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Now in Paperback: Susan Orlean on Writing for an Audience and the Entrepreneurial Nature of a Writing Career

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This episode originally aired on August 11, 2017 as Episode 61

These “now in paperbacks” are a nice reprieve for me work-wise and time-wise, and it’s nice to scroll through my Pocket Casts apps and go, “Oh, that’d be a snazzy one!”

And so we’re here with Susan Orlean’s first rodeo at CNF Pod HQ. Great stuff, like:

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

Naturally, a lot more stuff to gnaw on. There was no book to promote, so this is really a writing and craft-centered pod. Future pods dig into her recent work, being The Library Book and On Animals as of this date, Nov. 24, 2023.

The show’s Instagram handle, @creativenonfictionpodcast, and you can always keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod. Or not … you know what’s better? Keep reading …

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Episode 392: Damon Brown Goes from Zero to 18,000

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By Brendan O’Meara

Damon Brown is an author, entrepreneur, and coach and his latest book is The Complete Bring Your Worth Collection. It is definitive. It is his capstone.

Much of Damon’s work has been centered on writing, but the past few years he’s started a fine YouTube show that showcases his particular expertise and how he can get you where you want to go.

In this episode, we talk about:

How he grew is YouTube channel from 0 to 18K
The BYW Collection as capstone
And how obscurity is your friend … to a point

There’s lots of other stuff to chew on as well, naturally. I also share a parting shot about the needless and senseless worry over platform building and where we really need to put our focus. It’s kinda like this blog I wrote … but with more swears.

Now in Paperback: Glenn Stout on Combining the Things You Love, Effort, and the Poem That ‘Knocked Him on his Ass’

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By Brendan O’Meara

This was originally published as Episode 14 on Dec. 6, 2015.

Always nice blow the dust off an older podcast. By virtue of the being older, the snap judgement is that they’re dated. I do go back through and re-edit the paperback podcasts to scrub out what feels dated and keep what’s evergreen.

It helps that, by and large, I try and produce evergreen interviews from the start, but this one had some references to a old job of Glenn’s, which didn’t really fit for 2023.

But what’s left is sure to give you a run for your money, man.

Episode 391: For the Atavist Magazine, Lily Hyde Takes Us to Ukraine

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By Brendan O’Meara

For this month’s Atavist, Lily Hyde wrote “Two Thousand Miles from Home,” as Russia invaded Ukraine, theree women from the same family became pregnant at the same time. Then the war tore them apart.

Pretty bonkers, right?

Just wait till you read it.

Lily riffs on how she arrived at this story, how she came to live in Ukraine, the novel that’s helping her narrative nonfiction, and how she earns trust.

We start off by speaking with lead editor Jonah Ogles so, you know, you’re gonna get some inside baseball from the other side of the table.

The Simple (But Not Easy) 3-Step Way to Build a Platform without Social Media

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By Brendan O’Meara

So often I see people on social media doing all they can to get attention in some capacity. A lot of time is wasted on what the person says they want to do: write.

They might be begging for advice, or complaining about what to put on their website, or otherwise shouting frustratingly into the void hoping the algorithm will place them in front of readers and suddenly they will be famous and make a living from writing … books? Blog posts? Who the hell knows?! (I’m particularly sensitive to this because I was very much like this in the 2012-era.)

Here’s the TLDR version of this blog (!) post:

1. Start a permission-based newsletter available from your website

2. Write for as many publications as possible with your signature pointing people back to your website/newsletter

3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2

But you want more detail, right? Read on, friend.

Episode 390: How Did the Pitcher Pedro Martinez Help Will Harrison’s Writing?Episode 390:

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By Brendan O’Meara

Will Harrison (@thechillestwill) came on the show to talk about his essay My Unlikely Writing Teacher: Pedro Martinez for the New York Times Magazine.

Loved. This. Essay.

And it’s short, which is always kind of a bonus.

Will is an instructor at the School for Visual Arts in New York City. He has written for The Cleveland Review of Books and The Baffler, among others. You can learn more about him at his website, willharrisonwriter.com.

Now in Paperback: Dinty W. Moore on the Gift of Feedback, Reading Like a Mechanic, and Patience

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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.

Episode 388: Agency, Empathy, and the Ethics of Writing True Crime with Kim H. Cross

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By Brendan O’Meara

Kim H. Cross — the H stands for hell raiser … that’s not true, I don’t know what the H stands for — is back on the podcast to talk about her new book In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for AMerica’s Child. It’s published by Grand Central Publishing.

Kim does not identify as a true crime writer, nor is it a sub genre of journalism that she ever wants to do again, but, as Kim says, this story found her and she set out to write the book of record on this Polly Klaas kidnapping from the earlyl 1990s.

So in this episode we talk about how she navigated having a family member at the heart of the investigating (her father in law) as well as:

Now in Paperback: Andre Dubus III

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By Brendan O’Meara

As my book work intensifies, we lean on these paperback editions of the podcast! (Listeners are digging them, I think. One, they’re the greatest hits. Two, it keeps you from having to dig through the overwhelming backlog). This one with Andre Dubus III might be my favorite of the entire run of the podcast, no shade thrown to the others.

It’s just … he brought it. And it’s one of the a rare episodes of the show’s run when, after listening, I wanted to get up and write. Right away.

This originally aired as Ep. 54 in June of 2017.

Episode 387: Tom Donaghy

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By Brendan O’Meara

“Who Killed the Fudge King?“

Tom Donaghy, a playwright and screenwriter, needed to find out.

Harry Anglemeyer was a fixture of Ocean City with a fudge empire on the Jersey Shore, The Copper Kettle. He wanted to lift up and move forward the ocean-side city. He was openly queer in a time that wasn’t as accepting. In 1964, he was murdered and the case was never solved.

Enter Tom.