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

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 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.

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

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Sponsor love: Liquid IV, promo code cnf

Want some suds? Visit athleticbrewing.com and use promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout. I don’t get money, just points toward swag and beer.

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 372: Anna Altman

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I try to break it down into sections, when you get the end of a 1,000, or 1,500 words, you’ve made it to the next drop cap, and that feels important.
Anna Altman, Ep. 372

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By Brendan O’Meara

Anna Altman (@bananaaltman) is a freelance journalist and a social worker in training, and she just wrote and reported her second feature for The Atavist Magazine called “The Quality of Mercy.” It deals with compassionate release for the terminally ill and the one man at the center of it advocating for his fellow inmates.

In this episode we dig into how she arrived at this story and the unique challenges of reporting this piece in the ten-minute chunks Anna had with her central figure, Gary Settle, as they spoke through the prison phone system.

Discovery and Writing Before You’re Ready

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By by by Brendan O’Meara

Hey CNFers, I didn’t have an interview in the can for this week, so I figured I’d try something a little new. Kinda new. Sorta.

This podcast is something of a craft essay. It’s similar to my parting shot … if I only published the parting shot. (Sidebar: This has me thinking, maybe I should bottle up my parting shots and run them on, say, Wednesday, as a mid-week pick me up. If they’re craft based, not if it’s personal. You can email me if you think you’d like that, similar to my flounder (defunct?) Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry. How did it not catch on?)

Episode 363: Eric Pape

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By Brendan O’Meara

Eric Pape (@ericpape) came by CNF Pod HQ to talk about his piece for The Atavist, “Sins of the Father.“

This is one’s a gut punch. And, as Seyward Darby, editor-in-chief of The Atavist, says in this interview, she pushes against the gimmicky. This piece delivers a brutal punch, takes us on a journey around an abusive marriage, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, Tony Robbins-esque self-help, and more.

How Eric kept it all together is a testament to his skill as a reporter and a writer.

Episode 362: Svati Kirsten Narula

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By Brendan O’Meara

What a treat to have Svati Kirsten Narula (@svatikirsten) on the podcast to talk about her Outside feature “A Mountain Called Her Home” about the life and death of Nanda Devi Unsoeld about “went went wrong during this controversial adventure, shedding light on an enigmatic young woman who lived without limits.”

This is a great chat about patience, not burning bridges, and the struggle of lobbying for access with people who have felt burned in the past and, despite a reporter’s best intentions, burning those people again.

Episode 353: Isaac Fitzgerald

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By Brendan O’Meara

Are you holding onto a railing? OK, good, Isaac Fitzgerald (@IsaacFitzgerald) is here, CNFers! He’s the author of the incredible memoir-in-essays Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional (Bloomsbury).

Isaac is a frequent contributor on The Today Show, offering book recommendations to the masses. His CV has The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, BuzzFeed Books, among others. He’s also the author of How to be a Pirate, Pen and Ink, and Knives and Ink.

Episode 348: Carl Hoffman

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By Brendan O’Meara

Carl Hoffman is here (@lunaticcarl and @carlhoffmanstories)! He’s the author of Liar’s Circus: A Strange and Terrifying Journey into the Upside-Down World of Trump’s MAGA Rallies (Custom House).

I read this quick, as most of you will, and it is a strange and terrifying dive into the virtual reality chamber of MAGA Trump supporters. Carl is a long-time travel writer, and he turns that gaze and immersion at our own country.

It called to mind a conversation I heard with Henry Rollins, who has traveled all over the world, where he said the place he feels most unsafe in the world is … America.

Episode 347: Emily Fox Kaplan

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By Brendan O’Meara

It’s been a long time since we featured a writer from the Pipe Wrench Magazine roster, so it was it nice to welcome Emily Fox Kaplan to CNF Pod HQ to talk about her piece “Searching for Zarahemla.”

It’s a trippy travel piece that has a very David Foster Wallace vibe to it, though Emily hasn’t read any DFW. Just as well. Far be it from me to be a the bro to say, ‘You gotta read him.’

But read his tennis writing …