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Episode 431: Sean Enfield, Author of ‘Holy American Burnout’ Hates the Word Burnout
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Sean Enfield (@seanseanclan on IG) is an essayist, education, gardener, bassist, and author of the collection Holy American Burnout (Split/Lip Press).
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Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Perks
00:00:00
Speaker
Episode 431 Sean Enfield author of holy American burnout hates the word burnout AC and efforts before we get started Just want to say thank you for listening and I don't see this enough a special Thank you to the patreon gang I just put up a video post as a thread for conversation and you guys are really leaning into it It's really fun Remember, if you're a patron in the $4 and $10 tiers, make sure you go and snag your 30-minute face-to-face call with me to talk through whatever you want to talk through. And if that sounds pretty cool to anyone who is not on the Patreon crew, go to patreon.com slash cnfpod and shop around. All right? You deserve it. I mean, I'm always encouraging my students to steal, so I always tell them, again, you should read to steal, right?
00:00:52
Speaker
these These things, there's as writers, we should always be looking for like new tools and strategies and techniques, and they're they're they're there for us for a reason. We're Kleptomaniacs, I think.
Meet Sean Enfield
00:01:11
Speaker
Oh hey CN efforts, it's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories, you memoir, documentary, film, journalism, essays, podcasts, and your mom. It doesn't matter. Today's guest is Sean Enfield. He's the author of the wonderful essay collection, Holy American Burnout. It's published by Split Lip Press.
00:01:33
Speaker
Sean is at Sean Sean Clan. He spells Sean S E A N. That's on Instagram. yeah He's an essayist, a poet, a gardener, a bassist, slap at a bass, and an educator. Holy American Burnout. It's really fun, illuminating. It's a book that pushes the boundaries of form and voice. It's a trip. Highly recommend.
00:02:00
Speaker
show notes of this episode and more. All right, Brendan of Merit.com, hey, where you will find um the occasional blog posts. That's what I call my internet garden, just tilling my own little acre, my own little internet acre.
00:02:15
Speaker
There you can also subscribe to The Monthly Rage against the Algorithm newsletter. Book recommendations, cool links, good vibes. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. Go to your favorite podcast app and smash that subscribe button. It costs you nothing. Maybe even have it auto-download so you can take the show on the go. What a world we live in.
00:02:36
Speaker
And if you're feeling really kind, you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts, like this recent one from Summer Coulson, titled Great Podcasts, Five Stars. Love this podcast and hearing about others' creative processes. The editor interviews are especially insightful to me, someone always on the other end of that process. Thank you.
00:02:59
Speaker
And thank you, Summer. Ain't that cool? I think so. And if you leave a review, I'll read it right here, because I like to celebrate that, and it's my way of just saying thank you right back. Sean Enfield's work deals in race, education, music, and holy American burnout.
Sean Enfield's Work and Influence
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Speaker
It's a cross-section of all these things and a lot more.
00:03:22
Speaker
His work has appeared in Read Magazine, Hayden's Ferry, Witness Magazine, and The Rumpus, among others. You can learn more about Sean at seanenfield.com. Come, come. Parting shot at the end of the show without honing my skills and interviewer and how you can too. And trying to make a tighter, denser, less aerated podcast. For now, here's the author of Holy American Burnout, Sean Enfield, Riff.
00:04:00
Speaker
If you're looking at a and like an essay or or a book, how do you metabolize and study a piece of writing that you're that you're looking to learn from?
00:04:11
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. And I mean, I've been teaching writing now for I guess about five, six years too. So I think a a huge part of it also has helped to just been to teach different stories, makes me see things in different ways. And I can, you know, when students bring things to my attention to, I find that that always is illuminating for me. But I don't I really like to like break things down into like the structure of it or like the like the form of it or like even just like like the scaffold of what's going on and so I i really like to steal just like, what's, well what is this person doing to like get me from point A to point B and I don't know I liked, especially in an essay I think an essay can be so, or can feel so digressive or like you're going on these
00:04:58
Speaker
wild ride or tangents, but then when you kind of distill it down and you can see, oh, there's a lot of like method to this, uh, this digression actually that this progression is not as maybe as, um, off the cuff as it seems. And so I, I don't know. I really like to like read to see the mechanics of the thing and not like mechanics, like syntax wise, but like mechanics. like Yeah.
00:05:20
Speaker
how how they built out and how they, you know, almost like a magic trick, how they kind of like seamlessly hide the movement, like make it feel more like we're having this conversation. And, you know, it's something I'm still working to like always observe because, yeah, I mean, there's so many people who are great. I mean, I've been reading through Ross Gay's second book of delights and he's like the master of that. He makes it really feel like you're just sitting there talking to him and then you kind of go back through. He's like, oh, he's aware. He knows where he's going. It seems like he doesn't know where he's going. We're just kind of like on this walk together. But when you go back, he's like, oh, he knew where he was taking me. I didn't know where we were going, but he was always aware.
00:06:01
Speaker
It's kind of like when you lock into, let's say like a new a new album or something, and you listen you listen to it the first time, you know you're just kind of getting a feel for the the terrain of it. And then each subsequent listen, you're like, okay, I'm starting to notice more and more and notice more and more. And you're like, oh my God, even sometimes you listen to it dozens of times, like, oh, I didn't ah didn't catch that one but at one moment. So it almost like it just almost keeps revealing itself. The better something is, the more it reveals itself over time.
00:06:31
Speaker
Absolutely. and And the different ways you listen to it too, like the different spaces you find yourself into. I like to like, I mean, the music metaphor is a good one too, cause I don't know how it compares necessarily to reading, but I try to listen to like different environments, different sets of headphones, different spaces, right? And then that, I find like just in that different environments reveals new things to me too. Like I'm a different person listening to it this time and that makes me notice different things I didn't notice the last time. So and I guess reading in different spaces too, although I ah have my reading nooks that I'm a little bit more ah attached to than more chaotic when listening. But I don still, I feel like I'm going to different stories sometimes looking for different things and that and then I find that the writer has different plans for me. Sometimes I get distracted out of it and I find something I wasn't even prepared to find. and
00:07:21
Speaker
And I know for me, when I'm looking to ah put a story up on the up on the lift and look under get on get into its guts, I take ah a highlighter and doing like narrative journalism or something. It's kind of like my my wheelhouse and where i where I love to spend the most time. And so I i i will like highlight the the scenes. and they tend And it tends to be the best Stories tend to have the most scenes in the most motion and action in that sense. ah So when you're like really studying a piece, like how do you mark it up? a you you know What is that your methodology to ah you know to to put it on the lift and ah look under the hood, look under it look at its mechanics?
00:08:04
Speaker
Sure.
Writing Process and Influences
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Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm a um a big proponent of the little book flags and a pin. I'm not very organized in a lot of ways except for when I'm reading to steal and that then I become suddenly a very type A person and I got my different colored book tags and like try to like highlight different threads that and try to mark those with those tags and kind of follow those and write all over the place that if anybody ever gets any of my old books, they'll unfortunately just have my God-awful chicken scratch all over it and maybe they're unreadable now ah because of that. Um, so I, and I'm, I, when I'm in that mode of not just like reading for pleasure, but reading for like, you know, um, yeah, I like the, the under the lift thing, right. And I'm, I'm always encouraging my students to steal. So I always tell them as like again, you should read the steel, right? Read to these, these things there's as writers, we should always be looking for like new tools and strategies and techniques. And they're there, they're there for us for a reason. i It's a.
00:09:05
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or Kleptomaniacs, I think. So i when I'm reading the steel, i'm I keep my pen handy and I i always like think of it like a dialogue and like very discursive, like I'm always kind of like making remarks of like those initial gut reactions first and then going back and then making those kind of like, okay, here's where that gut reaction ended up taking me or having this kind of back and forth dialogue with the piece that I find helps me when I'm going back into it too. And I don't know, especially with essays too, I draw it from a lot of stuff I'm reading in the essays themselves and bring in quotes all the time too. So I find it just gives me reminders too when I'm going into a piece like, oh, there, there was that quote that I really wanted to kind of respond to in this piece. And when I have those marginal notes and I have like kind of those words that I've already given myself as a launching point too, and those margins that I can kind of build off of there. Who would you identify maybe as ah as a writer you've stolen the most from?
00:09:59
Speaker
or influenced from, influenced by. Yeah, absolutely. um I mean, that varies definitely in eras. I mean, certainly Baldwin has kind of been one of the more consistent ones that I go back to often as like a, as almost like a guiding sage. um you And same with but Toni Morrison, although I haven't written as much fiction lately, but I find even just her fiction reads in such a in-depth way that I find that even it just translates so broadly, out even outside of genre and um So those two have kind of always been there. I kind of found both of them late. I didn't really start reading Morrison or Baldwin until I got to undergrad, but then I became obsessed with the both of them and kind of really dove in. Of late, ive I really
00:10:43
Speaker
I've been reading a lot of Haneef Abdurraqib obviously speaking of Haneef Abdurraqib. He was on the show ah earlier this year episode 404 titled Haneef Abdurraqib's nod to witnessing and there's always this year an amazing book a really great conversation and he brought it and It was amazing. It was just a really really cool fun conversation You should check it out if you haven't already Or if you have, there's really good stuff just worth revisiting because he's just an amazing talker, an amazing thinker and an amazing writer. That goes without saying. That influence maybe kind of shines through in this collection a lot. And certainly in terms of like the pieces that deal more directly with like pop culture elements, I find his style of the way he just kind of the voice that he's conjured is such a it's such an intimate voice, such a like
00:11:35
Speaker
But with such a broad historical lens to it, but he the way he's able to like kind of contextualize things in a way that still feels so intimate, I think and there's really no one quite like what he's doing right now. um So whenever I'm reading a new piece from him, I really have to like kind of spend a lot of time with it and really kind of study what he's doing because I think he's just incredible at it.
00:11:57
Speaker
When I spoke with ah Athena Dixon ah a while ago, for the second time she was on the show, we kind of talked about entry points to essays or chapters and stuff of that nature and how cognizant she is ah of that. And I wonder for you, like when you're synthesizing an essay or thinking about an essay, you know what emphasis are you putting on you know how you're going to enter the micro world of a particular essay?
00:12:24
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. That's a great question. And I love Athena's work too. I heard the, the loneliness files is that book in terms of like the entry point of the those, the, the, you know, the, the people she was kind of examining and in parallel to her own existence. I found that to be really like compelling ah set of structure. I, I, um, a little more chaotic, I think sometimes when it comes to like my own starting of an essay, I, you know, it varies a lot, but I i tend to kind of start um Like I said, I write ah read very like to pull and conversate with so I usually I have like a bank of things that I kind of like, like, Oh, I have some ideas from this that are kind of like very messy. And then ah I find that I have like these, they have all these, like I said, I'm not an organized person. So I find I'm often Frankenstein a lot of things.
00:13:11
Speaker
um Like I'll start with some kind of idea and then I'll like oh I have this other thing that I was starting on that I kind of abandoned but maybe it actually belongs here and so then I'll go and steal from that and pull a few lines and Drop it in and just see how that changes things and see how that flows Which is a horrible practice and I wouldn't I would never I would never advise it to any of my students to do this way I think it's it's very slow and disruptive and messy and it takes a lot of um ah editing to fix some of these things that you're gluing together. But it just I have not been able to like stop doing that. I can't i try to encourage you know the free-writing thing in my classes that I've never been able to just sit down and just let something flow. I will start, and then I get distracted. And I'm like, oh, maybe I can go this way and borrow from this for a little bit, or I'll start something as ah as a poem. And then I'm like, this isn't really working as a poem. What if I just take the first line and made that the first sentence of an essay and see
00:14:10
Speaker
if that works better. you know So I write in a lot of fits, you know just a little burst of fits and until something longer materializes that I can then spend some time with making sense out of out of the the mess that I've made in a Word document. after so i'm i mean that That's not true of every every every essay. Some essays I've come a little bit more in that more traditional sense of the essay as an attempt to explain something. right like I don't know, the God of the Moshpets one where I just, I had that little phrase in my mind and I had the kind of first sentence in my head that I was born a punk. And I was like, well, let's just follow this thread as long as I can um and see where this takes me. um So that one I was really, didn't do a whole lot of research for or anything like that. Just cause like, let's just think through these memories. Think to this idea of like my relationship with punk rock and my relationship with church and see what kind of emerges from that.
00:15:05
Speaker
That would be, I think I would daily would like to write more essays that way, but I just find that I can't do it that way. I find that I need to like write little bits of things. I was very like magpie-esque, I guess, little bits of things that I then kind of like make into something else.
00:15:19
Speaker
pile up my treasures until they make sense together. Yeah. there ah Do you find yourself right like creating or synthesizing in a nonlinear way and in that it's like you might find like, oh, you know what, this little chunklet, I don't know where it's going to go, but I need to write it now. And then you find that like it can be a little modular at that point. Or are you more like an a but sometimes A to B or like A to Z?
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, definitely more the modular thing. I mean, I think this practice also kind of, I was teaching middle school for a year. And then after that, I was doing like three or four jobs at a time when I left the school and just trying to make ends meet. So I had busy schedules, but yeah, I had this compulsion. So I'm like, still like little ideas would come in. I was like, well, I got to write this down somewhere and then I'll see what I can do with it later when I have time. And time would not come. But, you know, but I find that it's still,
00:16:16
Speaker
you know, that's still, even like though I'm in a program now for writing that ostensibly is meant to give me more time for writing, I still find myself doing that. Like, oh, here's a goofy little idea. Let me put that down somewhere. And then maybe I'll come back to it and see if I can build off of it more or see if I can like find a home for it and something I've started and abandoned, which again, I would never,
00:16:39
Speaker
you know't I don't i don't and and encourage this practice. I don't think it is maybe conducive to a more ah disciplined development of one's um time and use of energy, um but it is it's worked for me so far. So, you know, maybe that's okay. all Right. and ah And you also edit, do you still edit for terrain with nonfiction?
Editing and Writing Practice
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't done as much lately with the the book has eaten up a lot of time and book promos eaten up a lot of time. Um, but I'm still, I'm still there and I, and and look if Elizabeth is listening, i'm I'm still around. I'm still coming back. I just, but you know, it's not, this is not like a new discussion. but Very nice. Yes. Yeah. And I was editing a little bit at my master's program too with the, their permafrost magazine. I was editing there and I, I, I, you know, I definitely.
00:17:34
Speaker
benefit a lot and and gain and learn a lot. Certainly, you know, with the under the master's journal too, just that was so much of, you know, just a few of us trying to put together a journal every semester and um getting to interact with other people's pieces, I think is such an enlightening experience and um certainly one that has helped develop my own practice.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, and kind of ah a two-parter with respect to that, I wanted to get a sense of the pieces that what the pieces that get accepted have in common and what the pieces that tend to be rejected have in common. Yeah, that's ah that is a good question. And that is it's it that is hard to distill down into a few. But I mean, I'm always looking for, especially an essay in nonfiction writing, I'm always looking for a a voice kind of first. And voice is such a nebulous term, and I hate to throw it around is like as if it were a more concrete term. But I don't know. it's hard it's it's <unk> i don't it There's maybe less mystique to it than it really is, though. But just like that yeah i I find myself drawn to pieces that really like invite you into the space, whether or not that's something that ah an experience or a story that I'm all that prepared to be invited into, right but that the writer is like
00:18:53
Speaker
bringing me into this way in a way that generates kind of um trust and excitement and all these different things. And there's so many different ways to do that. And I feel like it's a very technical thing too, right? There's a lot of, there's a ways to do that. That is beyond the kind of magic of what I think we often comes up and people talk about voice where it's like, Oh, you got to find your voice. Right. But I mean, I, there's ways of doing that, like the generate that voice, right? I'm, I've been teaching this course. I'm teaching the intro to creative writing class, way but I, which is, you know, generic, but I've really been trying to like reinforce this idea of like,
00:19:30
Speaker
finding like a kind of rhythm to your so to your syntax and a rhythm to your style that really makes sense to you and really can help draw. I mean, we were talking about music earlier, and I just i go back to it for the whole time. right And I think that there's a way of like really honing in on those the way of structuring your sentences and paragraphs to this like kind of beat that kind of keeps someone wanting to follow you, whether or not they're that engaged with you know the actual material but you can really kind of get them into that material by kind of setting up that tempo for them and letting them kind of like follow that voice and I don't know I find that I'm also like I was looking for pieces that have that kind of like that texture to it that really makes me want to keep following this mind essentially like really want to like get deeper into this person's head space especially in non-fiction right I find that
00:20:24
Speaker
that when somebody is really good at kind of translating the way their thought works onto a page that that really makes me want to kind of follow that thought pattern and follow that follow that person's kind of thinking further into it. And i you know and maybe that means I'd be a good ah ah follower or something. But if somebody can really get me into their thinking practice, I'm like, yeah, all right. you have a there's there's some There's some rhythm to this thought. Let's keep going. Let's let's follow it. um I guess I'll drink the Kool-Aid then.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, and and and some of that, the the voice component can come from just the the way you're playing with form and structure. And that's something you do really well and ah in Holy American Burnout is, you know, a lot of the essays take… yeah know different forms, whether that's like ah a two-column thing that's in dialogue with yeah another another aspect. It's just like a lot of them are playing with different um you know different forms and styles. So ah yeah, that's a voicey component. I wonder how like how you are thinking about that, and especially as they pertain to this particular collection. You know, and it's important, I think, to like find the forms too that like speak to the material, right? It's it's always
00:21:41
Speaker
and guilty of this too it's always fun to try to like find new things to try to make them work but you really can't force them together either it has to kind of be a good fit um and there's really no way to try that until just you that you're trying a bunch of different things um and so i mean in this collection i'm kind of bouncing around a few different ones and ah the one that opens the collection is shaped like a lesson plan right and obviously that's an essay about like teaching itself so it's like The marriage there was kind of already gifted to me and has really wanted to kind of like
00:22:12
Speaker
introduce this classroom space and introduce this like idea of being kind of out of one's depth. And for me, the lesson plan kind of made sense for that, right? Because it one, it gave me the kind of second person thing, right? It gave me the kind of like disembodied space because it's a lesson plan requires you to write instructions to you essentially. And I guess you can write lesson plans for other people, but I i generally am writing lesson plans just for myself and If anybody were to try to use my lesson plans, they'd probably it be incomprehensible. You're writing stuff for your future self to remember to do, right? And so there's already this kind of like remove that then really spoke to me as somebody who was writing about this classroom experience, with which I was going into with a very little like preparation, very little training towards being an effective teacher um and kind of figure it out on the fly. And so there's this like structure that is already there is like, Hey, look let's,
00:23:09
Speaker
is you trying to help you be a better thing that you're not prepared to do. And so the lesson plan made sense for that. And it gave me these little signposts that I could follow. right So then I didn't necessarily have to like.
00:23:22
Speaker
think too much about the structure, I could just say, okay, well, this is the section where you would need to talk about materials. So how can you translate materials into a narrative form and kind of use that as like a cheat code in some sense. And same with like, you know, the actual lecture section. So now we kind of break this down into like, what are you trying to explain to these students or how can we turn this into a narrative or and um really kind of like metaphorize these different parts of the lesson plan and think about broadly what it is as an educator you're attempting to do and trying to do, even if it wasn't always successful. Although I was particularly proud of that. I mean, I get so with this, the, some of the narratives in here, I get so down on myself here. I was like, ah, you know, not a great teacher. It's first year and nobody's a great teacher, but do try to like acknowledge it. There was like, there was moments of positivity. And so that, that essay, I think highlights some of those as well. It's not all,
00:24:19
Speaker
at all failure and doom and gloom. Well, there's a lot of that as well too. um But yeah, I mean, I find form to be just a really like, I was talking earlier about the like kind of the modular creation. I find form to be a ah more structured way of doing the small bits. I can, especially if it's a form that allows you to kind of chunk things up or same thing with the the theory and practice essay, right? It kind of allows me to like to it lets me do some what I was already doing in a way that feels a little bit more like deliberate. I can put these things in little chunks and then those chunks can
00:24:51
Speaker
or ne necessitated by the form itself. So then it feels a little bit less like I'm just scrolling things down on receipts and more like, well, I'm following a pattern here and I'm following a formal pattern and seeing where that formal pattern winds
Challenges in Education
00:25:04
Speaker
me down. And so it's a little bit of a way to like make sense of a already chaotic process that I have or maybe make the chaos organized and make the chaos deliberate and intentional.
00:25:19
Speaker
And ah one point you you write, you know to be a teacher in America is to be in a rage almost all the time. How then to channel that rage? And ah how did you, in your in your time teaching at at this particular school, try to try as best you could to channel that rage into something you know productive or constructive?
00:25:40
Speaker
Sure, yeah. and And just hearing that back too, I'm reflecting on how much more of a rage you must have to be to be a teacher in 2024 than I was remarking on in 2016. I do feel for, I mean, I'm still teaching on the collegiate level, but I feel for you know those in the public schools that are dealing with what is expanding out of Florida. It's not just isolated in Florida, although Florida kind of gets scapegoated as the bad spot for teachers, but um it had obviously these things ripple and have lasting effects across the country. um What they're attempting to do in Florida will be attempted and is is being attempted. Texas, Oklahoma, across the country, right? So to these book buildings and
00:26:25
Speaker
um don't say gay, these things are not isolated to one region or state. um And so I empathize with the anger and rage one must feel to still be in a classroom where you're a hyper, hyper policed, hyper scrutinized, and yet no one offers resources or funding or just genuine human care often. And so it It creates a very angry mindset, um unfortunately. But then you know the people who are engaged in that work are the type that you you you don't do it on accident. You don't do it because you fell it you don't do it because of a paycheck. Certainly not. So you have to you take that rage and then still be you know the the kind and um
00:27:13
Speaker
effective educator that the students require. And it's not an easy space to be in. And i am for me, I think I i didn't always do a ah great job of it at the time in which I'm describing, um which is part of is the reason why there's a book at all, I guess. um you know and But I think i I did try to always remind myself the The core of it was, sure, teaching books. But really, it's more like were helping someone understand a world that is hard to understand. And and you know you can only control so much. and You can only illuminate so much for any one individual. And so just trying to, and I think I got better at this as i that year progressed. um I didn't get a second year to do hone it any further. but
00:28:04
Speaker
to just really trying to take advantage of those moments in which you know the students put their trust in you to help explain something that they were struggling with. And I think that, for me, kind of reminded me of what at the core teaching is, what education is. it's it's it's I mean, it's it's a lot of things, right, but um certainly I think literature teaching is just, it's a way of, you know, helping someone to better understand um what it is they see that seems hard to understand and helping someone to begin to um think better, right, and to think more um deliberately. It's something I had to remind myself of, you know, it's it's it's not,
00:28:48
Speaker
It's not a, it's, it's a hard job because you have to think in so many different levels at all times, right? You're also needing to, and you have admins breathing down your back to like control things and make the classroom, um, you know, rigid and make sure scores are up. And, but there's, there's the human element of it as well, right? There's beyond the scores, there are like actual people involved who need, who have questions and are trying to learn and um and have lives outside of this that they're bringing into that space. And and I was teaching at a time in which the 2016 election was rolling on. I was teaching at a predominantly Islamic school and and with a candidate who was now a candidate again of these eight years removed, ah spewing Islamophobia all over TV and radio and print media, um which is again, both the candidate again and our current president are spewing Islamophobia all over the,
00:29:43
Speaker
news and and things don't change these 2016 that wasn't new either and but you know i had these brown muslim students coming in with all these life questions to the building and yeah you struggle with this like do i the material seems the most important thing but also on their actual human level right now they're really struggling with what it is they heard on the radio last night about a muslim band right and would it you know grappling with how do we get through the anxiety while also still making sure they're meeting the what the material says I'm supposed to cover this day. And maybe this is why I don't have a job anymore. But I found that I so i needed to do the deal with the anxiety first.
00:30:28
Speaker
before I could teach what was happening in Hamlet. you know i think yeah I started to learn that that was always going to get in the way of the material if it was let to loom at the start of the classroom, especially when you have students that are willing to like give you that trust that you're someone and they can express those concerns to. You have to honor that. you know I think if somebody is willing to tell you like they're scared, then you can't just ignore that. you know That's something.
00:30:55
Speaker
That means they're confiding in you, they're putting a trust in you that you have to at least acknowledge and you know at least attempt to help with. Certainly when it's you know a student with whom their education has been entrusted into your care.
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, and speaking of that, kind of like harkening you know back to that ah to that rage, you know you write about this yeah this one part where in like post-1945 Germany, they yeah had a word that was basically like coping with the past. Or like another translation of the of this word is a public debate within a country on a problematic period of its recent history.
00:31:32
Speaker
And you know with ah you know the particular ah states of this but this country, it's like they want to totally whitewash the past and not learn from it out of ah a collective shame of that original sin. And I love how you brought it. but The way you were able to bring it to the fore here is like, you know and we need to have this public debate, know whether it's Isabel wil Wilkerson and writing in cast.
00:31:59
Speaker
or what you've been able to write about here. it's ah it's sad that it's It's sad and tragic and and it's just maddening that we're going to we don' we don't want to talk about that. And by ignoring it, there's no way forward. Right, yeah. And it's it's i mean ideally, you know a school would be the place to have a lot of those conversations, but that's where those conversations are most like hyper scrutinizing. It's done under the skies of protecting ah children, but it's really not. It's not about that way. It's about discomfort and it's about you know who's discomforted. And it's not an easy thing to do certainly, but um it's a necessary thing to do, right? And I think the more you try to you know push it away or the more you try to whitewash it or pretend it didn't happen or
00:32:45
Speaker
gloss over it, and it wasn't as bad as it sounds, or will we're past that, or whatever it is you want to use to ah diminish it. and right The more it just becomes a bigger problem, or the more it becomes this like lump that just hangs around, right that this this this cancer that is eating at the the state body, do it it needs a dressing head on. right There's no other way to maybe not necessarily heal, but to at least um integrate and to make that a part of the narrative so that you can then build from that narrative. it It will only ever be a a lesion if it's allowed to just keep festering and bleeding without proper discussion of and put without proper like reconciliation with. that we just continue to it each With each passing generation, continue to find new ways to kind of change that debate in a way that doesn't ever really try to reconcile it with and and without ever looking head on at it.
00:33:38
Speaker
And there's a moment in your book, too, where um it's a little past. I'll just read kind of the top passages. Like, I love how much I hate the word burnout. And, you know, and you know you go on, of course, and do you say how you know visceral it is. And it's also just it's right on the cover of the book. So why do you hate the the word?
Thoughts on 'Burnout'
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, gosh. i I mean, it's part of it. It's it's ah ubiquity. And it's just everywhere, you know, especially if you're in educator spaces, it's just It's this word that's just thrown around constantly. There's a warning as ah as a condition, as a just a metaphor. as it kind it's just this It's just almost like the social professions. I mean i i guess I'll speak for educators. But it almost feels like the smurf word for a certain group of ah professional certain professionals. right it's just like
00:34:32
Speaker
oh this burnout, you hear it all these times. and so it But it it almost has, it means so much and it almost means nothing as well. So many things are burned out. yeah You know, you could be burned out from the day you had a bad day and burn out or you can be burned out over a course of a long year. It has almost no meaning and yet it means so much for a lot of people in this profession and I i find that it is Um, a word that just sonically is also awful at burnout. Like it doesn't, it doesn't, there's no poetry in it. It's just, it's, it's harsh. It's consonant. It's, but it's also, it, it does kind of flow off the tongue a little bit, right? And it's just, it's a terrible, wonderful,
00:35:16
Speaker
ugly word that I i became obsessed with ah and probably still obsessed with, although I was hoping that maybe the book would be some kind of release ah from it, ah which is, you know, that's never the case. But um one can dream. Yeah. And so I don't know. I I'm also someone who has I find that I've driven so much and I've never gone anywhere. And that so the the kind of like metaphor, the car metaphor of the burnout thing to write these beater carts that I've owned, that I've driven all over, especially living in Dallas when I was in in Dallas. So you, that Metroplex is brawling and I was working, you know, ah an hour from home and started driving two hours each day and logging so many miles, but really never going anywhere. And that too was its own kind of like the work itself was burning up, but even just to commute itself was burning out, right. And these, these, these things that that how it applies across all these different
00:36:14
Speaker
ways that America exhausts and uh uses you as a as a cog in its uh you know capitalist engine it just it fit too perfectly and um it had to there's different periods of submitting the manuscript right i had taken burnout off the cover and taken it out of the title and i'm great i'm glad that it found its way back to the title i think that was probably for the best um i i don't know i I think there's times I was trying to emphasize other parts of the collection that I thought maybe were felt more um ah encouraging. And I think, I don't know, there was something actually that it became a little bit empowering by throwing that burnout with the excavation point on there and just kind of owning it and just naming it like did this is what it is. This is this
00:36:59
Speaker
ah individual collapse through a systemic process, right? That that that American burnout. It's it is it is not it is no it not just the individual to blame, but this um it is the system that then manifests itself in the body. And I think that ultimately spoke to what I i was hoping to do with these essays.
00:37:20
Speaker
And towards the end, of course, you know, you're ah you're, ah you know, you sort of up for rehire or not. And, you know, you feel like you're probably, you know, on the on the cutting block and you and then, you know, eventually, ah eventually you're not you're not welcome back to to teach. And, you know, what was that sort of the headspace for you at that at that time when you're you know, you're you're trying your best and it's in it ultimately manifests. It's just like maybe not not good enough for at least at this school.
00:37:51
Speaker
That is a good question. And um not not one that I've ever i've ah been asked it. And that is i mean that's something that I was really trying to get back in that headspace in that last essay because it is ah you know it's something that I struggled with ah for a long time just in terms of like the baggage that kind of came with it. you know I had never really intended to necessarily be a middle school educator. I kind of fell into that by accident. But I am somebody who has you know I've been studying English pretty much since I started college and I kind of always assumed that at some point education be a part of it and I was you know running like creative writing clubs in my time and I was kind of like engaged with education in some sense and and since been engaged with education since I ah left that school and so there was that, you know it kind of hung over me, that little
00:38:41
Speaker
that bit of baggage that that that is like, okay, would you, you know, you're you really epically fail that that your first like big, you know, big time, not big time teacher, but you know, like your first like attempt to do this and ah as a quote unquote adult, right? And so it it really is a kind of ah a very like sore spot for a while. And so it was a tough kind of headspace to get into for the um
Personal Reflections on Career Changes
00:39:03
Speaker
sort the collection. And I, you know, I certainly kind of, I mean, i obviously it came,
00:39:10
Speaker
I think ah when you're fired in any from any position, even if you're like no like even if you told last week that you're going to get fired in a week from now, the actual moment of firing almost always feels like a shock, I think. I don't know. Maybe I'm maybe i'm projecting. But even though I kind of had this like sense that you know I was like, yeah, i don't you know it doesn't seem like i'm gonna come I was just was doing summer school, but like the you know there was always a kind of a tension that um especially right about in there, you know, I didn't, I was at a private school and then we still were administering standardized tests. And it was, but my students all failed the standardized tests and that, that always just kind of hung over. And I was like, I just like, I was like, okay, well maybe next year we'll, you know, we can fix these scores. But it always felt like that next year was more of a assumed not happening even, but it's still,
00:40:02
Speaker
just the the manner in which I was like go to it was the weekend before school was set to start so there was a little bit of like false security I was like well sure certainly it's you know school starts Monday it's Saturday so I guess I made it you know I guess I survived it didn't feel like I was gonna do but um so there was almost a bit of a rug pull there it's like there's like no way you know I'm going to lose this job when school starts Monday. It's too soon from now. right so like that you know um and So it came as a shock. But ultimately, I think with time and reflection and certainly the writing of the piece helped. It definitely was better, I think, for both myself and the school. um I don't think I was
00:40:46
Speaker
ever going to learn to be a better educator in that space where there was just not as much support that I needed as someone who was really kind of learning the profession. For a school of that size, ah there's only so much the floundering 24-year-old um can also learn while doing the the work. But yeah, um I don't know, there was ah such a strange mix of like anticipation for the next year that had kind of like built up to and I had been developing like lesson plans still like I was gearing up to teach you know units you know for that whole fall semester so there's you know all this like work that kind of like fizzled out you know the you know that it felt like was like
00:41:31
Speaker
for not right all this stuff there's like well I guess I'll just delete this right and so you know there's almost it's it felt almost like uh you know it felt almost like this greek tragedy you know you do all this thing to get to replace and then suddenly it's you know it all comes crashing down at the in this last final moment um right and so I think I uh I've done a lot to kind of like kind of contextualize the ways in which, you know, I as an educator was learning and also contextualize that which um the structure of the school was not conducive to me as an educator as well and kind of put those things in balance and to kind of better fit where I've gone since. And so I think, um you know, and that's through writing has done most of that work, but also through like processing these things with um friends and
00:42:20
Speaker
uh partners and therapy and things of that nature so you know uh certainly was a um the moment itself felt like kind of being shot but now uh that there's still a scab but it definitely you know now it's more like a a story than a than a than a pain yeah yeah i was When I was 29, I was fired from a newspaper job and it's still something that that sticks with me. and now Over the years, i've yeah I was able to try to make lemonade out of that situation. ah But ah but ah for you, how long did it take you to kind of metabolize it and maybe see it as as the as a good thing? Yeah, that's a great question. and i think you know i mean
00:43:05
Speaker
Certainly, ah I think, you know, teaching and journalism, but these are but also professions that really asked you to like put a lot of your like human self in, like your, your body into and your, your, your like psyche into it. So they, they, it's, they almost, you know, there's all these things like you should really got to compartmentalize these things. But that's like one thing to say, another thing to do, right? It's hard to compartmentalize a job that really asked you to give so much of yourself. And so then that firing does kind of feel like,
00:43:33
Speaker
feels very personal, right? It's like almost like a rejection of the self as much as it is the rejection of the professional you um yeah in a lot of ways. And so I don't know, I think, I mean, certainly, there's definitely an element was still metabolizing a lot of that. But I definitely think, you know, it took me about three years since then before I wrote the first of the essays that would be in there about the school. um Not necessarily the first of the essays in the collection, but the first ones about the school. um And I don't know if I had metabolized it by then. I definitely actually hadn't metabolized it by then.
00:44:06
Speaker
But I think in that act of writing, I was beginning that process to just be able to sit down and like, let's look at this. And that first one actually was the Spim Mockingbird, the lesson plan one. And so I think that also probably was part of the the the psychological reason of using that second person too, of like separating, you know looking at this, not necessarily from objective perspective, but you know through this other lens that I ah couldn't have ever done um without having like while I was living it out and certainly not directly afterwards. I think in some ways this book was very like cathartic in that sense and that it helped me kind of like recontextualize some of this stuff for myself and I hope that um that that is something that like
00:44:49
Speaker
right so I don't know how people can relate to it in the sense that I don't hope that they were suddenly fired, but I hope that that that there's a means of like finding an entry point. of like i i mean I don't know. we're all is is This is in America. people People get fired at all times. I'm sure that they can relate to it. yeah I hope that that that it was cathartic for me, and I hope that it can in some sense be cathartic for others.
00:45:13
Speaker
when you're When you are in that moment of say writing it for you know yourself to work through those feelings, those memories to try to just better digest it, at what point are you kind of ah then, okay, this at this point in in the process, it's definitely um for me. And then is there a switch for you that ever is like, okay, now this has to be, I have to try to make this in service for a reader now.
00:45:38
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, there's a lot of stuff that um stays for me right as well. that um And I think the longer I've been practicing writing essays and nonfiction, the more the better I've become about realizing what is something that I needed to write for myself and what's something that maybe might be suited um for sharing and putting out into the world.
00:46:02
Speaker
I mean, I don't know, I think it's partly a muscle thing, right? A muscle, you you do it enough, you start to realize like, what is something you're releasing and what is something that you're ah trying to find connection with. And I think that was something that started to materialize the more I started to write about the school, that there was some point of connectivity there that was beyond just my experience right that there was other things that I can bridge that toward that felt natural and felt like I wasn't just like forcing my experience on to something I had read but that that that it felt like what I was going through was in conversation with something else or would come even just like
00:46:44
Speaker
I mean, I hope that I was in a program writing a lot of this stuff so I had people I could talk to and like kind of share stories with before I even wrote them down and like kind of do that and then like kind of see, you know, and or I, I i know it's a, I feel like it's a Twitter discourse every now and then about reading, like writers reading and how people will poke fun at how awful it can sometimes be. But im so I enjoy, I enjoy public readings. I enjoy going to them. I enjoy doing them.
00:47:12
Speaker
I find that they really help in some ways kind of gauge that for me too, like what is for an audience and what is um what is what is not for an audience. i I find that I enjoy being able to to take works in progress to reading and kind of like, ah you know, not oh it's almost like the like doing ah like ah an open mic, you know, in some ways it's like, you know, not necessarily that I'm looking for like reactions to it, but like kind of like figuring out like what I've been what I feel comfortable bringing to a stage, or even sometimes what I don't feel comfortable bringing to a stage, but questioning like, why does I don't feel comfortable bringing to that stage? Is it for a reason that I think it's because, you know, I don't want to share it because I feel too close to it? Or is it because I've, you know, I'm i'm just like embarrassed by, it and you know, and that sometimes it actually can, it can help to bring the things that I feel embarrassed by and kind of like, like, oh yeah, there's, there's something
00:48:02
Speaker
ah illuminating about this thing that maybe I was a little bit reticent to just for my own personal hang ups, right? And so I don't I think ah that has been kind of a really helpful practice for me to like, become more comfortable with readings and become more comfortable with like, sharing work in a different way that's off so off the page and just kind of getting that gauge of like, understanding of like what it is that I'm, I'm aiming for the particular piece, who it is that I'm aiming to share this piece with. And, you know, thinking about also like, so certainly with this book, you know, there are certainly stories that
00:48:37
Speaker
I had to kind of ask myself the question of like, is this my story or is it the student story or is it and somebody else's another teacher story. right So I had to like really kind of think about the kind of um ethics of it as well. You know, I really forced myself to only write about things that I could say that these are these are my stories. Right. And I, I try to in the hope that I'm you know not telling somebody else's story for them or not giving voice to somebody whose voice is not my own voice. right And so um there's definitely other stories that like I had started to write that I was like, no, this is maybe not my story to tell and that I need to, I can maybe write this down as like a means of understanding that thing, but not as a means of sharing this particular piece. so And so that that is definitely a part of the process, this particular collection. it's something i i
00:49:28
Speaker
I think about all the time too when I write about my family as well. My family is pretty encouraging of this delusional thing I found myself in, but you know i I do try to still be cognizant of the fact that they are also people with voices. ah They just don't choose to express it in the the way that I choose to express it. We've reached a level of comfort of what it is I i choose to write about and what it is I choose to keep in the family.
00:49:55
Speaker
Very nice. Well, well Sean, is i as I bring these conversations down for a landing, I always love asking the guests of you in this case for a recommendation for the listeners of any
Music Recommendation
00:50:05
Speaker
kind. And it's ah just anything you're excited about. It could be a movie, a book, a TV show, a brand of coffee. And ah so I would just ah extend that to you. What might you recommend to the people out there?
00:50:17
Speaker
I was listening to ah the new Britney Howard album. I had a long flight back from Alaska, and I put it on like a few times. And I've still been listening to it over and over again. I find um it's very like I've been enjoying it. It's just just a very different sound than I expected out of her. And i like I said, I don't know. I was i like to listen to music in a lot of different environments. But lately, ah but my time has mostly been when I'm walking my dog. It's my music time. And I find it's been a really good album to listen to while I'm out on a walk. it's just I don't know, it's so expansive. like I think the song is going one direction and then she's able to just like kind of explode it halfway through the song. And I find that when I'm like walking around my neighborhood and those songs explode, my like eyes kind of like widen up. and i um And I find that it's been a really nice listening experience. So I've been kind of stuck on that album lately. What Now, I think is the title of it and by Brittany Howard. It's been kind of my like ah obsession, are music obsession of late.
00:51:16
Speaker
Oh, fantastic. well Well, Sean, this was great to unpack your writing and ah and and this wonderful essay collection you've put together. So I just want to thank you for carving out the time and coming on the show to talk a little shop. This was great. Thank you so much for having me. This has been wonderful. I i really appreciate it. And thank you so much for reading the book.
00:51:38
Speaker
Yes, awesome. Thanks to Sean. Thanks for your enduring patience. This episode was ah recorded for the interview portion of it. It was recorded in March of 2024, so that's like six to seven months ago. Good work, Brendan. This is a ah weird confluence of events that got this onto my radar. It's kind of weird. After interviewing yeah ESPN's ah great investigative reporter, Seth Wickersham, it'll run later this year.
00:52:09
Speaker
He brought up this interviewing expert named John Sowarski who ran like a five-day seminar at yeah ESPN about being better interviewers It was ostensibly for the TV talent, but the print guys got something out of it, too then like a couple days later ah Dan Patrick a former SportsCenter anchor for ESPN brought up Sowarski on his radio show like a week ago And I was like okay I need to study this guy because my interviewing could use a tune-up And i yeah, i Patrick said that he helped organize this. He heard about this guy, he was a sports key up in Canada, and maybe he can help these people be better interviewers, so get a get better information from the people, and even ask, just ask better, not not that people are asking bad questions, they're just bad askers of questions, and I've ranted about that quite a bit.
00:53:06
Speaker
In any case, the crux of Swartzky's method, if you want to call it that, is being open, neutral, and lean with your questioning. Open-ended questions. Questions that are kind of without value or bias or leading the source or guest.
00:53:22
Speaker
In lean, meaning don't be verbose and weigh down your question either front-loading it with a bunch of shit or certainly at the back end when you essentially answer the question for your guests. That is what probably drives me the most insane in the podcast sphere is when people ask questions. They ask the question and then they just keep blathering on.
00:53:48
Speaker
Sometimes it's only 10 seconds, sometimes it's 15, sometimes it goes on for upwards of 30 seconds to a minute, and you're like, whoa, like, let the guest answer the question. At times, I can be verbose, but it's often in the spirit of providing some context to the question. I try to do it... I try to front-load a question sometimes with that. Oftentimes it might be ah reading from a manuscript or an essay or or whatever, ah kind of quoting them and then getting them to expand on that. I rarely do it at the end, though I'm still guilty of that occasionally. you know And sometimes I get into more conversating in the spirit of being relatable to make someone feel more comfortable about opening up so they don't feel like they're on an island if I'm asking something that can be like kind of personal.
00:54:32
Speaker
In that regard, i can be like i can be like this is kind of how I feel. I imagine this is how you feel. Maybe you can talk about that more. ah That's not a question, but you've you follow me. I should also add that a podcast like mine isn't exactly journalism. It's a cousin to it. But in my opinion, the podcast sphere is chock full of people who just don't know how to ask questions well. And like like I said a moment ago, like the major crime is they don't want to They don't want to sound like they don't know something, so in that insecurity, they basically answer their own question for the guest, and all the guest is doing is reinforcing what the host already asks, and it's like, well, it's I didn't pay to hear the host answer their own questions. i want I'm downloading a podcast to hear hear the guest talk, and the best interviewers tend to get out of the way the fastest.
00:55:24
Speaker
Best way to achieve a great sense of open, neutral, and lean questioning is to be asking what's, why's, and how's. Though I'd caution the use of why questions because when poorly framed, they can sound judgmental. So you just have to be you have to really tiptoe around a why question. I talk of having a good shot clock as well, meaning good questions to me are like framed in under 30 seconds. Debbie Millman is great at this.
00:55:51
Speaker
ah To me, great questions are typically framed in under 15 seconds. you know Short questions, clear questions tend to give you fruitful and thoughtful answers. I typically work from a list of questions, but much like a head coach uses a call sheet for different situations based on a game plan, the game is always changing. So you have ways to pivot and move with the flow of the game, and in this case, ah the conversation or interview.
00:56:18
Speaker
I'm looking forward to employing a a new kind of template, a new kind of call sheet to make my podcast interviews and certainly my more journalistic ones tighter and more efficient. I i now have a sheet of paper. It's just a simple sheet of paper, three columns.
00:56:34
Speaker
that are labeled what, how, and why. And under each of these subheads are a list of questions that use these open-ended prompts. This way I'm always thinking in terms of open-ended questions. You can't ask a yes or no question and rely on the generosity of the guest or source to expand. you know that's That's bad interviewing and and I guess a good guest and a generous guest or a generous source will will typically expand on it. ah because they understand they kind of understand the game. they or They're there to talk, and they're there to sometimes let a bad interviewer off the hook by expanding on something that doesn't call for expansion. If you ask me yes or no question, I can just say yes or no. And that's it, and that's within my power, too, if it's a if it's a question that asks for that kind of response.
00:57:25
Speaker
i tend to do I since I know what it's like to be on the other side of the microphone I know what it's like to ask poorly framed questions I tend to I tend to run with it more to give them more to go I think and always edit it down later It takes a ah greater sense of assuredness on the part of the interviewer, frankly. Like asking lean questions means swallowing your ego. It might mean on the surface it sounds like you don't necessarily, ah maybe you don't you don't sound as as smart. Your job isn't to make yourself sound smart, it's to
00:57:58
Speaker
it's It's to get useful information from that person across the table. They're the expert. Let them talk. Swartzky said in an American journalism review article from 2000, and I'll link up to that in the show notes and in October's Rage Against the Algorithm,
00:58:14
Speaker
He said, the best question the best questions are like clean windows. A clean window gives a perfect view. When we ask a question, we want to get a window into the source. When you put values in your questions, it's like putting dirt on the window. It obscures the view of the lake beyond. People shouldn't notice the question in an interview, just like they shouldn't notice the window. They should be looking at the lake.
00:58:38
Speaker
So I'm eager to get leaner in this regard and not rely on the edit to cut me down because sometimes if I get overly verbose, I will just cut myself down in the interview. Sometimes if my question doesn't even feel like it needs to be there, sometimes I just cut myself out altogether.
00:58:56
Speaker
um But also, I'd love to fit the same amount of goodness into a 45-minute raw recording that I typically get from a 60-minute one. You know, that way, with intro and parting shot, maybe I can keep these to 55, 60 minutes long total. And that's just a much more attractive and approachable podcast length.
00:59:16
Speaker
North of an hour, you lose me, that's for sure. And these guys that go two hours or longer, like who has the bandwidth to listen to the podcast that long? I know I don't. So stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.