The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara

Brooke Champagne (@champagne_brooke) is a writer in the thick of it: the grind of it, the messiness of it, the working-out-of-it. One minute with Brooke and you know you're in for rollicking fun conversation about the essay, about writing, and about Nola Face: A Latina's Life in the Big Easy (University of Georgia Press).Pre-order The Front RunnerSponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Harrison Scott Key knows how to write a funny book, and he did it again, this time with How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told (Avid Reader Press). Only this time, he found a way to find the funny as his marriage was under duress.Pre-order The Front RunnerSponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

For Andrew Dubbins, stories of this nature are resource intensive, so he’s always seeking the story engine, what drives the narrative forward. In this case, it’s a cops-and-robbers story with sibling discord at the center.It’s that Atavisitan time of the month and we have Andrew Dubbins, a journalist based out of L.A. who tells the tale about the After Dark Bandit: The Police couldn't’ figure out how the perpetrator ripped off two banks at the same time. Until they discovered there wasn't just one robber but a pair of them: identical twin brothers.Pre-order The Front RunnerSponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Stephanie Gorton once fretted over her not-neat process of writing books and soon came to embrace her messiness as a feature, not a bug, while she wrote The Icon & the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America (Ecco). (Photo credit Sasha Israel)Pre-order The Front RunnerSponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Jared Sullivan got his start primarily editing and admired the kinds of writers and reporters who do both well, like a David Remnick. Valley So Low is Jared's new book, and it is along the lines of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action and illustrates the toll that greed and negligence exert on the people exposed to toxins and the cost cases of this nature take on the legal team, both financial and physical.Jared’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal, and Field & Stream.Pre-order The Front RunnerSponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Steven Hyden (@steven_hydenwriter) is a music critic for Uproxx, producer of Break Stuff, the podcast about Woodstock 99, story producer for the the documentary Yacht Rock, and the author of Twilight of the Gods, This Isn’t Happening, Hard to Handle, and Long Road. His latest is There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springtseen’s ‘Born in the USA’ and the End of the Heartland (Hachette Books). For Steven, he keeps his critic brain and his fan brain fully intact. One needs the other.Gosh, we recorded this back in June, and I’m just about caught up with the really old recordings. In this episode we talk about connections and culture, how a critic has the power to ruin a band or album for you, and losing control of a generational narrative. Really great chat about Pearl Jam, Bruce, and writing a book that provides context to the current time and the era it was forged.Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Seth Wickersham (@seth.wickersham on IG) didn't always want to be a sports writer, but he found his way to it by being a high school quarterback,  covering the University of Missouri Tigers, and "crashing the party" at the Super Bowl with fellow writers Wright Thompson and Justin Heckert. This episode was a chance to revisit his amazing story on its ten-year anniversary, "Awakening the Giant," about Y.A. Tittle.  Seth also is the author of It's Better to be Feared about the New England Patriots dynasty, a book twenty years in the making. He's a senior writer for ESPN.com and often collaborates with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Don Van Natta Jr. on deeply reported pieces on the NFL.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Kate McQueen is the editorial director for the Pollen Initiative and a literary journalist whose work is featured this month for The Atavist Magazine.The story chronicles the story of Carl von Ossietzky, a German journalist imprisoned for his dissent at the start of Hitler's rise to power. A cohort of fellow journalists sought a means to break him out. How did they do it?Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith talk about how and why graphic interpretations are such a powerful vector for storytelling. Roxanne's An Indigenous People's History of the United States is a must-read and Paul's rendering is the perfect gateway in.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Taiyon J. Coleman a professor and the author of Traveling without Moving: Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America (Univ. of Minnesota Press).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod 

Wudan Yan (@wudanyan) is a freelancer writer and founder of Factual, a one-of-a-kind agency committed to fact-checking.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Mira Ptacin (@miramptacin) is a writer and journalist who story, The Crash of the Hammer, ran  in The Atavist Magazine. She's also the author of Poor Your Soul and The In-Betweens. Visit magazine.atavist.com to read her story about how a small town in Maine drove out a Neo-Nazi.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Seth Godin is the best-selling author of more than twenty books and his latest is This is Strategy: Make Better Plans.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Mirin Fader is a staff writer for The Ringer and the author of Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon.The book chronicles the personal and professional transformation of a transformational figure in wonderful, lucid detail.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Chase Jarvis is the author of Never Play it Safe: A Practical Guide to Freedom, Creativity, and a Life You Love (Harper Business).Chase was writing a completely different book, was almost done with it, then scrapped it altogether to write what became Never Play it Safe in, oh, about two months. We talk about intuition, why volume/quantity matters,  how success leaves clues, and the secret hero of the book.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Betsy Golden Kellem (@bgkellem on IG) is a lawyer and historian whose "City on Fire" appears in The Atavist Magazine and chronicles a conspiracy in 1864 by northern Confederate sympathizers to burn Manhattan to the ground.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Sean Enfield (@seanseanclan on IG) is an essayist, education, gardener, bassist, and author of the collection Holy American Burnout (Split/Lip Press).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Louisa Thomas is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams and Mind and Matter.We talk about a profile she wrote on Nikola Jokic as well as her incredible knack for a great kicker.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Liz Morrow (@liz_morrow) and Ariel Curry (@arielkcurry) are the co-authors of Hungry Authors (@hungryauthors): The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book (Rowman & Littlefield).They are a special team and — with their powers combined — created a wonderful guide that is tactical, practical, and informative about how to navigate the business to get your book published.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Brin-Jonathan Butler is a journalist and author of The Grandmaster and The Domino Diaries.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Kelsey Rexroat is a freelance journalist and copy editor who recently reported and wrote a brilliant love story for The Atavist Magazine. Visit magazine.atavist.com to read it.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Ian O'Connor (@Ian_OConnor) is the author of several best-selling books. His latest is Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers (Mariner Books).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Madeleine Blais is the author of several books, her latest being Queen of the Court: The Many Lives of Tennis Legend Alice Marble (Grove Press), now out in paperback.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpodIn the parting shot, I made an error in math referring to the number of hypothetical Mondays remaining in my life. The "correct" number is 1,872. The error has been scrubbed.

Tommy Tomlinson is a journalist and author of Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show (Avid Reader Press).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Rhana Natour (@rnatourious) and Eman Mohammed (@emanit) collaborated for their Atavist story "Coming to America" about a teenage girl from Gaza who lost her legs in an Israeli airstrike and the journey she's on to walk again.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Darcy Frey is the author of The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams, a masterpiece of a book celebrating its 30th anniversary. It's out with a new audio version performed and read by J.D. Jackson.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Cole Heilborn (@portsideproductions) is a filmmaker and found of Port Side Productions, a film company focusing on outdoor storytelling. His film, Inches to Miles, made in partnership with Athletic Brewing, follows three remarkable people as they train up to and compete in the Lake Placid Ironman.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Rebecca Renner (@rebeccarennerfl) is freelance journalist and the author of Gator Country: Deception, Danger, And Alligators in the Everglades (Flatiron Books)."The reader is the one who creates the scenes. I just give them the ingredients."Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Maggie Gigandet is a freelance writer whose piece "The Extra Mile" appears in the Atavist Magazine.In this episode we also hear from editor-in-chief Seyward Darby.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

John Julius Reel (@johnjuliusreel) is a writer, memoirist, and language teacher who lives in Spain with his family. He's the author of My Half Orange: A Story of Love and Language in Seville (Tortoise Books).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Justin Heckert (@justinheckert) is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in countless publications from Esquire to The Ringer, from Garden & Gun to the New York Times Magazine. Justin wrote the afterward to the late Matt Tullis's post-humous book Stories Can Save Us (Univ. of George Press).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Acamea Deadwiler is an essayist and memoirist and the author of Daddy's Little Stranger.This is a really rich conversation about how her book was once a collection of essays, but she had to rewrite it as a more cohesive memoir, finding voice, breaking down a piece of writing like game tape, and what playing basketball and getting cut taught her about a career in writing.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Sam Jefferies is the author of Legacy on Ice: Blake Geoffrion and the Fastest Game on Earth (Univ. of Wisconsin Press).Sam talks about how he built scenes, folded in the book writing and reporting around his family and day job, listening to tape on commutes to get the material into his bloodstream, and maintaining a sense of individual style without exhausting the reader.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

John Rosengren is a journalist based out of Minnesota whose "Anatomy of a Murder" marks Issue 151 for The Atavist Magazine.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Glenn Stout is the author of Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World. It's now out in movie theaters and re-issued as a movie tie-in paperback by Mariner Books.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Lilly Dancyger (@lillydancyger) is a writer and editor whose latest book is First Love: Essays on Friendship (Dial Press).In this episode Lilly talks about her trepidation around writing a true-crime memoir, braided essays, book marketing, and when to let the emotion of the moment do the talking.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Isa Adney (@isaadney) is a writer and documentary producer and the author of The Little Book of Big Dreams: True Stories About People Who Followed a Spark (She Writes Press).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Brian Fairbanks is an author and journalist whose piece for the 150th issue of the Atavist Magazine, The Last Shall be First, chronicles the actions of a corrupt New Orleans cop and his trail of victims still crying for justice.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Earl Swift is the best-selling author of Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery (Mariner Books).In this episode we talk about how Earl strings together book projects and what this story from more than 100 years ago still says about today.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Ruby McConnell (@rubygonewild) is one of our great environmental writers and her latest book is Wilderness and the American Spirit. It's published by Overcup Press.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Alex Squadron is a sports writer for Slam Magazine and the author of Life in the G: Minor League Basketball and the Relentless Pursuit of the NBA.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Darrell Hartman (@dwhartman) is the author of The Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media. It is published by Viking.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Hallie Lieberman (@hallielieberman) is a journalist, writer, and historian. She's the author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy. Her latest piece for The Atavist is "The Handcuff Man." Visit magazine.atavist.com to read it.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Hanif Abdurraqib is poet, critic, and author of several books, including There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Random House).In this episode we talk about his nod to witnessing, specificity, intentionality, making it, and LeBron James.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Elizabeth Rush is the author of The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth (Milkweed).Liz talks about writing toward exactitude, lyricing her way through sticking points, being a character in her own work, and voice.For a couple weeks, visit combeyond.bu.edu, use the promo code NARRATIVE25 at checkout and get 25% your tuition for the two-day Power of Narrative Conference. And, no, I don’t get any dough.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Rob Harvilla (@harvilla on X) is a staff writer for The Ringer and the host and creator of the long-running 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. His first book is 60 Songs that Explain the 90s.We talk about the end of the podcast, the evolution of voice, and the maze he purposefully escapes each episode.For a couple weeks, visit combeyond.bu.edu, use the promo code NARRATIVE25 at checkout and get 25% your tuition for the two-day Power of Narrative Conference. And, no, I don’t get any dough.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Jessica Camille Aguirre (@jessicacaguirre) is a freelance journalist and wrote "Watch it Burn" for The Atavist Magazine.In this episode we talk about racking up rejections, voice, and what makes climate stories drag.For a couple weeks, visit combeyond.bu.edu, use the promo code NARRATIVE25 at checkout and get 25% your tuition for the two-day Power of Narrative Conference. And, no, I don’t get any dough.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

Richard Blanco was the Presidential Inaugural poet at Pres. Obama's second inauguration, a winner of the National Humanities Award medal, and the author of Homeland of My Body (Beacon Press).Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

This originally aired on December 10, 2021 as Episode 291.Mirin Fader is the author of Giannis: The Improbably Rise of an MVP and a staff writer writing features for The Ringer. She is @mirinfader on social media.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod

This originally aired on September 27, 2019 as Episode 170.Leslie Jamison is the best selling author of several books including Make it Scream, Make it Burn. She has a new book out (not talked about in this paperback edition) called Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story.Newsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmShow notes: brendanomeara.comSocial: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and ThreadsSupport: Patreon.com/cnfpod