"Our our first job, job one, for anybody writing a book, for anybody writing a story of any kind, any length, is to get the reader to that last word. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter what pretty words you drop in the middle of the story. Doesn't matter how brilliantly conceived it is. The story has failed because you have failed to get the reader to the end," says Earl Swift, author of Up on Cove Mountain.

It’s Earl Swift with his tenth book. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem, and he makes his fourth trip to the podcast to talk about Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail. It’s published by Mariner Books, and what a book it is as it recounts Earl’s first hiking of the AT in 1990 and the happenstance, devoid-of-reason tragedy that befell two fellow southbound hikers in Molly LeRue and Geoff Hood. In that quest for meaning, Earl, now in his 60s, hikes the trail again to ponder the meaning of reason, luck, chance, and the enduring allure of the trail.

What a joy to welcome Earl back to the show. This was a toe-tappin’ good time. The toes were tapping. We start the conversation with:

 * How to handle a book advance
 * What drove Earl to return to the AT
 * How Flip flopping the trail reflected the structure
 * Making the AT chronicle feel fresh
 * Trail angels
 * Narrative wormholes
 * The people he relies on for story help
 * Luck
 * How hiking the AT is like reading and writing
 * Hiking your hike
 * How he kept track of things on the trail
 * Proportionality
 * Getting the reader to the last word
 * And how nonfiction is a construct

You can learn more about Earl at earlswift.com [http://earlswift.com/] and follow him on IG @earl.swift. 

Episode 542: Earl Swift and the Battle to Get the Reader to the Last Word

"I applaud anyone out there who's done the book circuit and trying to reach readers, because I'm not in this to make a lot of money, not at all. I just want people to read the story. I kind of felt like I owed it to the book to do my end of this effort. That's kind of fueled me to keep going too," says Shanda McManus, MD, author of Brother Epistles: A Sister's Memoir.

Today we have Shanda McManus. I’m sorry, Dr. Shanda McManus, whose debut book is a memoir titled Brother Epistles. It is a memoir written in letters to her brother Monir, who was murdered in 1992 in a drive-by shooting in Philadelphia. Monir was an Army veteran and when he was out of the army, he was involved in the drug trade and got caught up in a turf dispute. In Shanda’s telling, we learn so much about Monir and you feel the love and the grief nearly 25 years after his death. It’s a wonderful book and you’re going to hear quite a bit about it shortly.

So Shanda, this was nice, this was fun. You’re really going to dig it. She’s an assistant professor of family medicine at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. Brother Epistles, published by Split Lip Press is her first book and it received a starred notice from Kirkus Reviews. Shanda’s writing has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, among other places. She’s got other myriad accomplishments that you can read about at shandamcmanus.com [http://shandamcmanus.com/] and follow her on Instagram @shandmdwrites.

In this episode we talk about:

 * How she thinks about promotion
 * What we owe the book
 * The apprehension of working with an editor
 * The lawn sign that changed her life
 * Post-It notes
 * Integrating grief
 * Finding compassion for her younger self
 * How the story you tell leads you to the form
 * The guilt of getting out
 * Food journeys
 * How place informed her writing
 * How she shaped the book
 * Touching the work every day
 * And the power of reading aloud

Parting shot on some major but minor changes to the podcast, but for now, it’s high time we queue Shanda

Episode 541: ‘Touch the Work Every Day’ says Shanda McManus

"You have to remember to slow things down. In this world where there's this fast-paced news cycle, and everybody wants to get it out first, this is a different genre, so to speak. You have to slow down. You have to build that trust. You can't expect to get these details on the first interview. More importantly, you have to show you care," says Mitch Weiss, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and co-author of Toxic Lies for The Atavist.

"When it comes to the writing, it helps that Mitch and I have similar worldviews and we have a similar voice to our writing, so it doesn't look choppy to readers. It's easy for him to take a chapter and I'll take another chapter, and we can make it flow together," says Holbrook Mohr, a Pulitzer finalist and co-author of Toxic Lies for The Atavist.

Mitch and Holbrook’s story is Toxic Lies: For Decades, workers at the nuclear facility in Kentucky were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Management assured them nothing was wrong. Then four friends risked everything to reveal the truth.

It’s a whistle-blower narrative and while the story dates back decades, you can feel the weight of the impact of industry encroaching on rural communities – i’m speaking specifically of data centers today – and what catastrophe and oversight will workers be subjected to next? How will they be exploited in the name of shareholders?

To Holbrook and Mitch’s credit, they have very little by way of an internet toehold, Holbrook is on Twitter @holbrookmohr and Mitch is @mitchsweiss on IG and Twitter, but I’ll give them a greater intro when we reach their part of the podcast: spoiler alert, there are Pulitzer Prizes involved.

Holbrook and Mitch are award-winning journalists with the Associated Press. They have reported together on a culture of abuse in the U.S. gymnastics program, the use of “less lethal” force by police, and the dangers of medical devices known as spinal-cord stimulators. They are the authors of the book Broken Faith: Inside of One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults. Mitch won the Pulitzer Prize and Holbrook is a Pulitzer finalist. They have been working together as a tandem since 2009, lots of work for the AP, and now independently as they navigate the choppy waters of freelance investigative journalism.

In this conversation we talk about:

 * Collaboration and trust
 * The death of the dad book
 * Stress testing a story as a magazine story before a book
 * Adapting and being nimble
 * Keeping interviews short
 * Developing trust with sources over time
 * Slowing things down
 * Hearing how sentences sound
 * And how they decompress after reporting on intense material

So let’s waste no more time.

Episode 540: Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss Tackle  the Atomic City for The Atavist

"We probably have some sense of what narrative is. So when your brain starts turning into the little movie camera because this is a juicy scene, then it's like, well, what would I want to show? What what would I want to know here?" says Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit'rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America.

Dude, we have Jennifer Keishin Armstrong here today. What brings her to the CNF Pod-o-Verse is her latest book, her ninth, titled Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit-rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America. It’s published by Dutton with a forward by Nick Offerman. Jennifer also is the best selling author of Seinfeldia, and we talk about that as well, how timing is everything and there are so many things out of our control … She can be found @jmkarmstrong on IG and jenniferkamrstrong.com [http://jenniferkamrstrong.com/].

OK, so Jennifer’s Parks book came out earlier this year and it’s a wonderful, breezy read about one of my all-time favorite TV shows, a show that is deeply important to me. We watch it all the time. We own the DVDs so we actually OWN it, not beholden to the whims of streaming platforms who can deplatform shows at the click of a mouse, presumably. Jennifer’s book takes you behind the scenes with actors, writers, producers and shares never before told anecdotes and insights as to why this show has such staying power despite nearly being cancelled after every season. So, yes, we talk about Parks, but we mainly talk about:

 * Dictionaries
 * When your brain turns into a movie camera
 * Jennifer’s “practice book” she never talks about
 * Her guidelines for pursuing a book
 * How the dialogue around TV has changed in the last 25 years
 * The ruthlessness of story craft
 * How Parks got out from under the shadow of The Office
 * Serendipity and non-meritocracy
 * Living on the long tail
 * Lessons from the Parks run
 * And all the things out of our control

Instagram: @creativenonfictionpodcast

Substack: welcometopitchclub.substack.com



Episode 539: How Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Writes Biographies of TV Shows

"My career is not a straight path; it's a lot of happenstance where I just sort of somehow get a job and then figure out how to do it once I'm there," says Rachel Hartigan, author of Lost: Amelia Earhart's Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life.

Today we have Rachel Hartigan, who, yes, is dignified and reputable. She’s the author of Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life. It’s published by Nat Geo.

We share an agent, so that was how her book got on my radar. If you’re a relative newb to the Amelia Earhart story, Rachel’s book is a riveting take on the three main theories of Earhart’s tragic death either by castaway, captive, or having sunk at sea in her beautiful Lockheed Electra. Rachel weaves together all these theories with a lean, propulsive biography of a woman far ahead of her time.

She’s written about everything from the genetics of persimmon trees to the long road to women’s suffrage for National Geographic. She is the former editor of the Washington Post's Book World and she has also covered education and culture for U.S News & World Report. You can learn more about her at rachelhartiganauthor.com [http://rachelhartiganauthor.com/]. Had a lot of fun with this as we talk about:

 * Happenstance
 * Hard-earned experience
 * Breaking down David Grann’s The Lost City of Z
 * Modeling a text
 * Focusing on clarity
 * Being in partnership with the reader
 * Being a minimalist interviewer
 * Saying yes to things
 * Finding something new to say about Earhart
 * Why Earhart is still appealing to this day
 * Cave Day
 * And learning how to sell your story as if you’re telling it at a cocktail party (this echoes Alex Ronan’s quip)

Pair this episode with David Grann's two appearances, Nick Davidson's appearances, as well Cassidy Randall's appearances.

Episode 538: The Enduring Mystery of Amelia Earhart with Rachel Hartigan

"I feel like before I have the confidence to write in the way that I want to write, where I really own the material, I have to spend so much time with people. I will say at the outset, once I walk someone through what it's going to involve after they say yes to talking to me, I'll say I'm going to be around a lot and you're going to get sick of me," says Pamela Colloff, author of Catch the Devil.

Today’s guest, I mean, wow, from the bottom of the diaphragm up, wow. It’s Pamela Colloff. You know her from her National Magazine Award winning work for Texas Monthly and ProPublica/The New York Times Magazine. She’s THE premier investigative reporter in the country and she’s now the author of Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast. It’s published by Knopf.

This book upends what you think a true crime story is about where the true villain isn’t a person at all. It chronicles, among others, Paul Skalnik, a jailhouse snitch, whose non-credible testimony places numerous men on death row, Jim Dailey, in particular, and Pamela takes us through this riveting narrative and punishing commentary on capital punishment and why Florida seems hellbent on being No. 1 in executions.

Here’s just a slice of what Pam is about: She is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, once for reporting and once for feature writing. Her work has been adapted for narrative and documentary films including Tower, which was short-listed in 2016 for an Oscar. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Reporting, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists. She joined ProPublica/The New York Times Magazine in 2017 after many years at Texas Monthly. Listen, I could go on. You get the gist.

In this episode, we talk about:

 * What drew her to Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson
 * Speaking with Tom Junod
 * The Boys Club of longform writing
 * Her start at Texas Monthly
 * Being a journalism dork
 * The elation and despair
 * How every story is a Rubix cube
 * The Skip Hollandsworth Method
 * Owning the material
 * Knowing when to quote and when not to
 * Idea generation
 * Writing is hard
 * How magazine writing and book writing are different animals
 * Why Catch the Devil is her now-or-never moment
 * Beginnings are the worst
 * Being more disciplined with a book vs. magazine writing
 * Writing in this attention economy

Pair this episode with Ep. 255 with Maddy Crowell and Ep. 414 with John Rosengren, and many other Atavist true crimey pods, too many to mention here. I’d also chuck in Ep. 224 with Patrick Radden Keefe. He’ll be back on the show for the paperback run of London Calling.

Episode 537: Pamela Colloff’s Now-or-Never Moment with ‘Catch the Devil’

"I love talking with people. I also like that process of trying to shape messy reality into some kind of story, or that moment when you're alone with your notes, and you're trying to figure out how to organize it, and how to bend it into something that works as a story that will carry readers. That's the probably that's the kind of calmest moment for me," says Matthew Wolfe, author of Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and Secret History of Eco-Sabotage.

Hey, CNFers, another LIVE podcast recording, this at Hodgepodge Books & Taps in Eugene, where I spoke to author and journalist Matthew Wolfe and about the art and craft of telling true stories. Pretty great. I love bringing my rig to places and gigging the podcast. This was a standing-room only event and they sold out of books, and two kegs were kicked. Is it the CNF Pod effect? You tell me.

Matthew was on the show last year when he had an Atavist story so I HAD to talk to him, haha, but he reached out to me several weeks ago wondering if I’d be willing to interview him as part of a book event and I was like, I know a venue and we’ll make it a podcast. HIs book is Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage. It’s published by Viking.

I cut out the Q&A portion of this because you couldn’t hear the question and I wasn’t assertive enough to repeat the question into the mic. I’ll be better about that in the future, but also, that’s the ephemeral part of the live experience: part of why we attend live events is because it’s here and then it isn’t.

So in this live podcast, Matt and I talk about:

 * The ledger of invisible debts
 * Asking questions in a stakeless way
 * How Matt interviews
 * Shaping messy realities
 * How research is like cooking
 * Broad stroke outlining
 * Writing through quotes
 * Why he’s still drawn to this kind of work
 * Competing with the phone
 * And the blood, flesh, and messiness of human existence

Do enjoy.

Episode 536: The Blood, Flesh, and Messiness of Human Existence with Matthew Wolfe

"One of the things that Patrick Radden Keefe told me was, when I'm doing interviews, I'm always thinking about the anecdote that I will tell someone later at a bar, this is the thing I talk about. That's helpful because there's so much to work with even in one interview or one scene, and the those little gems that you pull out instinctively when you're talking to other people have value, and so I'm often thinking about that in terms of writing," says Alex Ronan, who wrote "The Extremist in the Family" for the Atavist Magazine.

Today we welcome Alex Ronan who wrote The Extremist in the Family: The Kerrs were devoted to one another and to their faith. But when one of their own rejected modern medicine in the name of God, they faced a dire question: What if her children ever needed a doctor to save their lives?

There’s a note as well: This story contains descriptions of child abuse and death. It draws from testimony given by many of the named subjects and extensive court records.

That sets the table, no? It reminded me of the Metallica song “The God That Failed.” You should check it out. It’s what happens when people who believe in divine healing reject medical treatment on religious grounds and die. This story has newborn deaths in it, wholly preventable with a little vaccine that addresses Rh incompatibility. Essentially, when an Rh negative mother conceives a child with an Rh positive father, and the fetus is Rh positive, the mother creates antibodies that attack the fetus’s blood cells, which will lead to a potentially fatal case of jaundice, if untreated within a day or so after birth. Abigail, the baby, was Rh positive. Prayers did not, nor could they ever, have saved her. She wasn’t the only one.

Alex Ronan is a journalist whose work has appeared in Elle, New York, The New York Times, n + 1, The Nation, and Vogue. She was a 2023 recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She has had work optioned for film/television by Amazon Studios and Hulu, which is kinda cray. You can find her on Instagram at alexronan and on Substack at reallyalexronan.

This was a really rich conversation, and she really came to play ball, which I always appreciate. We talk about:

Using short fiction as a model for nonfiction writing

 * How she builds character in nonfiction
 * Active listening
 * Divine healing
 * The family, the story, and the stakes
 * Putting the reader in different people’s shoes
 * Walking before writing
 * Seeking the anecdote (a tip she learned from Patrick Radden Keefe)
 * The power of practice
 * And what she struggles with

Parting shot will be right after this part of the podcast. Let’s wait no more. Here’s Alex Ronan.

Episode 535: Alex Ronan’s Masterclass in the Depth of Reporting

"The mission of a nonfiction writer is to get the damn thing done," says Wil Haygood, author of several books, including his latest The War Within A War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home.

I’m so thrilled to welcome back Wil Haygood to the show to talk about and celebrate his latest book The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home. It’s published by Knopf.

Wil is one of the most accomplished journalists and authors working in American letters and just a good-ass dude. He’s the author of several books including The Butler (which was made into a movie), Showdown, The Harlem Renaissance, In Black and White, Sweet Thunder, and Colorization.

He and I both have ties to the Goucher College MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program and he was generous enough to blurb my first book, Six Weeks in Saratoga, and it’s those little things like that that can make an insecure, low-on-confidence person like myself feel like a king for a day.

Had a great time catching up with Wil. He was on the podcast back on Ep. 295 when I interviewed him as part of Goucher’s winter residency, so that’s a fun one to check out. When we spoke, the U.S. had just started bombing Iran in a senseless barrage of violence that appears to have been a monumental loss for the U.S., so that is some of the context of this conversation as we talk about Vietnam and how this country still wrestles with the legacy of it. Wil is one of the good ones and so happy you get to hear him chat about:

 * How he needs the research to be finished before he writes
 * Exploring the riddles of America
 * His encounters with the late great David Halberstam
 * How luck and fortune come into play
 * Shoeleather reporting
 * Tape recorders and notebooks
 * The stirring cover of this book
 * Why this country still grapples with the Vietnam War
 * Highlighting untold stories of women who served during Vietnam
 * And what kept him going through the doubt

Stick around for a parting shot Chuckanut conference prep and an update on the forthcoming audio magazine.

Episode 534: Shoeleather Reporting and Exploring the Riddles of America with Wil Haygood

"You don't have to go to the far ends of the earth, but I'm willing to do that for you, and tell you what I found," says Susan Orlean, bestselling author of several books, including her latest, Joyride: A Memoir.

Look who’s back! It’s Susan Orlean, author of the memoir Joyride about her roller coaster career as a writer and journalist spanning decades from her time at Willamette Weekly here in Oregon to the summit of The New Yorker, from her first book Saturday Night to reaching bestseller heights with The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin, and The Library Book. It’s a book that braids her life story along with hard-earned writing wisdom.

We talk about:

 * Using notebook and pen over the recorder
 * The quality of her attention
 * Resilience
 * What is it that clicks with her for a story
 * Working through three regime of trust at The New Yorker
 * The more you learn of the world the better
 * Curiosity as a form of compassion
 * Idea generation
 * Her ‘best’ rejection
 * Why books loom larger for her
 * There is no end to a story
 * The breeding ground of jealousy
 * Letting the reporting meander
 * And Patreon questions!

This episode pairs well with:

Eps. 61, 121, and 281 with Susan
Ep. 500 with John McPhee
Ep. 514 with Tony Rehagen

Follow the show on Instagram @creativenonfictionpodcast and subscribe to my newsletters Pitch Club and Rage Against the Algorithm.

Episode 533: Susan Orlean on Her ‘Best’ Rejection, Coming Up with Ideas, and Letting the Reporting Meander

Brendan O'Meara (@brendanomeara) · Zencastr

Brendan O'Meara (@brendanomeara)

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!