"I'm a guy who needs a lede. I need the lede to work. I need it to be compelling. And it doesn't have to be the best place to begin. It just has to be a place to begin that works and that amuses and sucks you in. I. So once I have a lede, then that will lead to another place," says Nick Paumgarten. Wow, so today we have Nick Paumgarten and can I tell you something? Nick has long been my favorite New Yorker profile writer. Whether it’s profiling Mikaela Shiffrin or Mr. Money Mustache, or features...
Jul 11, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 478
"It's honestly one of the biggest gambles I've taken in my career," says David Howard, the journalist behind "Conversations with a Hit Man," this for the Atavist Magazine. David is a journalist and author, and in this conversation we talk about: Nonverbal stuff, so the importance of doing this stuff in person The grand puzzle of a piece Looking for stories to believe in Keeping his mind as clear as possible when he starts to write Taking gambles Learning from losses And what the tape recorder fr...
Jul 04, 2025•1 hr 31 min
"The story is the horse, and the writer is the rider of the horse, and you as the editor, need to help guide them along. And if the rider starts to fall off, you put them back on, and it's your job to lead them safely into the barn. At no point should you shove the rider off the horse, get on yourself and ride it into the distance," says Amanda Heckert, executive editor of Garden & Gun. Amanda Heckert is something of a wunderkind and an absolute boss of an editor. In this episode we talk abo...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 476
"If you don't cultivate other interests or travel or spend time with friends, this and that, you don't have anything to write about," says Dane Huckelbridge, author of Queen of All Mayhem (William Morrow). Dane returns to the show to talk about his latest book, but also a smattering of other juicy writer topics such as: Procrastination Writing around the uncertainty Not having much of a routine Spacing out Niche hobbies And staying motivated Dane can be found at danehuckelbridge.com and on IG @h...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 475
"One of the things I've done is to reconfigure the fireworks. The fireworks for me now are getting to have this thing off my desk so I get to work on something new. That's the firework," says Yi Shun Lai, an author, writer, and instructor. Our occasion for this show was an essay she wrote for Writer Magazine about "arrival fallacy," this notion that once we get "there," wherever "there" is, we will have made it. She's the author of three books, all in different genres, the YA novel A Suffragist'...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 474
"I would say my books are about three quarters research and sort of mining my research, and then one quarter writing," says Hampton Sides, author of several New York Times bestselling works of narrative history, including his latest, now in paperback, The Wide Wide Sea. It's published by Doubleday. So Hampton was great. There was a moment halfway through where my dogs got to barking, then howling, which made me give them a stern talkin’ to. I think I edited that out. I should have. Hope I did. I...
Jun 13, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 473
"I talked to my wife, and she was like, 'You're probably tired. You've been writing this book non stop for six months, and you probably just need a break. Like, go get a gelato and chill out.' And I was like, 'I can't,' then I was like, 'All right, fine, I will.' And then I ate a bunch of ice cream and watched the Pam Anderson documentary on Netflix in the middle of the day. And after, I don't know, four or five days, I had an idea, and I was like, ready to get back to work," says Melissa Febos ...
Jun 06, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 472
"We are sort of drinking from a fire hose of content right now. And it makes me wonder, because I feel like I'm stuck on this wheel that I have to produce all the time. Do I even want to write for money anymore? I don't know," says Cassidy Randall, author of the book Thirty Below, and back for her second Atavist story "The Longest Journey." Writing is in her bones, so she's not quitting, but the freelance production wheel is tough. We talk about: The productivity wheel Earning trust for stories ...
Jun 06, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 471
"I've also learned in this rewilding experiment that so much of our time as writers takes place off the page, as we're thinking about our concepts, as we're doing research, and when I actually do come to the page and have a chance to actually type out these ideas, I've done so much pre-writing over the course of the previous season that that draft comes really easily to me," says Megan Baxter, author of three books of nonfiction, including Farm Girl: A Memoir (Green Writers Press). Megan has got...
May 30, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 470
"I don't feel envy. I don't think. Maybe in some deeper and maybe even more troubling psychological level. I do feel competition with with people, competition over resources, trying to claim certain ideas, stake a claim to certain ideas before other people can, especially when you're working with the subject that's in the public sphere. You don't have any personal, any real wider claim to something than somebody else. It can be nerve wracking," says John O'Connor, author of The Secret History of...
May 23, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 469
"I genuinely feel that those of us writing books need to remember that we are writing them simply because we feel the desperate need to write that particular thing. And unless I feel that way, I shouldn't be writing it because it's not for the financial benefit. It is not because it gives me more time to do things with other people. It doesn't matter how many books or lengthy features you write, it's all kind of a painful process. So you have to do it because you're really invested in the things...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 468
Will Bardenwerper grew up playing baseball and even was a member of his college team at Princeton. As a result, he has a great perspective to write about baseball as he does in Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America (Doubleday). That soul, in this book, is partially under attack from private equity firms gobbling up and eradicating minor league baseball teams. It's just one of the many threads of Will's wonderful book. Podcast Specific Substack at creativenonfiction...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 467
"Mythology can be really a dangerous thing, because mythology feels like it can't be changed, or it's always been something," says Katie Goh, author of Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange (Tin House Books). Katie Goh is a writer and editor based out of Edinburgh, Scotland. She’s also the author of the slim book “The End: Surviving the World through Imagined Disasters” about disaster movies. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Extra Teeth, and VICE. You can learn more about her at ...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 466
"You want to be able to nab the details, but then you also want to be able to tell the story of why this matters and who's harmed by this, and finding the harm is oftentimes the hardest part of investigative reporting," Miranda Green, an investigative reporter. Her latest piece is for The Atavist Magazine titled "All That Glitters" about the seedy underbelly of diamond sales, crypto, and sports ticketing and the man at the center of it all. In this conversation, we talk about: How she earns trus...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 465
"We're sadistic motherf*ckers," says John Glionna, @johnglionna on the Instagrams. John is a longtime journalist and author of No Friday Night Lights (Bison Books). He made a name for himself at the Los Angeles Times pursuing what would be called "Glionna stories," stories about invisible people who have rich lives all their own. In this episode we talk about The Glionna Story How John didn’t punch down in his writing Working with Glenn Stout on this book What he loves most about this kind of wo...
Apr 25, 2025•58 min•Ep. 464
"It's kind of a mix of reporting to the very last minute to put off writing, and then when I have to write, having a panic attack, and then, like, booking a hotel room for a week and not leaving that room. This is the thing I have done until I figure it out," says Leah Sottile, in a live event at Gratitude Brewing. She is the author of Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age (Grand Central). She's also the author of When the Moon Turns to B...
Apr 18, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 463
"I'm much more interested in how a person achieves something than in what they specifically achieved," says Debbie Millman, the "Pod Mother" and OG podcaster, twenty years in for Design Matters. She's also the author of the new book Love Letter to a Garden (Timber Press). In this episode, we talk about: The 20 year arc of Design Matters What people she’s most drawn to How she views the narrative arc of an interview The research As well as the evergreen themes of her new book on her quest for a g...
Apr 11, 2025•57 min•Ep. 462
Nick Davidson, @nickgdavidson on IG, says, "We usually think of hunting stories and looking for ideas, but I feel like it's the other way around: stories hunt the storyteller, and I'm just prey." Nick's latest piece is for The Atavist Magazine titled "The Balloon That Fell From the Sky." His work has appeared in Outside, VICE Sports, Garden & Gun, and a million other places of note. Podcast Specific Substack at creativenonfictionpodcast.substrack.com. Pre-order The Front Runner Newsletter: R...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 461
Megan Marshall is the author of After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart (Mariner Books), a new collection of essays. Megan won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. Podcast Specific Substack at creativenonfictionpodcast.substrack.com. Pre-order The Front Runner Promotional Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount. Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm Show notes: brendanomeara.com...
Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 460
“I could suddenly see — and this is how I know when I'm supposed to start writing — is that words start putting themselves together in my head, and I just have to get them out, right? Which doesn't happen all the time, but it did for this," says Cassidy Randall, author of Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All Women's Ascent of Denali (Abrams Books). Cassidy's work has appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times, Outside Magazine, The Atavist, and many, many others...
Mar 21, 2025•52 min•Ep. 459
"And then this person said, 'Hey, you know, this needs to be, like, more weird or less weird, but it's in this kind of odd place that isn't working.' And I was like, she's so, right," says Jaydra Johnson, @jaydranicole, and author of Low: Notes on Art & Trash (Fonograf). Lots of good stuff in this episode. We talk about: Luck Growing up poor Dialing up the weirdness And binge-buying books on eBay Podcast Specific Substack Pre-order The Front Runner Promotional Sponsor: The Power of Narrative...
Mar 14, 2025•58 min•Ep. 458
"What I was fortunate enough to get exposed to very early in my career, and I really believe is now the way to go, which is the nature of editing as thinking," says Poynter Institute president Neil Brown. Neil has spent more than forty years as a reporter and editor, and he just wrapped up his tenure on the Pulitzer Prize Board. He's one of the more nimble minds in journalism and a champion of the editor/writer dynamic. In this conversation, Neil riffs on Editing as thinking The late writing coa...
Mar 14, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 457
Neko Case is best known for her career as a musical performing artist and as a founding member of The New Pornographers, but her debut memoir The Harder I Fight the More I Love You (Grand Central) is all the evidence we need to see that she's got the chops for narrative. Podcast Specific Substack Pre-order The Front Runner Promotional Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount. Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm Show notes: brendanomeara.com Support...
Mar 07, 2025•42 min•Ep. 456
Will McGrath often thinks he's a phony, a fake writer, a fake journalist. But he isn't. He's very much real, and his piece for The Believer, "American Boys," chronicles the season and the lives of a group of young basketball players. It harkens back to Darcy Frey's brilliant book The Last Shot. Podcast Specific Substack: https://substack.com/@creativenonfictionpodcast Pre-order The Front Runner Promotional Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount. New...
Mar 07, 2025•58 min•Ep. 455
Allegra Rosenberg became obsessed with polar exploration narratives during the pandemic. She soon came across the journals of Harry Pennell and learned of his love for Edward Atkinson. Set amongst the backdrop of the South Pole and the looming possibility of WWI, Allegra weaves a brilliant and tragic story. Pre-order The Front Runner Promotional Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount. Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm Show notes: brendanomeara....
Feb 28, 2025•59 min•Ep. 454
Chandlor Henderson is the very definition of a multi-hypenate: a writer, editor, comic book writer, filmmaker, and podcaster. This conversation was recorded live at Gratitude Brewing as part of a quarterly series between the Oregon Writers Colony and The Creative Nonfiction Podcast. In this conversation we talk about his journey to Oregon from the East Coast, to focus on skills, and how graphic novels are a great vector for storytelling. Pre-order The Front Runner Promotional Sponsor: The Power ...
Feb 28, 2025•45 min•Ep. 453
If Randy Blythe's first book, Dark Days, was about accountability, his second book, Just Beyond the Light, is about perspective. In essays ranging from the premature death of a young fan to surfing waves to revering his beloved grandmother, Randy talks about art and music and the messiness of being a creative person. Visit randyblythe.com to learn more and to see dates for his spoken-word tour in support of his latest book. Pre-order The Front Runner Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . ...
Feb 21, 2025•58 min•Ep. 452
Lindsay Jill Roth was told by a tutor at a young age that she'd become a writer one day. At the time she laughed, but it came to be. Lindsay is the author of the novel What Pretty Girls Are Made Of and her latest is Romances & Practicalities: A Love Story (Maybe Yours) in 250 Questions. Lindsay talks about the writing of the book, structuring it, and how working in television and radio informed the storytelling mechanics of the book. Pre-order The Front Runner Sponsor: The Power of Narrative...
Feb 14, 2025•59 min•Ep. 451
John Eisenberg grew up surrounded by books. It was no surprise then that he wanted to write them one day. He has written eleven, his latest being Rocket Men: The Black Quarterbacks Who Revolutionized Pro Football. Pre-order The Front Runner Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount. Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm Show notes: brendanomeara.com Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 450
Drew Philp went to Ethiopia to report on the front lines of what was likely a genocide that largely went ignored. His story, " There Will Be No Mercy ," is for The Atavist Magazine. Pre-order The Front Runner Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference . Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount. Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm Show notes: brendanomeara.com Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod...
Jan 31, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 449
