Podcast – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 424: Tommy Tomlinson on Aiming for One-Word Summations, the Blurt, and ‘Dogland’

By Brendan O’Meara

Tommy Tomlinson (@tommyltomlinson) is on the show to talk about dogs … and writing … and about his book Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show (Avid Reader Press).

Tommy is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in Esquire, ESPN the Magazine, Garden & Gun, and a million other places. He’s also the author of the brilliant memoir Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America.

I have a soft spot in my heart for very accomplished writers and journalists who speak so openly and candidly about writing and doing the work, and Tommy brings all that to this conversation.

Episode 422: Thirty Years of “The Last Shot,” Lessons from Obstacles, and Old-School Note Taking with Darcy Frey

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By Brendan O’Meara

Darcy Frey’s The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (Mariner Books, Spiegel & Grau audio) is a masterpiece in writing, structure, and immersive journalism — not participatory — but true immersion. It’s also a master class in how best to use the first person in a work that predominantly focuses on its core group of central figures.

Darcy’s essays and journalism for Harper’s and the New York Times Magazine have received numerous awards, including a National Magazine Award, a Livingston Award, and an Award for Public Service from the Society for Professional Journalists. His work has been adapted for stage and screen, and anthologized in The Best American Essays, Best American Science Writing, and the Library of America series. He teaches in the English department at Harvard.

The Last Shot was recommended to me by the late great Dick Todd, who worked on this book with Darcy. So we talk a little bit about Dick and how Darcy came to know and work with him.

Episode 421: Cole Heilborn says, “We’re Gonna Find What We Find”

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By Brendan O’Meara

Hey! We’ve got Cole Heilborn, a documentary filmmaker and founder of Port Side Productions, a company focusing on outdoor storytelling. His latest film is Inches to Miles, a film made in collaboration with Athletic Brewing. I’m an ambassador! Use BRENDANO20 at checkout for a slick discount, friend! (I don’t get any dough, just points toward beer.)

Episode 420: Rebecca Renner Makes the Pig

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By Brendan O’Meara

Look who it is! It’s Rebecca Renner (@rebeccarennerfl on IG), freelance journalist and author of Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades (Flatiron Books).

Rebecca‘s work has appeared in National Geographic, Outside Magazine, and The Paris Review, among others.

I was struck by Rebecca’s self-assuredness, something I categorically lack, which made me think during this conversation as it was happening, like, Wow, what must that be like?

Episode 419: Maggie Gigandet Red Paperclipped Her Way into Freelancing

Maggie Gigandet Photography by Nathan Morgan

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By Brendan O’Meara

It’s yet another Atavistian podcast, this with Maggie Gigandet, a freelance writer behind “The Extra Mile.“

After a horrific accident, doctors told Todd Barcelona that he’d likely never run again. So he and his wife decided to run farther than they ever had before.

Maggie used to be a trial attorney, and she made the pivot to freelance writing during the height of the pandemic, so we dig into how she made that change and what skills transferred over.

Episode 418: Surrendering to the Subconscious with John Julius Reel

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By Brendan O’Meara

Hey, CNFers, happy CNFriday, and, boy, what a fun episode we’ve got! It’s John Julius Reel! He’s @johnjuliusreel on the Instagrams and he’s the author of the memoir My Half Orange: A Story of Love and Language in Seville (Tortoise Books).

John is a writer, radio host, and language instructor based out of Spain and My Half Orange (a Spanish idiom for soul mate) bridges his native culture with his adopted one, and it’s the latter where he found a greater place in the world personally and artistically.

In this conversation (Cut down from two hours. I’ll post some of the outtakes for the Patreon gang.) we talk about letting the subconscious in on the joke, how to make memoir relatable, and the never-ending quest to impress your father.

Episode 416: A Lifelong Search for Voice with Acamea Deadwiler

By Brendan O’Meara

Acamea Deadwiler (@acamea) is here with her debut memoir Daddy’s Little Stranger (Riddle Brook Publishing).

It started as an essay collection, but at the behest of her publisher, she was tasked with making it more of a traditional memoir. The result is a coming-of-age story of a young woman who grew up without a father and how she navigated her early life without that influence. Better put, how she navigated her early life with that absence.

We also talk about her influences, studying inspiration texts, what her basketball career taught her about what it takes to be a writer, and finding that elusive voice. Really rich talk.

Episode 413: Young Woman and the Sea, from Book to Movie

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By Brendan O’Meara

Always a treat with the one and only Glenn Stout visits the show be it to talk about new books he’s written or, in this case, to celebrate the cinematic release of Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World (Mariner Books).

Of the many books I’ve read of Glenn’s, this one’s my favorite and it, at long last, is in movie theaters starring Daisy Ridley.

In this episode, we talk about the journey of how this book came to be adapted, the hiccups along the way, how serendipity played a role in the adaptation, and a lot more book-writing stuff you’ll love to hear about.

Episode 412: Leaving the Emotional Moments Unsaid with Lilly Dancyger

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By Brendan O’Meara

As you know, we love repeat guests on the show, and Lilly Dancyger (@lillydancyger) fit the bill with her new book First Love: Essays on Friendship (Dial Press). This is right up there for a CNFy award, my non-existent gala for the best I’ve experienced in creative nonfiction. Maybe the perfect Galentine’s Day gift.

Lilly’s collection, at least to me, doesn’t feel essay-ish. It’s prismatic, but it feels united, these essays about her girlfriends dating all the way back to her first best friend, her first love, her cousin Sabina.

Lilly also is the author of Negative Space and the editor of Burn it Down. She’s the nonfiction acquisitions editor for Barrelhouse Books and a teacher at Columbia University School of Arts. She also does freelance editor, mainly in the memoir/essay realm.

Episode 409: Chain Smoking Book Projects with Earl Swift

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By Brendan O’Meara

Earl Swift is our guest for Ep. 409. He is the author of more books than you have fingers including The Big Roads, Chesapeake Requiem, Across the Airless Wilds, and his most recent book Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second Slavery. It’s published by Mariner Books.

Just when you think this country couldn’t find a way to let you down, well, just give it some time. In the spirt of David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Earl found a troubling story in its wicked cruelty, of a farmer, John S. Williams, who murdered 11 Black laborers rather than face charges for peonage. Earl expands on what this is in the book and in this conversation.

It got me thinking about the hidden histories of this country, atrocities and tragedies buried by the past. And it’s the serendipity of finding reference to these stories — research by catch — that people Earl can then expand and illuminate. Man, what a book.