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Episode 459: Cassidy Randall Talks Forgotten Histories, Sticky Notes, and the Power of Listening
401 Plays5 days ago
“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.
In this episode we talk about:
- The beginning and ending
- Sticky notes
- The post-book funk
- Interviewing
- And so much more
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: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship Details
00:00:00
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ACNFers, this is it. This is the final week of promotional support for the podcast. It's brought to you by the Power of Narrative Conference, celebrating its 26th year on the last weekend March, which is next weekend, depending on when you listen to this.
00:00:14
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March 28th and 29th, hundreds of journalists descending on Boston University. Keynote speakers over the course of the two-day soiree.
00:00:26
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Susan Orlean, Connie Schultz, Dan Zak. Closing keynote with Connie Chung. Listeners to this podcast, here's the point. You can get 15% off your enrollment fee using CNF 15 at checkout.
00:00:40
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Hey, last minute is still a minute. To learn more, whatever that means, To learn more, visit combeyond.bu.edu. Use that CNF15 code. And you can get a few extra dollars in your pocket to go out and buy yourself a few burritos. And I love me some burrito money.
Podcast Anniversary and New Book Announcement
00:00:57
Speaker
Hey, you know what? The Front Runner, the Life of Steve Prefontaine, Prefontaine is available for pre-order. I won't weigh you down with more details than that. And also...
00:01:10
Speaker
Yesterday, March 20th, marked the 12th birthday of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast. And in a hat tip to Season 3 of The Simpsons, here we go.
00:01:22
Speaker
You're the birthday, you're the birthday, you're the birthday, boy or girl.
00:01:35
Speaker
hey, CNEvers. It's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, 12 years
Interview with Cassidy Randall: '30 Below' and Women's Ascent of Denali
00:01:38
Speaker
old now. The show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. I'm Brendan O'Meara. Today, I welcome back, with open arms, with arms wide open, Cassidy Randall. She first appeared on the podcast a couple years ago for an ad of a story, and now she's back to talk about 30 Below.
00:01:59
Speaker
The harrowing and heroic story of the first all-women's ascent of Denali. These women on this team, they were doing something that literally everyone thought was impossible.
00:02:11
Speaker
It's published by Abrams Books. This book is a masterpiece and reads like a thriller as these six women from such varied backgrounds come together like the Avengers and attempt the first all-female summit of the tallest peak on the North American continent.
00:02:28
Speaker
There was a tremendous amount riding on this mission since the misogynistic mountaineering culture of the time, and I suspect it's still the same to some degree, maybe a little less so, but I don't know, I'm not a mountaineer, thought women incapable mentally and physically of climbing the world's tallest peaks.
00:02:48
Speaker
It's an amazing book. It truly is ah like a front-runner for the CNFE. or and my ah my As of yet, my my made-up awards ceremony. Show notes to this episode and more.
00:02:59
Speaker
All right, brendanamera.com. Hey, there. You can read blog posts and learn more about the show's guests. Sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter where give out book recommendations, cool links, and a riff that gives you some inside baseball.
00:03:13
Speaker
into publishing and also living a more intentional online life. This way we're not beholden to the tech oligarchs. Seriously, fuck those guys. Also, there's now a separate weekly companion sub stack for the podcast that has a complete transcript, the parting shot, and on this day episodes of the podcast, so from like 100 to 200 to 300 to 400 episodes ago, and other goodies. And that you kind get little...
00:03:38
Speaker
and other goodies and that way ah you kind of get a little You can dip your toe into the backlog ah without having to scroll ah whole bunch. It's a work in progress. It's going to change and evolve, but I really like it so far.
00:03:53
Speaker
I like ah having that offering for you. Get a bit more resources, maybe deepen your relationship to a particular episode. So creativenonfictionpodcast.substack.com, forever free. Don't worry about that.
00:04:06
Speaker
And if you got a few dollar bills burning a hole in your pocket, visit patreon.com slash cnfpod to support the show. I'm hosting the first pitch club for members tonight. I'll listen to your pitches and coach them up.
00:04:19
Speaker
So Cassidy, she collaborated with the Paralympian Oksana Masters for the memoir, The Hard Parts, with work appearing in The Atavist, The New York Times, The Guardian, Longreads, Rolling Stone, and many other places.
00:04:35
Speaker
She writes primarily about women in the outdoors and adventure sports. You can learn more about her at CassidyRandall.com and sign up for her substack, The Wilder Path. you're going to love this one and get used to it because Cassidy will be back in about a month because she has a new ad of a story coming out and she's a boss.
00:04:55
Speaker
So here's Cassidy riff. of
00:05:04
Speaker
course,
Interview Skills and Discovering the Denali Story
00:05:05
Speaker
you know, deadlines help. and And then sort of sit back from the suck of tune. If you want tenacity, get the fuck off social media. don't be a dick this is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other live than me
00:05:24
Speaker
doing more uh companion sub stacks to go with each public uh go with each podcast and ah including full transcripts and all all that stuff just to give people more resources of course as i edit podcasts and i listen to interview trend interviews that i record for reporting I am always hearing myself and listening to myself back on tape and always self critiquing.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I for the and here's here's the here's the question is like when you listen back to your tape, how do you how do you evaluate your own performance as a as an interviewer when you hear yourself back?
00:05:57
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question because I also hate hearing myself talk. I sound like a 12-year-old girl, as all your listeners now know. so
00:06:09
Speaker
It's interesting because I think when I am going back through my transcripts, I'm not necessarily critiquing myself because I'm really looking for what I need. It's probably more in the moment, I would say, where I take...
00:06:21
Speaker
a lot of notes when I'm interviewing somebody so that I know to come back to something and tend to get really angry at myself if I forgot to come back to something. think I'm at a point now in my career where I know what's going to make a good story and maybe how to ask those questions.
00:06:36
Speaker
But it's interesting, like I've had a couple recently and even some, you know, with this book where I couldn't find my footing. You know, it felt like an awkward, a really awkward connection, which I'm not usually used to. I think, you know, when we If you interview people for a lot of your living, you're pretty empathetic for the most part and know how to connect with somebody. And so it's always sort of unsettling, I think, when you have an interview where you just can't, I don't know, can't make that connection.
00:07:03
Speaker
What would you identify as a particular strength you have as a conversationalist and an interviewer to get the information you need to create these amazing narratives that you that you write? Oh, geez. i am so hard on myself. I don't know what I would, and I'm not good at praising myself either. What would be a strength?
00:07:21
Speaker
I've always liked to listen more than I like to talk about myself, which is maybe why I'm like, I don't and don't want to tell you what my strengths are. I don't know. I've never been very good at just, you know, talking about myself.
00:07:33
Speaker
So I'm always so curious. And I think probably just having a genuine curiosity about other people. And I think that has really benefited me in a lot of political long form stories that I have written where I just am. So I want to get inside people's heads. I want to know why they think the way they think without judgment.
00:07:51
Speaker
Right. Or you can save the judgment for later. But I think that the curiosity maybe is the the best thing. And when you're when you're doing, let's say you're your research or your reporting or or your writing, I came across this great term from Michael Lewis, like having ah a loose routine, like not a draconian one that you adhere by because then if you can't stick to it, it's often a good excuse to to hide and not get work done. So it's yeah best to have something of a fluid, loose routine.
00:08:16
Speaker
You know, what what loose routine do you adhere to? So you're always, ah you know, you're making the progress you need to make. That's a really good question. I try to write almost every morning, although I have discovered that now I really need a weekend morning or so off to just drink coffee on the couch or often I'm going skiing or whatever I'm doing.
00:08:37
Speaker
But I am at my most creative in the morning. always so amazed by night owls. My brain just turns off. I mean, I'm so burned out by three o'clock in the afternoon anyway. yeah But maybe it's because...
00:08:50
Speaker
I don't know. There's a theory that you're closer to your dreams in the morning and maybe you're more creative that way or your mind is still clean from sleep or whatever it is. But I always am at my computer.
00:09:01
Speaker
ah wake up, I stretch my back because, you know, now I'm in my 40s and apparently I need to do that. I sit down at my computer with my coffee. I light my candles and I light my Palo Santo and that's my environment.
00:09:15
Speaker
So I got to say, with 30 Below, i how how did this story get on your radar? Well, we both have the same ah amazing agent, Susan Canavan at Waxman, who has this almost magical capability to find a good story and know what makes a good story.
00:09:34
Speaker
And then obviously champion the hell out of it. So she had sent me an email just like one February morning and there was a link in it. And all she wrote was, is there a good story here?
00:09:46
Speaker
And the link was to this National Park Service blog post from 2020. So it had been a couple of few years before. was just 500 words. And it was celebrating 50th anniversary of this all women's ascent of Denali.
00:10:01
Speaker
And i at that point, had been writing about adventure, about women's issues in adventure for years by then. And I'm well steeped in the mountain world. And I never heard of this climb.
00:10:12
Speaker
And if it was so boundary breaking, hadn't Why wasn't it more widely known, you know, the way that it was when Lynn Hill freed the nose in the 90s?
00:10:23
Speaker
It should be on that level, right? Or higher even. And so that was fascinating to me. And as I started to do some preliminary research, who these women were was so intriguing to me.
00:10:36
Speaker
So I discovered that most of them unfortunately, are not still alive. Arlene Bloom in Berkeley is still alive and Margaret Clark in New Zealand is also still alive.
00:10:48
Speaker
Grace Holman is not, and her life and her husband's life, his name was Vin and he was also this really well-known Alaskan mountaineer. Their life is archived at the University of Alaska in Anchorage.
00:11:02
Speaker
And what is there is this just like magnetic and then heartbreaking love story between the two of them and mountains. And just like who she was as a person was so complex.
00:11:17
Speaker
And I could have written a whole novel just on her. And so that was really amazing. And then to find that Arlene had written three chapters about the Denali climb and her memoir, Breaking Trail, that came out also in the or early 2000s, think.
00:11:30
Speaker
i think um But only those three chapters. And so it was almost this little glimpse into what was there that just pulled me in so hard. And I immersed myself in it for two whole years the way that we do.
00:11:44
Speaker
Take us to the world building aspect of 30 Below. i love that idea of world building because that is what we do as historical nonfiction writers is you're going back to rebuild a world, right?
00:11:58
Speaker
And what was really amazing about this is that there were four surviving expedition journals from these women. And a lot of mountaineering journals, the way that people keep journals on expeditions tend to be really dry. You know, a lot of climbers only record routes and temperature and weather and that sort of thing.
00:12:17
Speaker
what they wish they'd brought. And these journals are internal journeys that these women were experiencing. And a couple of them, I mean, Margaret Clark is a phenomenal writer. She wants to, she had at that point wanted to be a travel writer. She's 89 and working on her own memoir now. And so her journal is incredible.
00:12:37
Speaker
And that was amazing to be able to get inside the heads of you know these people who are gone now. And of course, to have Arlene and Margaret remember what they could. was 55 years by the time spoke with them.
00:12:51
Speaker
um but And then to find all of this correspondence. Apparently, these women never use the telephone. I mean, it was 1969 and 1970. We had phones and they just wrote each other letter after letter after letter. And what is also just so remarkable to me is how people saved that kind of correspondence.
00:13:12
Speaker
And it makes you wonder if somebody were trying to world build this time now, what would they go through? Like the emails, i delete half my emails texting. I just, it's, it's such a gift, I think, to have that kind of written record.
00:13:26
Speaker
And so how did you find everybody find the principal figures if they, you know, were alive or family members that could get you other information? How did you go about, you know, building, building the, the Rolodex?
Researching for the Denali Book
00:13:41
Speaker
So Arlene, actually, when I had clicked on that blog post and found that it was Arlene Bloom who was part of this climb, I have a previous life before I remembered that I love to write working in environmental health as an activist.
00:13:55
Speaker
And that's how I knew Arlene, because she is a really well-known chemist and has done has her own organization called the Green Science Policy Institute. She is just legendary for being instrumental in getting toxic chemicals out of cosmetics and children's pajamas and all these things.
00:14:13
Speaker
And so when I saw that she was part of this climb, I had no idea that she was a mountaineer and most mountaineers have no idea that she's a chemist. So I love that she has this really, you know, life full of such depth.
00:14:24
Speaker
And so because I knew who she was, i reached out to her immediately and we spent some time together and I walked her through what I was thinking and, asked her blessing basically ah to be able to tell her story.
00:14:37
Speaker
And she had all of her stuff archived at the university in Stanford. So I could go through a lot of that. And then she turned me on to quite a few people. And that is what's really interesting is that once you're sort of in a network, the waves that makes in terms of the connections that come after that,
00:14:57
Speaker
Or like I found Grace's, I had no idea that Grace Holman's daughter was still alive in Anchorage until I reached out to this historian, the mountaineering historian at the University of Alaska. And he said, do you want to talk to Mary Ann?
00:15:08
Speaker
said, oh my God, I'd love to talk to Mary Ann. Are you kidding me? So it was really kind of fateful, I think, in a lot of ways, how often these things come together. I mean, it's a lot of work, right? To do some digging, but often it's also just almost like the story was waiting and then was meant to be told, you know?
00:15:27
Speaker
And so you're okay. Now you're, you know, you've got Arlene, she's putting you in touch with all all these people. You're starting to gather more people, get more people on your team, you know? So, you know, what happens, what happens next? When, and when are you feeling like you've got some real good momentum?
00:15:42
Speaker
Ooh, probably. don't know. It's so interesting. and the scope of this project, how much I had to synthesize that it felt for a while, like I was just spinning my wheels and all I wanted to do was start writing.
00:15:56
Speaker
And I mean, kind I have binders that are six inches thick, just of letters, right? And then I've got all the journals and articles and interview transcripts, it's just like so much, right? But I think there was this moment. So I went to stay with Margaret Clark in Christchurch for a week and over in New Zealand. And she is 89.
00:16:17
Speaker
eighty nine And as I mentioned, and I want to be like Margaret Clark when I grow up. She's just now starting to lose her mobility. She refuses to use a walker. And instead, she has a hiking pole in every room, which I absolutely love.
00:16:31
Speaker
just like classic mountaineer um And she was reading to me from her journal. She read it out loud to me. And then, you know, she let me take it and photocopy it and all that. But if she was reading it out loud, it would spur in her these other memories, which is so cool. You know, memory can be so fallible. But when we have these triggers to it, I think it can really just open up a lot.
00:16:52
Speaker
And as she was talking, could see how this was all supposed to come together because I had been to Anchorage and gone through some of Grace's things. I had seen Arlene on the front end of that trip to New Zealand. And then I was there in New Zealand. And that's I was like, I see how this all plays out.
00:17:10
Speaker
And those three are the main characters, basically. For some reason, one of the big reasons being that you can't tell a story with six main characters like this. There's six women on the climb. But how do you do that? I mean, that just is untenable for readers.
00:17:24
Speaker
And these three, there was the most surviving on them. And to me, they were the most compelling. And they were in the end when everything hits a fever pitch and there's this wild climax. I mean, they're the three main players, questions asked.
00:17:37
Speaker
So But yeah, I think for me, 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.
00:17:50
Speaker
Speaking of the words that start hitting you, that when does the the beginning crystallize for you and when does the ending crystallize for you? I think the beginning did right off the bat because i knew I had to start with Grace. So the book begins with Grace on Denali.
00:18:09
Speaker
what And what was also serendipitous about this and wild is as I was going through her first journal. So Grace was turned back on two expeditions on Denali before she decided to lead this all women's expedition in 1970. Right.
00:18:24
Speaker
And as you read in the book, that first expedition that she was on She was on the mountain during what is still today the worst tragedy to ever hit Denali when the storm broke over the top of the mountain and seven men were caught in it and ultimately die. i mean, winds were estimated to be 300 miles an hour at the top. Just absolutely savage storm. That's not a typo.
00:18:48
Speaker
And I knew that because she had endured that and the way that she had been turned back halfway up, even knowing that there was that storm happening at the top and those men needed them and Grace was a doctor and they probably needed her if they were still alive.
00:19:03
Speaker
That she'd been turned back. There was this amazing stake setting and why Grace would do something like lead this all female climb. and what exactly is she was getting herself into and leading it. Right. Because you could see right from the get go from this first expedition, what that mountain was capable of handing climbers like just so fierce. And so I just love that. So I knew that that was right off the bat where we were going start was 1967.
00:19:28
Speaker
And the ending was a tough one actually. And there things that I chose not to include after ended it. And so, you know, you, I ended it after the climax when, um,
00:19:40
Speaker
it felt like a really sort of normal place to end. But I had found when I was in Arlene's archives in Stanford, this correspondence between Grace and Arlene after the climb.
00:19:52
Speaker
It was really um vitriolic and upsetting. And I didn't include it because I think it it didn't further the story really. and And a lot of that reason not to include it, and this is mentioned in the book, is that these women were under so much pressure.
00:20:10
Speaker
And in 1970, there was still a lot of, you know, accusations that their team was going to break down because of catfights, you know, even though social dynamics break down in those kinds of really intense situations all the time, no matter who you are, a man, a woman, whatever.
00:20:26
Speaker
But that would have only served to further that sort of trope, right? And so I didn't include that. So it was, i mean, it was interesting thinking about that too, whether it did further the story. or not it was not a harmonious group ah by any stretch. There were a lot of, lot of different power plays and, ah and physical dynamics with, you know, just ah Dana comes to mind as the strongest and very headstrong and,
00:20:54
Speaker
ah independent and selfish a lot of the times and and you have a lot of these different characters at play and they're all trying to do the same thing but at the same time sometimes they're ah they're they're not helping each other when they could so what was the challenge for you to you know to manifest all of these different personalities in this pressure cooker as they try to summit?
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah, that was really cool and I felt a really I felt a ah pretty strong burden of responsibility to accurately portray who they were. And part of that is being complicated, right? And that at the time, even still today, I think we're in an era where women often are still expected to play the historical roles we've been assigned, right? And we know what they are. It's princess, witch, you know, lone heroine, damsel in distress, and not a lot of room usually for complications.
00:21:49
Speaker
What I loved about these six women is that all of them were complex people on their own arcs of development and each with their own stakes for why they wanted to do this. And so I felt really obligated to, i think, portray that accurately.
00:22:04
Speaker
And what's interesting in the way it all plays out with the correspondence and in their journals, you can see as they're all writing letters to each other and um going on practice climbs and and meeting each other,
00:22:18
Speaker
in some cases, ah some of them had no idea who the others were, you can see them becoming friends and you watch that relationship really developing. And then once they're on the mountain in these really intense elemental circumstances, also where you have no alone time for an entire month, I mean, you are constantly with somebody. We're sleeping right next to them.
00:22:39
Speaker
Your only time apart is when you're 30 feet back on a rope, right? When you're climbing. And so anybody's going to experience some social breakdown or you're going to see the clash of personalities too, right?
00:22:52
Speaker
And we do end up seeing that. And so it just was, again, because I had access to all of these writings, the letters, the journals and And in some cases, those women who are still alive, I could accurately portray that.
00:23:08
Speaker
But it felt really important, I think, to to also not have these clear-cut saints and sinners, right? And maybe by the end, you think one or two of the women are. But even, like, you may hate Grace by the end of this.
00:23:21
Speaker
But in the beginning, you are rooting for her, right? And that is just, and you know, who we are as people, I think, to be confident. Yeah, grace Grace definitely comes across in some ways as a hero and almost like in an anti-hero in a way because she jeopardized so much of the mission and her own safety and the safety of others.
00:23:43
Speaker
And then, you know, at the very end, you know, where's this one note? I mean, like after it was done, know, she told Arlene probably in a letter. She's like, I would have gone down just fine if you'd give me a swift kick like men would have. You're behaving like hysterical women. It's like, oh, wow.
00:24:00
Speaker
It's like she was she was ah unforgiving of them for saving her life and thinking that all it was going to take was a little masculine energy to get her to get down to base camp.
00:24:12
Speaker
Right. I know. But and that's what I also felt like I really wanted to give some nuance to this, because I think that Western culture romanticizes pursuits like mountaineering.
00:24:24
Speaker
And we have, since people were watching first ascents in the Alps from the valley floor with binoculars, right? Or even now our modern obsession with all things Everest. And ah sometimes I think that the nuance of people who maybe are writing about these things who aren't steeped in it or in the adventure world don't
Exploring Mountaineering Culture and Personal Motivations
00:24:45
Speaker
necessarily get. And one of those nuances is what helps to shape grace into having a comment like that, right? Was that at the time and still today in a lot of ways, mountaineering was a hyper-masculine world where admitting weakness was anathema.
00:25:00
Speaker
You cannot admit weakness or you're not admitted into the culture, right? So admitting weakness, vulnerability, any of that was something to be sacrificed in a culture that valued speed, strength, infallible expertise, all of this stuff. Right. And so there is ah you can see some evidence of it in Grace through these letters and in her journal as she refuses to admit to herself that she might have altitude sickness.
00:25:26
Speaker
even on these two climbs she was turned back on, right? Because that would be admitting weakness. and So it's just, it's really interesting, I think, to be able to have such a book-length narrative where you can explore what really drives people and be able to translate that into what they're experiencing and how their arc happens.
00:25:47
Speaker
A moment ago, you talked about the pressure that they they were all under. In what way was that pressure really life-threatening? yeah I don't want to give away too much of the book, but um so there was this crush and you can see it in their correspondence.
00:26:05
Speaker
between Grace and Arlene, for sure, that because they were the first all women's expedition to try for any of the world's high peaks, there had been some all female expeditions, the expeditions that build themselves as all female before in the Himalaya and some in the Alps, but they had male guides and porters, right? And so this was really the first attempt to try to do this.
00:26:29
Speaker
And this was in an era when, i mean, we had sent men to the moon and women hadn't stood on the highest points on earth. And that is largely because the popular narrative at the time emphasized that women couldn't withstand high altitudes and savage elements and carry loads on their own day after day without men's help. Right.
00:26:50
Speaker
And so these women on this team, they were doing something that literally everyone thought was impossible. Any boundary breaker happens, just has to prove not just their own capability.
00:27:02
Speaker
They bear the burden of proving the capability of entire peoples and demographics that they're from, right? And so on this c climb, Arlene and Grace knew that they weren't just representing their own skill. They were were representing all women on this climb.
00:27:17
Speaker
And Grace, in addition to that, so Arlene knew that that she wanted to keep the harmony within the ranks because they had already gotten some of this grief about catfights were going to break down their team so that she felt she had to preserve that.
00:27:29
Speaker
And there was very likely this also sentiment that if all of them didn't make it to the top, it wouldn't have been perceived as a success.
00:27:40
Speaker
And only the failure would be what was trumpeted. Right. And we see that actually two years later in 1972, after the climb, Arlene is reading with astonishment in the Los Angeles Times about the first all-female ascent of Denali after they had done it. Right.
00:27:56
Speaker
And it was these Japanese women, this Japanese team. And the L.A. Times covered it because i would say because three of the women died on the climb. It didn't even mention that they had summited. didn't mention the two survivors. It focused on the women who died. I had to.
00:28:12
Speaker
look around for that to find that there were women who had survived and that they had summited. And so would you hit this kind of climax moment, There's the weight of just so many intricate stakes, like the pressure that these women were facing and then the pressure that Grace put on herself because she'd turned back been turned back twice on Denali.
00:28:33
Speaker
She had lost her husband in the Himalaya and Daligiri one and was carrying this weight of survivor's guilt and grief and pain. So for Grace, though, the pressure was if I don't summit this third time, the park is never going to let me climb again and I will not be allowed on any other expeditions, basically.
00:28:53
Speaker
So there were all of these personal pressures and then just cultural pressure. I mean, just the weight of it must have just been so intense. And you you talked about motivation a moment ago, and that was ah something I had in in my notes, too. And every one of your main characters, they bring to bear their own degree of motivation. So how did you mine that for the narrative ah a propulsion you need?
00:29:18
Speaker
Ooh, that's a good question. So with Grace, I mean, it was just so clear to me yeah that she had these, the weight of this failure, this feeling that she could not fail again. And that a lot of people thought that she was in so much pain over her, the loss of her husband that maybe she went to Denali to die there.
00:29:39
Speaker
And then with Arlene, it was also just so clear that she had been told no so many times and she had been barred from expeditions for the stupidest reasons, just for being a woman. Right. One had one expedition leader had replied to her telling her she couldn't come to I think it was an expedition in Afghanistan.
00:30:00
Speaker
Because women would be unpleasant in excretory situations, right? And so for her, it was so clear that she just wanted to prove everyone wrong. i mean, she also had no idea if it could be done that women could actually do this. But she really was just like, we're going to prove it because I'm tired of this.
00:30:20
Speaker
And I love that because she also is just in some senses, she's not an alpha female at all. And so I love that coming from her. And with Margaret, you know, she, Margaret Clark grew up in New Zealand and the she didn't experience the same kind of oppression or barring from expeditions in the same way that the women in the US did.
00:30:41
Speaker
She did, absolutely. she had She was barred from an expedition to Antarctica actually because there were no women's toilets on the plane from Christchurch, which is also stupid, but she took it to heart a lot less. And so for Margaret, what was she was just this great balance to some of these gender things that Arlene was feeling because she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis three months before she got this invitation to go on this Denali climb, was convinced that she was going to be in a wheelchair within you know a few years.
00:31:10
Speaker
And this was her last chance to go on a big expedition. So I love how varied the stakes were for these women. And I think that that it makes them real people because they were. And it just gives a lot of narrative depth, right? Because then each one has their own arc of development.
00:31:26
Speaker
And I actually, as I was writing, had sticky notes all over my wall to remind me of what the stakes were and what you know, what they all were after. And, and again, I'm lucky that I had those letters and all of that, all of those journals to tell me that, you know, I wasn't speculating on it. All of the the women who are on this expedition, you know, you already said, like, for, you know, for now, with Margaret Clark, 89, someone who you really aspire to when you grow up, but and when you were ah researching them and drawing their various character studies up, you know who did you lock into like hanging out with the most identify with the most?
00:32:04
Speaker
um Definitely Margaret Clark. Yeah. It's funny. I had, um, another interviewer asked me at the end of it, which one of the six women did I respect the most? And I thought, gosh, I don't, that's a tough one. I think I respected them all for doing this thing that nobody thought it could be done, right? And to take on that pressure and just to do it is amazing and so respectable.
00:32:28
Speaker
But who i liked the most at the end of it was definitely Margaret Clark. I mean, what she was just this and is this brilliant, capable, insanely capable, calm,
00:32:40
Speaker
witty, understanding person, you know, and I just, yeah, I think that she just has this sass to her that is mixed with a calm capability that I find really yeah endearing.
Science of Risky Adventures
00:32:54
Speaker
And there's a moment in the book, too, where you pause it, basically, why, you know, right here, you like, why why leave the comfort of home to risk all that? Why risk their lives at the hands of such a great and powerful wild?
00:33:07
Speaker
Some would say it's because at its simplest, it's in our genes. More specifically, it's in one particular variant of a dopamine receptor gene, and it's estimated to have 20% humans have it.
00:33:19
Speaker
How important was it for you to take that, and take those little detours like of that nature to help explain to the reader, you know, ah why why people are so drawn to such risky endeavors?
00:33:31
Speaker
It was really um important to me because as we talked about, i think sometimes it we have this tendency to romanticize for pursuits like this at the same time.
00:33:42
Speaker
Mainstream culture, people who don't do these things are like, why would anyone do this? Right. It sounds horrible. and I'm not an alpinist. I've done some high altitude stuff. I know my body doesn't perform well at altitude.
00:33:56
Speaker
I don't like it. So I did not climb Denali for this, but I am skier, a ski, a dabble in some ski mountaineering. And I've been on long wilderness expeditions. I've been in some wilderness situations where I thought I might die. And so I can translate that.
00:34:11
Speaker
I mean, I get it. i know why i do those things. And I know why other people in the community do, um because we talk about it all the time. And it was really important to me to convey that, that a lot of these things can seem so miserable or so black and white, where you have glory and triumph on one hand and only suffering on the other.
00:34:30
Speaker
And there's so much more to it than that. And that was, um, Not only important to me to convey, it was really fun to write. I love I found Margaret Young ah very, a very intriguing, quirky character to follow because she she just did not adhere to any norms. I mean, she was a mother, but didn't really wasn't very motherly and wasn't going to let.
00:34:56
Speaker
you know, that, that degree of domesticity, keep her from pursuing these ambitious, ah these ambitious goals. I just, I love that so much about her.
00:35:07
Speaker
Oh my God. Yes. And that was, she pretty fun to write too. And I wish that more had survived on her that she had kept a journal, but mean, there's not even a single letter from her amongst all the group correspondents.
00:35:20
Speaker
So I don't think she was much for writing. She was a photographer, though, and a lot of her photos are atmospheric and so cool that survived from the climb.
00:35:31
Speaker
But yes, so she was so interesting to try and figure out. um And I think there was no figuring her out in the end. I mean, she was I think she was probably a genius, an absolute genius.
00:35:43
Speaker
So she was, for your listeners, she was actually, you would never know to look at her because she just wore some of the weirdest clothes and she was known to floss her teeth with her hair. and But she was a member of the Forbes family, so she was astronomically wealthy.
00:35:59
Speaker
But she didn't. just did not appear to give a damn about her wealth other than to buy herself an old Cessna so that she could fly herself around to go climbing in these obscure places and, you know, a Land Rover to go on expeditions and and that sort of thing. So it was all in service just to climbing, basically. But she was physicist and she was a mechanic and a pilot and just had all of the eccentricities that probably come with having a genius level intelligence.
00:36:28
Speaker
And another thing you do ah astonishingly well is this degree of dramatic irony, like where we know a lot of information, like we know Grace's grief a bit better than some, maybe some of the others on the team do. We know of Margaret Clark's.
00:36:44
Speaker
MS diagnosis where she doesn't really disclose that with anyone else. So we know that there are these other factors at play that not the, ah that the, a lot of the others don't know, and they're all trying to do this together. And it's like, it charges everything with so much tension. And and just, how did you keep that straight as you're synthesizing this material?
00:37:05
Speaker
Sticky notes again, the power of color coded sticky notes. Yes. yes um And yeah, with that tension, so i don't, full disclosure, I actually don't like reading nonfiction for the most part. I love novels. I love escaping. And maybe it's because I'm just not reading some of the right nonfiction. like I love nonfiction, like the Emerald Mile, right? That's really plot and character driven, which is why I kind of wrote 30 Below more like that, where what drives the narrative is, are the events and the people and what's going on internally. And so I think that
00:37:41
Speaker
having that kind of tension and knowing that it was there too was really fun to try and bring in as fun as tension is right like we shouldn't say that other people's personal tension is fine but with all all these letters and you talk about with six inch thick binders and letters and and transcripts and and all that stuff you know how are you organizing all that stuff when you're working on a particular section I had, everything was chronologically organized to is the best of my ability. I had highlighters out. I had, um, I use Scrivener.
00:38:18
Speaker
you use that? I have it on my computer. i haven't been able to really crack the code on Scrivener yet. Okay. Well, I love it. So I'm happy to give you any tips and that's so helpful to just move things around.
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah. And just be able put in placeholders and you can see it all where you're like, Oh yeah, that'll go there. And that'll go there. And That is huge for sure. Otherwise, I think that i once I kind of figured it all out, once I'd read through everything,
00:38:45
Speaker
i could I knew how things were going to play out. I knew how to synthesize it all. It just kind of came together, I think. Not that it was easy, but it all just kind of fit like a puzzle piece. When I used Scrivener once, like it was great when I composed a manuscript and then I exported it as whatever, a Word doc.
00:39:03
Speaker
And then when I got notes back in the Word doc, I didn't know how to then operate with it, like to re-import it into Scrivener or do I have to split screen it and put my edits? you know like I didn't know how to...
00:39:16
Speaker
ah Is there a way to feed it back into Scrivener with you know track changes and all that shit? Or is you just have to... No, I've not figured that out. So you're right. Then I end up doing all the edits in the actual Word doc, which is not ideal.
00:39:28
Speaker
So you're right. It is mostly better for crafting in the early stage. When I was speaking with yeah Howard Bryant a while ago and he was talking about biography and how the you know the principal figures, ah they like to think that you know they're immortal and no one's ever going to forget their stories. And the the fact of the matter is everybody gets forgotten.
00:39:50
Speaker
And this was a forgotten story. So it just when you're thinking of it in terms of, you know, finding these forgotten histories, just, ah you know, how did you yeah know just metabolize the the notion that you were really resurrecting, you know, a forgotten history here?
Ethics of Unearthing Forgotten Stories
00:40:05
Speaker
ah Well, it's interesting because I think as nonfiction writers, whenever we're looking for the next story to tell, it's always like, well what hasn't been told yet? And I think so there's there's that kind of urgency and that kind of sort of endorphin rush when you realize you've stumbled on something that hasn't been widely told.
00:40:21
Speaker
And then there's also though, don't know, I almost felt guilty going through Grace's archives, even Arlene, although she directed me to them, with this sort of like, I and was talking to Grace's daughter, Marianne, about this. I got this sense as I was going through Grace's archives that she would have been horrified to have somebody thumbing through her personal letters, right?
00:40:43
Speaker
And they were all archived after she died without her permission. And Marianne said, oh yeah, she absolutely would have been. Somebody like Arlene, who chooses to archive your material while you're still alive. i mean, you assume that people are going to be writing about you, right?
00:40:57
Speaker
Or one going through your things. So that's a little different. But there is almost this voyeuristic feeling to resurrecting these old narratives, right? And that's, it's a little weird. And when you were in the rewriting and the revision phase, how did you yeah endure that part of the process and the challenges that it presented?
00:41:16
Speaker
you know I wish that we could just write the thing and not have to do the rest of it because it is just a lot, you know, and there is also, we should talk about when you, whenever i finished a really big project, especially like a book length one, and this one's my second book length project, I have almost this depression right after I turn it in because I've been sort of thinking about why part of it, I think, is that you leave this whole world that you created and had just sank into almost every day for however long you were doing this. Right.
00:41:54
Speaker
And then you may not necessarily have something to dive into on that level right after that. Right. So you're just kind of in this liminal space. coming back into the manuscript after kind of dealing with that grief is also really weird.
00:42:10
Speaker
Like you have to familiarize yourself with it again. And then by the end, you are so sick of it. It is sort of like, well, is anybody even going to want to read this? Because I don't even want to read it again. um But what is really interesting to me about this book is I don't always love going back and reading my writing as most writers probably don't like doing that.
00:42:29
Speaker
And half the time you're like, i don't even know if this is good. Shoot, is this good? But this book, I was like, oh man, I wrote that. I wrote that. Like I feel like it's really, really good. And I don't usually feel like that. So um I felt a little less imposter syndrome maybe with having to go through it so many times than I would have with some of my other projects, which is a really cool thing.
00:42:51
Speaker
yeah the the book, the post book funk is is a real thing. I've been in it for several weeks. Like it's been hard for me to get motivated.
Transitioning Between Projects
00:43:00
Speaker
Just i know what I want to do next.
00:43:02
Speaker
I know what's potentially possible with it. And for some reason, like I'm, it's like I have a dead limb and I'm like dragging. I'm like, dude, like you're, it's like my leg is asleep. I'm like, wake up so we can get going and it won't wake up.
00:43:16
Speaker
And it's been, yeah, it's been, it's been a challenge because ah want to get this thing. I don't even have to necessarily do like a giant book proposal again. I just have to get something together, prove I have some sources and I might have, that might be all I need.
00:43:30
Speaker
And it's like, dude, like get your ass off the fucking, that floor here. also doing a getting ready for another talk and I'm not a very good presenter so I'm really rehearsing the hell out of that and it's like it's it's been hard to focus after it and I don't know i imagine you know it was kind of hard for you to focus too perhaps.
00:43:49
Speaker
Oh yeah absolutely it is. What a weird thing. I mean are there other I'm sure there are other crafts like that where you have to go through probably music. Artists don't know where you finish the piece you can be done you don't have to go back over it and over it.
00:44:04
Speaker
Yeah, what a mess we've gotten ourselves into, Cassidy. I know. Why don't do this again? I ask myself that quite often, quite often. ah But I'm like, I'm 20 years in. It's like, what else am I going to do? I'm unhirable.
00:44:21
Speaker
Well, Cassidy, yeah yeah ah bringing these down for a landing, I always love getting a recommendation from the from you for the listeners out there. And ahre we're going to get a double dose of this soon. But ah for the first one, ah why don't I'd love to hear what you might recommend for the listeners out there. Something that's just ah exciting for you at this point in time.
00:44:39
Speaker
In terms of books. It could be a book. It could be a fanny pack or a branded tea or incense. It's whatever whatever you're happy about. um Well, I, since we've been talking about writing, I'm going to recommend a book.
00:44:52
Speaker
Do you know who Larry Brown is? ah the only Larry Brown I know is a former basketball coach. So think it might be a different Larry Brown. Probably.
00:45:03
Speaker
okay so he's a novelist and he ah has one of those stories, almost like a Stephen King kind of story where he had sent off so many manuscripts and so many rejections and then finally you know got his first one published. And he is a phenomenal writer. And I just finished his book called Faye, um the woman's name Faye.
00:45:25
Speaker
And it's fascinating to me because none of his characters are good people. Or they all have some just massive flaw or they're just, you know, really making these decisions in his books that you're like, why would they ever do that? This is the most questionable decision.
00:45:41
Speaker
And you can't help but root for them. And I don't know how he does it, but that book was so captivating. So highly recommend. Oh, fantastic.
Closing Remarks and Book Promotions
00:45:47
Speaker
Well, Cassie, this is awesome to get to talk again about your amazing book. Yeah, I wish you continued success with it. And I hope it gets all the attention deserves because one of certainly one of the best things I've read in a long, long time. And it's an amazing book and i commend you on it.
00:46:01
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. And I can't wait to read yours when it comes out.
00:46:11
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks for Cassidy. Thanks to Cassidy for coming back on the show, and she's going to be back in a few weeks anyway. So pull up a pull up a chair. Thanks also the Power of Narrative Conference for the promotional support all spring, well, all winter.
00:46:29
Speaker
Really, this was that was great to have that partnership. Awesome. Also consider the Frontrunner pre-orders. And if you want to give the podcast a gift that doesn't cost you anything for its birthday, then you'll leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify.
00:46:44
Speaker
can never have enough and they help validate this show which is a relative unknown to a lot of people as am i so the wayward cnfer looking to up their non-fiction game they might otherwise they might give the show a chance if they see more and more of those reviews because we only have so much time and having that validation really helps So I submitted an essay to Short Reads last week, and I'm always amazed at the buzz I get from submitting a piece of work or a query letter.
00:47:19
Speaker
It's not unlike when I used to play the horses or the occasional sports bet before apps, placing the bets at actual sports books. you know You place these bets, and in your mind, there's no way you can lose.
00:47:31
Speaker
So you're full of possibility and hope. Those hopes soon get crushed like an aluminum can. But until then, you're like, oh, wow, anything's possible.
00:47:47
Speaker
The essay, it's a good essay. But these things always come down to things that are out of our control. Editor taste, what other things might have been submitted, what has already run, what might be scheduled to run.
00:48:00
Speaker
All that stuff has no bearing on you as a writer. But it's impossible not to internalize on some level ah the the inherent rejection then that comes. especially I don't submit many essays, so it's like I know some people submit dozens of times a year, and I only submit a few. And so naturally, your batting average isn't going to be very good.
00:48:22
Speaker
And writing essays always feels like trying on a new outfit that's not quite my style. I look in the mirror and I'm like, that's not the person I'm used to. He's not wearing his fat pants of shame with his loose-fitting hoodie.
00:48:33
Speaker
Likewise, this power of narrative conference presentation I'm giving feels similarly way out of my comfort zone. As I've been rehearsing it, it just feels flat and boring.
00:48:45
Speaker
It's about writing unauthorized biography, generating an idea, some tactical organizational stuff. And finally, the ethics of it, drawing from conversations I've had on the show and some reading I've done. I'm not a natural teacher or a performer.
00:49:01
Speaker
you know Part of that has to do with not doing this kind of thing very often. yeah I'm pretty terrified. yeah People are spending a lot of money to go to Boston and to check this out. and you know if people there are several other talks. There are lots of other breakout sessions.
00:49:17
Speaker
And I don't know if four people will show up to mine or 40. and you want to put on a good show for them. You want them leaving inspired and informed and educated and energized, I guess. You know, you go to those breakout sessions because you're looking to kind of crack the code on something you're working on.
00:49:37
Speaker
And if I'm unable to do that or if I'm boring, then I feel like, well, shit, you know, they just wasted an hour. I hope to cap the talk part off at like 40 to 45 minutes.
00:49:48
Speaker
yeah allowing time for questions and or leave early to get a burrito. No one ever lamented a thing ending a little short. I don't think anyone would feel shortchanged if I cut it off at 45 minutes.
00:50:00
Speaker
I thought of it like three-act structure and three mini TED Talks back-to-back-to-back. I'm having a very hard time memorizing it, and I only have one more week to get ready. I don't feel great about it yet.
00:50:12
Speaker
It might come down to how snappy the slides I draw are. And I recently watched, because I think Austin Kleon is very good at giving presentations for his book talks, and I counted how many slides he did for his Steal Like an Artist book tour, which was like 10 years ago at this point. But he had something like 71 slides in the whole thing, and I think that helps lot.
00:50:35
Speaker
visually, but also it keeps you from having, they take some of the pressure off of memorizing. And right now I have about 20 slides. So i'm like, okay, I can probably up this by almost fourfold. And that might really help and just make it a bit more easy on the eye and a bit easier on me have to remember things. And it'll act, that they'll act as prompts in a way.
00:50:56
Speaker
ah They'll be like cues. So I don't have to just memorize everything word for word. I'm really kind of, kind of like sweaty, like my pits are just just getting sweaty right now thinking about it. Anyway, this was a parting shot about clothes not fitting right. Stay wild, C&Fers, and if you can't do interviews, ya.