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PODCAST

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara

Brendan O"Meara

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara is a weekly podcast that showcases leaders in narrative journalism, essay, memoir, documentary film, radio and podcasts about the art and craft of telling true stories. Follow the show @creativenonfictionpodcast on Instagram and visit patreon.com/cnfpod to support!

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All Episodes

70:03

Episode 508: Motivated by Slights and Play Fighting...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2026/01/16

"I spent several months trying to narrow down the cast. I had access to so many people with interesting stories. But what [my agent] said to me over and over again was, 'narrative arc, narrative arc,' all the time. What he needed to know in order to sell the book was like, 'Where does this book start? And if you can't tell me where it ends, at least tell me what are the ups and downs? What's gonna happen along the way?" says Alison Lyn Miller, author of Rough House: A Father, a Son, and the Pursuit

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69:07

Episode 507: 'Enshittification' Author Cory Doctorow...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2026/01/09

"Practically speaking, mostly what I'm doing is I'm writing in a hotel room and then writing in the taxi, and then if the TSA queue is long, I might whip my laptop out and balance it on the stanchion and do some more writing, and then get on the other side and write in the lounge and then write on the plane, and whether that means that the laptop's nearly vertical because I'm on a discount airline with with terrible seat pitch, just writing. And so that's it, right? What my real practice is ... I

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68:39

Episode 506: Alexandra Marvar and the Trough of...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2026/01/02

"I feel like many of us can relate to that, like, that's the trough of despair, right? Like, that moment where you're energetic optimism, diving in, and then, like, that's the wall of regret, where you're like, 'What was I thinking? This is not a story,'" says Alexandra Marvar, whose piece on Lummie Jenkins was revived by The Atavist.Today we Alex Marvar, this month’s featured Atavist writer, but this is something of a twist. Seyward Darby, who we will hear from in a sec, has launched an initiative

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76:30

Episode 505: Leah Sottile and Ryan Haas Talk 'Hush',...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/12/26

"We always were having conversations about, if we can't solve it, what then? What is this about? Why isn't it solved? And what is our job? Is the job of a journalist to solve crimes? No, it's to document. So what are we documenting? We're documenting what had to happen for there to be no answer in a situation where there should be an answer," says Leah Sottile, reporter, writer, Hush."Sometimes making yourself uncomfortable is the way to find new creativity, or to challenge yourself to find a smart

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41:14

Episode 504: Seth Wickersham and the Macbethian...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/12/19

"You're constantly asking lean, open, neutral questions that start broad and then narrow, and you're asking more lean, open, neutral questions based on their answers. When you do that, it tells the subjects that you're actually listening to them very intensely, and you're asking questions based on the things that they say. And that accelerates trust and intimacy, I think, in a better way than kind of betting on your personality," says Seth Wickersham, the bestselling author of American Kings: A

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49:37

Episode 503: An Atmospheric River of Rejection with...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/12/12

"I will always go back to the well, and I will write until I die," says Jason Brown, author of Character Witness.Jason Brown is here. He is a brilliant short story writer and the author of the memoir Character Witness (University of Nebraska Press). It’s an incredible book and we recorded this conversation at the end of October as the fourth and final LIVE podcast of the year at Gratitude Brewing here in Eugene.Jason, as luck would have it, teaches at the University of Oregon in its writing

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78:12

Episode 502: Christa Hillstrom Takes Pride in Her...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/12/05

"Take pride in your rejections. It's a tough industry for putting yourself out there. You're like, doing a ton of work up front, not knowing if anyone will be interested in it. It's very easy to feel deflated about it. Your rejections are reaching for things that maybe aren't easy reaches," says Christa Hillstrom, writer of 14,445 and Counting for The Atavist.It’s that Atavistian time of the month. Not much by way of spoilers, but you know you’re in for a double dose of CNFin’ insights as we will

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72:12

Episode 501: Julian Brave NoiseCat Aimed for a Woven...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/11/28

"It's not actually about the questions you ask. It's about shutting up," says Julian Brave NoiseCat, author of We Survived the Night.It’s episode 501 with Julian Brave NoiseCat, author of the memoir We Survived the Night. It’s published by Knopf. It’s a pretty spectacular debut and we have a lively chat about it and the writing and structuring of it. Julian is a writer, filmmaker, powwow dancer, and student of Salish art and history.Julian, man, what a cool dude. He really came to play ball, which

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65:01

Episode 500: Structure, Spec, and Panic with John McPhee

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/11/21

"Anything beats writing. Writing is tough," says John McPhee, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of more than thirty books of nonfiction.Hey CNFers, this is Episode 500 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. There are kilometer stones like 100, 200, 300, and 400, but this one, this is a milestone and it features the writer and journalist who made me want to write narrative nonfiction in the first place: John

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65:43

Episode 499: The Post-Book Malaise is Real with...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/11/14

"You start to wonder was it all worth it? Or what's the point in trying to do it again? You know, if there's going to be more disappointment in the future. I think it is something that you know probably just changes as you go on, regardless, right? I want to get that second book under my belt so it's not all just on this one, this one baby, you know?" says Maggie Mertens.Maggie is the author of Better, Faster, Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women (Algonquin Books). It’s a

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78:56

Episode 498: Sasha Bonet on Not Holding Back

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/11/07

"I have this desire to write as a novelist might write but write nonfiction," says Sasha Bonet, the author of The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters (Knopf).Today we have the brilliant writer, the brilliant mind, Sasha Bonet, author of The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters. This book is a masterpiece that chronicles the matriarchal lineage of Sasha’s family, and the pain, and the struggle, and the triumph of will, of the slow, methodical, generational march forward and the

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66:17

Episode 497: The Seduction of Art Thievery with Jack...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/10/31

"I kinda hate it when people say writing is fun," says Jack Rodolico, author The Atavist original "The Blue Book Burglar."Today we feature Jack Rodolico, who is a bit of an audio maven, but he comes to us hot off the Atavist presses to talk about "The Blue Book Burglar: The Social Register was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful— the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of Mayflower passengers. It was also the perfect hit list for the country’s

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67:33

Episode 496: Jeff Pearlman Finds the Little Guys

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/10/24

“So much misery. It is so much misery. It is so hard. It's not natural, locking yourself in your room for three years to focus on one person is not mentally healthy. Leigh Montville, great, great writer, said to me years ago, he's like, ‘It's an unnatural thing. You spend two years in a hole to come out for two weeks, you know?’” — Jeff Pearlman, author of Only God Can Judge Me.Today we have Jeff Pearlman returning to the show to talk about his 11th book, his latest book, Only God Can Judge Me: The

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69:15

Episode 495: On Being Merciless with Peter Rubin of...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/10/17

"When I came in [to Longreads], I didn't come in and say, I think we need to grow aggressively. I said, 'Let's figure out who we are. Let's figure out what other people aren't doing, that we do , and that we can do better.' And so the only real thing that changed when I first came in was to try to make the editors known quantities," says Peter Rubin, head of publishing at Automattic, where he works primarily with Longreads, but also The Atavist Magazine.Today we have Peter Rubin. He’s on the pod to

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77:34

Episode 494: Co-Writing a Memoir, Becoming a...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/10/10

"As a reader, if I were a fan reading this book, I want the good, the bad and the ugly. I want you to rip the band aid off and tell the truth. Because, from my from my experience, I've read a lot of memoirs that are super boring and just fluff," says Jeremy X. Wagner, co-author of Curtis Duffy's Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef (Dead Sky Publishing).We have Jeremy X. Wagner on the show today. This dude is a stone-cold badass and the co-author/ghost writer of Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef (Dead Sky

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78:16

Episode 493: Masha Hamilton Asks Is the Writing Worth...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/10/03

"This has to be meaningful to you. It has to be a story that won't leave you alone, a story that you're willing to rearrange your calendar for," says Masha Hamilton, whose Atavist Magazine story is titled "I've Gone to Look for America."Today we have Masha Hamilton, a journalist, a novelist, a fan of the show, a fan of Pitch Club. You’ll want to visit mashahamilton.com to learn more about her wide-ranging career covering the world. She’s the author of five novels and trying to sell her sixth. She

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52:01

Episode 492: The Daniel Littlewood Takeover...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/09/26

"My editor was like, hold on, you need to put your thumb on the scale of why this matters. Now, there's no first person in this, but you have your thumb on the scale, you need to assert your own point of view. Like, this matters, why? says Brendan O'Meara, author of The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine Mariner Books.Who the heck does this host think he is being a guest on his own podcast? The nerve of this guy. That’s right, for the third live taping of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast at

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73:31

Episode 491: How Tracy Slater Broke Her Book into Steps

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/09/19

"Writing a book is so overwhelming. I need to have a book that's like so many steps in between. So what I do to manage my own anxiety and overwhelm about that is I'm really, really obsessed with breaking everything into little steps so that all I need to do is the next step and then I don't get overwhelmed," says Tracy Slater, author of Together in Manzanar.It’s another Super Size Me CNFin’ Double Feature, Ep. 491 with Tracy Slater. She is the author of Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a

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76:30

Episode 490: Seeing the Fish and the Tank with Jeff...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/09/19

"When I got back to [writing], it was like an athlete or a martial artist coming back to the practice, and the endorphins start running back. And you remember the joy that you had in it, also the struggles of it, but you're back in it, and then I couldn't be stopped," says Jeff Chang, author of Water, Mirror, Echo.Today we have Jeff Chang, and what a great conversation this was. He’s the author of the beefy biography Water, Mirror, Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. It’s published by

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85:20

Episode 489: Staying Power, Book Promotion, Platform,...

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O"Meara ·

2025/09/12

"For many of us, myself included, it's easy to want to be on the New York Times bestseller list, or the USA Today bestseller list, and to try to get an amazing number of week-one sales, but it's important to remember that those lists are really hard to get on, and there can be this nice long tail in terms of the impact of a book where maybe it doesn't necessarily get a ton of sales in that first week or that first month. But over time, it continues to sell, right? And then you get these bumps, and

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