. We were in line to hear Elizabeth Rush give a talk. He heard my voice from this thing and here we are.
You see? You never know where your next podcast guest might come from.
Thanks, of course, to Bay Path University’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction for the support. Check them out.
This episode was nice in that Kevin Robbins says, among lots of other things, that, “I’m still trying to figure out why the greats are great.”
It’s ephemeral. You can’t put a finger on it. And so here we are.
Kevin was on the show three years ago. Check it out. There’s tremendous skill and restraint evident in Kevin’s work. Understating things is difficult because you want to look like Simone Biles during a floor routine, which is to stay WTF??!!
Kevin’s latest book is The Last Stand of Payne Stewart: The Year Golf Changed Forever. You don’t have to like or know golf to love this book. Kevin draws out what made Stewart human, which is what we all want, right? We want to know that we have the capacity to improve and be better, not optimized in this world of hyper productivity, but better.
His previous book was about the iconic golf instructor Harvey Pennick.
In any case, I hope you enjoy this conversation. Let us know what you think @CNFPod on Twitter.
Party on, CNFers.
By Brendan O’Meara
Cassandra King Conroy is the author of several works of fiction and, most recently, the memoir Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy.
Be sure to subscribe to the show and keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod or @BrendanOMeara. I love to hear what resonates with you, so please reach out and certainly share across your networks.
“These guys were screaming at me from beyond the grave.” —Bob Batchelor (@CultPopCulture)
“I worked to write the longest screenplay possible.” —Bob Batchelor
By Brendan O’Meara
Here we are again, CNFers! What’s new?
We’ve got Bob Batchelor here talking about The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius (Diversion Books)
Crazy story, a story that partly inspired The Great Gatsby, perhaps, maybe.
I hope you check it out.
We dig into lots of great things: How John Updike showed Bob the way, singing a kind of Pennsylvania song, and dealing with a real rotten teacher who made Bob’s life miserable until he got out from under her and made something of himself with mentors who saw his potential in college. It’s a great story.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod. And, if you’re feeling kind, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I hope I’ve made something worth sharing, so please share it with your own network.