Evan Ratliff's work often overlaps with the tech industry whether he's disappearing himself as he did for Wired Magazine, or exploring the murky world of AI voice agents as he did with his blockbuster, smashing, DIY podcast Shell Game. 

Pre-order The Front Runner [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-front-runner-brendan-omeara?variant=43044900962338]

Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 448: Evan Ratliff Returns … Or Did He?

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 Runner [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-front-runner-brendan-omeara?variant=43044900962338]

Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 447: Brooke Champagne Sits Back from the Suckitude

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 Runner [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-front-runner-brendan-omeara?variant=43044900962338]

Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 446: Harrison Scott Key and the Plight of Memoir

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 Runner [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-front-runner-brendan-omeara?variant=43044900962338]

Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 445: For Andrew Dubbins, It’s About the Love of the Story

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 Runner [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-front-runner-brendan-omeara?variant=43044900962338]

Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 444: Stephanie Gorton Embraces the Messiness

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 Runner [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-front-runner-brendan-omeara?variant=43044900962338]

Sponsor: The Power of Narrative Conference [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 443: Jared Sullivan and the Subtle Art of the Cold Call

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 [https://combeyond.bu.edu/offering/the-power-of-narrative-conference/]. Use CNF15 at checkout for a 15% discount.

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]



Episode 442: Steven Hyden Revisits Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’

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 [https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11214487/hall-fame-quarterback-ya-tittle-takes-final-trip-home-espn-magazine]," 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 Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 441: Seth Wickersham Gets Them Out of the Building

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 Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 440: How to be a Truffle Pig with Kate McQueen

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 Algorithm [https://rageagainstthealgorithm.beehiiv.com/]

Show notes: brendanomeara.com [http://brendanomeara.com/]

Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod [http://patreon.com/cnfpod]

Episode 439: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith Bring a Graphic Interpretation of “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” to Life

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 Threads and visit patreon.com/cnfpod to support!

Brendan O'Meara

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