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Episode 280: Laura Todd Carns and 'Searching for Mr. X,' an Atavist Original
184 Plays3 years ago
Laura Todd Carns (@LauraToddCarns) comes by the show to talk about her Atavist feature "Searching for Mr. X."
We also hear from the lead editor of the piece Seyward Darby. Visit magazine.atavist.com to read the piece and subscribe to The Atavist.
Keep the conversation going @creativenonfictionpodcast on IG and @CNFPod on Twitter.
Show notes and to sign up for the Up to 11 Newsletter, visit brendanomeara.com.
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Transcript
Submission Deadline Reminder
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, before we dive into the interview, I want to remind you that the submission deadline for issue three of the audio magazine is November 1st. The theme is heroes. Essays must be no more than 2,000 words. Bear in mind, this is an audio essay, so pay attention to how the words roll out of your mouth. Email your submissions with heroes in the subject line to Creative Nonfiction Podcast at gmail.com. Hey, and I pay writers too. It's not a lot, but hey, you gotta get that burrito money.
00:00:31
Speaker
I stumbled onto Mr. X, and then I was just hooked, you know? It's like, who is this guy? Where'd he come from? What's his story?
Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:00:45
Speaker
Well, hey, this is the Creative Nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan Amara. How's it going? It's that Atavistian time of the month where we celebrate the blockbuster journalism that my bestie from another nasty say word, Darby develops. And since this Atavistian time is falling so close to the typical CNF Friday, we're just making this our featured podcast of
Immersive Story Experience Promotion
00:01:14
Speaker
the week.
00:01:14
Speaker
Okay? If you want a great immersive story experience, beautifully designed, look no further than magazine.adivis.com. Consider subscribing. No, I don't get kickbacks of any kind, so you can subscribe to them knowing I'm not making a happy buck. Other ways, like patreon.com slash cnfpod, yes, that's how I can make a happy buck in this enterprise. But not through any kind of affiliate links. They make me feel slimy.
00:01:42
Speaker
So, Laura Todd Carnes.
Teaser: Mr. X's Identity Mystery
00:01:45
Speaker
She spins a compelling yarn about a man in the late 1930s, Mr. X, who goes missing after losing his memory. His identity is discovered after several years, but is at the happy ending we all expect.
00:02:02
Speaker
Well, obviously not. You have to read the damn piece. Laura also is a novelist and that comes through as the writing has that extra bit of crackle that you often get when a fiction writer swan dives into the tar pit of nonfiction. I kid, I kid. And she had one line that I really loved. And I pulled it out and I read it back to her and it turns out Sayward, ugh, her, was the one who recommended it.
00:02:29
Speaker
I am so keeping that, and I am also going to take full credit for it, because that's freaking brilliant. I mean, why does Sayward have to be so good at what she does? It's annoying is what it is. Hey, why wait, CNFers?
Debate: Personal Elements in Historical Stories
00:02:44
Speaker
First, I chat with Sayward about searching for Mr. X, the name of this piece, and how the tone of this piece is a little bit of a departure from the past several ones we've highlighted on this little podcast that could. So let's just go right into that, all right?
00:02:59
Speaker
Huh.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's such an interesting piece because there's a version of this story I think that, and I don't want to give things away, but there's a version of this story that would be strictly historical, right? And it would tell these kind of incredible events that happened between 1931 and 1938, ending on something of a happy note, frankly.
00:03:31
Speaker
And the reason that we really worked to incorporate some of these personal elements and also this kind of reporting journey that the writer Laura Todd Carnes went on in working on the story is that in truth, the ending wasn't as happy as it was made out to be at the time. And that was what she found the deeper she dug into the story. And so we just really felt like from the standpoint of
00:03:57
Speaker
you know, truth, certainly, but then also just dimensionality. We really wanted to tell the story to the nth degree, right? And so what that means is that we kind of go with Laura on this journey of asking questions and finding answers and in some cases not finding answers about this, you know, at the time, I think well-known thing that happened of this man who had lost his memory.
00:04:25
Speaker
going on a national radio show in search of his family. And she goes on a journey to find out what led him to that point and then also what happened after that point. I find it really, I'm a sucker for these kinds of historical mysteries, so.
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, what's also great about it, too, is one of Laura's
Intersecting Lives in Laura's Story
00:04:47
Speaker
great aunt, Ligon Smith Forbes. And I love the quote that Laura was able to remember or pull out from what her grandmother said. We're talking about Ligon. She said, she was a feminist divorcee, suffragette journalist, alcoholic lesbian rabble rouser. You would have loved her.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that was the other thing I found really compelling about this story was, you know, you had this one just really fascinating character, this man who had lost his identity, had no memory of who he was. And then you had Laura's, like you say, great, great or great, great aunt, I guess, great, great aunt, who is just an incredibly rich character in her own right. And, you know, these two people's paths collided and, you know, led to this appearance on on the radio show and
00:05:40
Speaker
an outpouring afterward of people looking, saying, maybe this man is my loved one who's been missing for however many years or whatever. And then Ligon and the man each had their own trajectories after that that are interesting and tragic in equal measure. But definitely that added layer of Ligon made the story all the more appealing to me.
00:06:08
Speaker
And when this story came across your desk, what stood out to you when you saw this pitch?
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think a couple of things.
Re-evaluating 1938's Happy Endings
00:06:19
Speaker
I think, first of all, the fact that this historical narrative of this man being in a mental hospital, not having a memory, going on a radio show, asking to be found. And again, I don't want to give things away. But there was a very complete arc to it, which made for this very intriguing story to me, where there was a pretty firm outcome.
00:06:45
Speaker
And on top of that, there was this character of Ligon who I found to be, you know, remarkably interesting. But then it was in some ways like the ambiguities beyond that, that also made it interesting. Like here was a situation in which the press in 1938 told a story that had a happy ending. And here we are, press, you know, however many, almost 90 years later,
00:07:07
Speaker
and we are essentially like re-evaluating that story. And so there was I think a little bit of a meta quality to it that as a journalist I was really interested in and it raises all kinds of
00:07:23
Speaker
you know, perplexing thoughts about, you know, trusting historical documents and, you know, particularly historical press documents. So there was a lot that appealed to me, I think, you know, as just a reader, which I like to think of myself as first when I'm when I'm looking at pitches, but then also, you know, as a journalist and as an
Transitioning Work: Novel to Essay
00:07:43
Speaker
editor.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I was really interested, too, by the fact that Laura had initially written a novel about this, that when she uncovered this story of this man and how he was connected to her great, great aunt. And I'm not a fiction writer, but I certainly understand the impulse of using fiction to kind of
00:08:02
Speaker
what does she say in the story, patch over gaps and allow yourself to imagine things that you can't find for sure or whatever. But then I think that the fact that writing that novel still left so much unanswered for her and incomplete for her, that she felt like there were things she wanted to know, things she wanted to try to know, things she really wanted to interrogate that only
00:08:30
Speaker
this kind of essay would allow her to do. So I guess this is a very long way of saying, you know, it was plot, it was character, it was themes, and then it was also, you know, kind of this idea of the only way to do this story justice is to tell it this way. And so there was something about the imperative of form, I guess,
00:08:51
Speaker
in it that I found really interesting. I can imagine a world in which somebody reads this story and doesn't agree with its assessments of memory and responsibility for memory and things like that. I like stories that provoke me to think about those things and maybe to have discussions with people who disagree with me about those things.
Storytelling Structure and Musical Composition
00:09:14
Speaker
What was the the fun or the challenge of coming up with the right structure to tell the story? Yeah, so if I recall correctly, the first.
00:09:28
Speaker
draft was pretty much bifurcated. It was like, we're going to tell the story as it was told in the press, basically, at the time. And then about halfway through, we're going to pivot to a reevaluation through the lens of Laura's own reporting and writing.
00:09:47
Speaker
And what we initially, it's actually funny, Laura and I had to apologize to her because I did my first edit of this story the week before I went on a much needed vacation. And I was like, yeah, totally. My brain's firing on all cylinders. And then I got back from vacation two weeks later and read through my edit. And I was like, I can do better than this.
00:10:09
Speaker
And it was great because I do, I actually think it made for a better story, but we ended up working on a structure and the final structure is more interwoven between the elements of history and kind of just telling a story straight through and then the elements in which Laura is
00:10:28
Speaker
kind of thinking out loud almost, those more essayistic portions. And I actually think it balances the piece really nicely because you're almost toggling between forms in a way as opposed to having it bifurcated, which sometimes a bifurcation can work really well. But I think in this case, there's a more musical quality to it this way. But it was definitely one where
00:10:52
Speaker
I actually remember I was co-working with a friend who's also an editor. And in these times, that's what we do is co-work with maybe one other person. And I was kind of talking out loud about this piece and how it felt like a puzzle that I was really, or not a puzzle, more of a riddle, frankly.
00:11:12
Speaker
It was not like, oh, the pieces are all here. And I want to fit them together just so. It was more, OK, there's this thing here. And I feel like if I start to unravel it, it will grow. And the ideas at the heart of it will become clearer. And it's actually really helpful to talk about it out loud. I'm a big fan of talking out puzzles and riddles. And Laura actually said, and I love when writers do this, she also read the story out loud before we even put it into layout.
00:11:41
Speaker
I think that can be so important to knowing, you know, is the structure working? Is the language working? So yeah, big fan of talking it out.
00:11:49
Speaker
Nice. Well, yeah, it was a great piece. And given what I've read and what you've published over the last year, we've seen such a great swath of what it means to tell true stories always with that real eye to research and a journalistic ethos even behind something that does feel more personal as this one does. But it's still got those great elements that you
00:12:18
Speaker
have come to expect when you read it reading out of his piece so this one was a joy and it's just great to see the whole body of work accumulate over the year so this was no exception thank you i appreciate that and you know i think for me i always enjoy the challenge of a story that doesn't
00:12:34
Speaker
is not a hard-boiled, like who done it, right? Like something where you really need to tease out what is gonna make the arc of it work, what's gonna make it feel propulsive. And this is a perfect example of that. And I really enjoyed working on it. Also, Laura was just great and arguably the most enthusiastic writer I've ever worked with. She was just so excited the entire time, which was really fun.
00:13:02
Speaker
Fantastic. Awesome. Well, Sarah, as always, a pleasure. And I look forward to when we can do this again. Thanks so much, Brendan.
00:13:17
Speaker
OK, so a little more about Laura.
Discovery of Mr. X in Family History
00:13:20
Speaker
You can find her at lauratodcarnes.com. Did I say find her at lauratodcarnes.com?
00:13:34
Speaker
and give her a ping on twitter, at Laura Todd Carnes. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Electric Lit, and Flyaway Journal. She writes fiction, essays, and wouldn't you know it, she dabbles a bit in narrative non-fiction, and a one, and a two, and a riff.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, I sort of stumbled on it. It was completely by accident. I was trying to write a novel, and it wasn't going well. And I was just sort of fumbling. And I was going through boxes of stuff, because when you're procrastinating something that's difficult, you end up cleaning your house. And I found this notebook where I had taken notes interviewing my grandmother years and years ago in the late 90s. So this would have been nearly
00:14:29
Speaker
you know, oh my God, a really long time, like 25 years ago now. So I had these notes and I had always meant to like do this genealogy research and kind of look up some of the people that
00:14:41
Speaker
She had these great stories about, and I just kind of fell down a rabbit hole of doing, if you've ever done any genealogy research, it's sort of an endless, you can just keep uncovering layers and uncovering layers. And I got fascinated by the things that I was finding and particularly my grandmother's favorite aunt, aunt Ligon.
00:15:06
Speaker
um, Ligon Smith Forbes, who's a main character in this piece. And, um, I was really fascinated by her life story. She was very unconventional woman. You know, she was a journalist and she was in advertising and, you know, the early part of the 20th century in Mississippi of all places. So I became really fascinated by her story and in trying to learn more about her and her many careers and her sort of peripatetic life path
00:15:36
Speaker
I stumbled onto Mr. X, and then I was just hooked. It's like, who is this guy? Where'd he come from? What's his story? Yeah, and then I just kept digging. So what became the next logical step for you as you come across Mr. X and start following him?
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, once I had a sense of kind of what the arc of the story was, my first instinct was to fictionalize it because at the time I really didn't consider myself, I considered myself a writer, but I did not consider myself a nonfiction writer. Even though I'd been doing lots of that, I just didn't think of that as being like real writing. So I was working on a novel that wasn't working. And so I was like, I know.
00:16:27
Speaker
This is my novel. This is what's gonna, I'm gonna write a novel about these people. And so I wanted it to be as accurate as possible. So I did tons of research. I spent about a year doing research. And then I wrote a novel based on the true story. I knew that the novel, I had sort of glossed over things. There was things that were sort of bugging me about the story.
00:16:53
Speaker
And in my fictional version, I just kind of like patched them up and made them all neat and tidy, which of course life isn't. And so that novel actually still hasn't sold. It's just, it's still out there in the ether. Um, it was, you know, I got an agent, it went on sub for two years. It never, it just never sold. So.
00:17:13
Speaker
that novel is still on my hard drive. And then I had the idea that maybe the true story that I had based my novel on was actually even more interesting. And I started doing more and more research. And that's when I pitched it to say, where did the activist?
00:17:31
Speaker
I'm always interested in talking to people who dabble in fiction and nonfiction and what the calculus is, whether you choose to take a story into that novelistic realm where you can use your imagination to spackle over the holes that verifiably true things just can't get into, or you can't burrow into that hole.
00:17:53
Speaker
or what makes it more compelling is a non-fiction piece. So what has been your experience with that balancing act and the math of telling that story, whether it be fiction or non-fiction?
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm actually really glad that I had the time to sort of tell this story both ways because in a lot of ways, I think fiction can get closer at the truth. There's a lot you can say in fiction because you can you can fill in all the gaps and you can answer sort of the psychological questions of what motivated someone. You know, you can
00:18:33
Speaker
you can imagine that you understand all of that interiority. And in nonfiction, I mean, there's just a distance, right? Like, you can only ever know so much. And that's what kind of ended up shaping a lot of this piece was the distance between what you can know and what we'll never know because, you know, it died with these people.
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, on your website, you write, as a freelance journalist, she is particularly interested in health, mental health, parenting, family, and history.
Archival Research Passion
00:19:08
Speaker
She is hungry for projects that require deep archival research. I read that and I'm like, wow, this Mr. X story checked just about all those boxes.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, for sure. I'm really happiest when I'm in a library. So I live near DC. So I actually have spent a fair amount of time at the Library of Congress doing research for things, which is one of my favorite places to be. For this story, I actually spent a couple days at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, which is
00:19:42
Speaker
probably my second favorite library. They're so great there. And they have everything. And they're so helpful. But anyway, yeah, if I can go digging through a box of correspondence from the 1940s, that is my jam. That is a good time. And I'm also really interested in health and mental health. And those are some of the stuff that I write for freelance stuff. But my mom was a clinical psychologist in her career.
00:20:11
Speaker
a clinical social worker, but she did sort of therapy and stuff when she was doing her clinical training. She worked in an institution not too dissimilar from the hospital where Mr. X spent so many years. And so I kind of had this idea of what an institution was in my head, and I think there's
00:20:33
Speaker
the idea of being institutionalized has a certain meaning in our culture. And it was really interesting to dig into what that actually meant at this particular moment in time, which was this very strange sort of era of mental health care that was kind of between the asylums of the 19th century and
00:21:02
Speaker
the post-institutionalization and pharmacology of mental health care from the 1950s onward, there's this moment where there wasn't a whole lot that they could do for their patients, but they also respected their patients as human beings. This is when Mr. X has his interaction with the mental health care system.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, because you had written that this would have been, I guess, probably in the trends beforehand where you wrote, over the previous century, patients in mental hospitals were often written off as subhuman and kept in barbaric conditions. But by the 1940s, mental health care began shifting towards treatment models. So he was kind of caught up in a watershed moment, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. It's sort of strange in between time and
00:21:54
Speaker
The Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield was a place where part of the model was patients worked. If they were able, there was a farm that fed the patients and staff, and there was an occupational therapy workshop where they actually made things for sale and
00:22:14
Speaker
Mr. X worked in the greenhouse and the greenhouse supplied fresh flowers to all of the buildings on the campus and stuff like that. So he had like a purpose in addition to being institutionalized because he didn't know who he was, so he couldn't be returned to his family. Other than that, he had nothing wrong with him.
00:22:36
Speaker
Um, per se. So, um, he just sort of lived in this community and the community was set up to try to give people some meaning and purpose and joy in their lives. There were dances and concerts and it's kind of, kind of crazy to think about, cause it's not sort of how we, how we conceptualize, um, being locked away in a mental hospital.
Historical Context of Mental Health
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I'm almost picturing what it would be like now to be, if you were to go to therapy and part of it was, we're gonna go out in the garden and you're gonna get your hands dirty and you're gonna just play around with the flowers and make a bouquet and that's gonna be part of this green cleaning by getting outside and we all know how invigorating just being out in the sun can be like and that's part of, you know, a treatment plan. Let's get you away from computers and get you out into nature.
00:23:29
Speaker
Right. There was obviously a lot of stuff that they didn't understand about mental health care at the time. I don't want to try to paint it as some sort of idyllic. It was also a segregated campus. It was very much in the Jim Crow South. There was a lot that it has to answer for, but at the same time,
00:23:49
Speaker
There were certain things that they had kind of figured out that, you know, giving people some sort of a purpose to their days could really be helpful to people's mental health.
00:24:03
Speaker
Now as you're doing your research on this piece and you're trying to synthesize it in a way that is satisfying in terms of hitting those story beats and the structure, what were the challenges that you faced in trying to string this story along in a way that kind of had this sort of braided thing between your great aunt and Mr. X and the mental health thread? What were those challenges for you?
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, that was something that Sabred helped with a lot because I think my first draft was
00:24:41
Speaker
first of all, far too long. Because when you do a lot of archival research, you get really excited about every little detail that you uncover and you want to like, let me give you two pages on like the exact history of this mental hospital and how it came to be like nobody cares. So yeah, so it was it was far too long. But also, like we restructured the piece, I don't know, four or five times where we just took it all apart and then
00:25:10
Speaker
What if we rearranged it this way? Wait, no, let's try it this way. So, and then each time having to kind of re-braid around it, you know, to make the pieces make sense. But I think it was one of those pieces that you couldn't figure out how it was going to come together until you had a draft to work with. And then you start teasing out the threads of, well, there's kind of this story of like up until his identification. And then there's sort of this second story of
00:25:40
Speaker
you think that that's the happy ending and then there's this sort of whole continuation of the arc. Yeah, I love that idea of it's very much like musicians in the studio with a producer and it's just like okay you're bringing you know these riffs or these solos to the to the project and you're like all right that part looks kind of good well what if you did this and this that and that and the other
00:26:04
Speaker
And like you said, you had to bring at least this initial draft, and then it's like, okay, let's move this part here and this part here, and let's, okay, then we'll hit play and see how it works, and okay, oh, that still doesn't feel right, let's try this. So I love that collaborative approach of just trying out different things, and if it fails, great, you're still a step closer to something that is the best ideal for the piece.
00:26:31
Speaker
Absolutely. Actually, I love that analogy with a record producer, because I think that's exactly right. I mean, there's sort of like, OK, here's my raw material. Here's what I've got to work with. But it's so helpful to have somebody kind of help you shape it and to be able to see what it is. Because I think this is a story that I
00:26:57
Speaker
Let's see, it was January of 2017 that I first started researching this. So, I mean, it's nearly five years ago, right? Like, so I've been kind of down in the weeds in this story for a long time. And sometimes you need somebody else's perspective to kind of help identify what you have.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's so it's so incredibly important to at that point, especially when you like when you say when you're in the weeds, like you are that you can no longer see, you can't see anything anymore. And you need those fresh eyes to see the things you can't see. And then all of a sudden, things start flopping off. You're like, Oh, okay, this is this is what it is. Now we just need to put some heat underneath it and reduce this a bit more. And then like, bam, we've got something that's really flavorful here.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think also the way the activist works is really different from any place else I've written for, but it is a really collaborative process.
00:27:58
Speaker
And from the first time that like Sayward and I talked on the phone, like she was like, okay, okay, wait, I got all these thoughts in my head. She was already like kind of brainstorming like, wait, what if we went in this direction? What have you talked to this kind of person? And like she was getting excited about it and I was like, okay, I think I got her. I just need her to be as excited about this as I am. But then all along the way, we're kind of going back and forth with like early drafts and stuff.
00:28:27
Speaker
Once, once you're kind of in the production process, you know, there's, you know, the art director and the fat checker and, you know, like everybody that it's, there's like a team that's kind of helping to get this thing to the finish line. I, I've never been part of that kind of process before, but it was so thrilling.
00:28:47
Speaker
You're right also that hope distorted becomes desperation and I thought that was just such a wonderful short little preamble to a paragraph that you had written and you know given around the identity and trying to find the identity of Mr. X who was just like oh I wonder what you know how you arrive at a line like that and how you know what's the charge behind that because it was just so potent when I came across it.
00:29:14
Speaker
Okay, so I am totally gonna out say word here. So we were going back and forth with stuff and she like dropped that line into a draft. And I was like, I'm so keeping that. And I am also going to take full credit for it because that's freaking brilliant. But
00:29:33
Speaker
But now that you say it, I can't. I can't in good conscience. Anyway, no, that was totally say what's lying. And I was like, that's exactly what I was trying to say. But it was really, she was rewording something that I had said much more awkwardly. That's hilarious. No, but I totally like, I could have just been like, yeah, you're right. That's a really great line. And I totally came up with that. But no, I can't. I can't.
00:29:55
Speaker
No, she's brilliant. So that was totally say word. But I think it was a thought that we were getting to in our conversations back and forth. What are we really trying to, you know, because I think that was one of the key kind of emotional threads of the piece is about, you know, about hope and what that can do to people when it gets sort of stretched out that way.
00:30:23
Speaker
And the way that, let's say, a filmmaker like Christopher Nolan is obsessed with time, say what you will about his movies, if you like them or not. I tend to like his movies as they're fun. But I got a sense that memory was a big thing for you in this piece.
00:30:40
Speaker
And not that I've read an extensive amount of your work, but I wonder if memory and that kind of connection or theme is something that you find pulses throughout your body of work.
Family Mythology's Influence on Identity
00:30:55
Speaker
Oh, definitely. Yeah, no, I'm kind of obsessed with memory and like misremembering things. Like I think that's really fascinating.
00:31:05
Speaker
But I'm also really fascinated with family mythology and the kinds of stories that get handed down and how that the stories that you kind of choose to hand down as part of a kind of a family culture. So like I wouldn't have even known any of this. I would never have had access to this story. I would never have gone looking for this crazy great aunt of mine.
00:31:33
Speaker
if it weren't for my grandmother specifically telling me about her and my grandmother kind of making the choice as this is one of the values that I'm trying to pass on is that I had this aunt and she was really unconventional and she was divorced and she was an alcoholic and she was kind of a mess in a lot of ways, but she also accomplished so much in her career. And she did all these very exciting adventurous things for a woman in early 20th century Mississippi
00:32:02
Speaker
And that by telling that story, my grandmother kind of created like, okay, these are one of the values that I'm trying to pass on to you.
00:32:10
Speaker
you know, as one woman to another within this family. And I'm really fascinated by that, that kind of mythology that gets created. And that some of those stories may be a little bit apocryphal, right? Like you're choosing certain elements to create, you know, myth is never true, right? Like it's, you have to kind of file away some of the messy edges to get something that, you know, it becomes folklore.
00:32:38
Speaker
But I thought that's sort of what happened with the Mr. X story as well, is that when the media kind of jumped on Mr. X's story, and he was being brought onto this radio program in New York, and his picture was in Time magazine, and there was all this kind of press interest. They kind of distilled the story into something that was probably not quite true. It was a little more melodramatic than, you know,
00:33:07
Speaker
the actual story and that when he was identified, then they, they really like glommed on. Okay, great. Look, we've got a happy ending. We can just slap a rubber stamp on this and everybody can, you know, go home from the matinee or whatever with a satisfied feeling of completion. And, and of course, like that's, that's not what happened at all.
Great Aunt's Life and Aspirations
00:33:30
Speaker
And, and that dissonance between sort of mythology and, and
00:33:35
Speaker
real life, the messiness of real life is, is really interesting to me. Yeah. When you write about your great aunt, you said she, you already alluded to the, she defied convention. You also write that, you know, she had built a life for herself outside of the models she was offered and she was everything I aspired to be. So in, in what ways did, has she set this kind of model and in what ways are you aspiring to be, you know, try to cut yourself in the mold of her?
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, at the time that I was first sort of told these stories, like I was, you know, in my, I guess, mid 20s, and I was already a single mom, I became a mom when I was 18. So I was already kind of a black sheep. I was already defying convention, like, you know, pretty, as soon as I became an adult. So, so yeah, and the another thing about her that I've also like really glommed on to is she had like
00:34:31
Speaker
eight different careers. She was always changing jobs, but she wasn't just changing jobs. She was changing from being an insurance saleswoman to doing advertising for newspapers, and then also owning a printing press, and then also teaching kindergarten. And she just bounced around between a lot of different things. And I think part of that may just have been she was restless, or she took whatever opportunity was available.
00:35:01
Speaker
It's always kind of reassuring for me, because I think I'm on career number five at this point or something like that. I lost count. But her restlessness, I like to imagine that it was in part because there are so many very interesting things to do in the world. And you've got to try all of them. And that kind of appetite for life is something that I try to espouse.
00:35:29
Speaker
So if we're just saying that you're on career number five, what were four of the previous four? Let's see. I've been a middle school English teacher. I have been an IT consultant. So I was the person coming and climbing under your desk to fix your printer cables or whatever. I've done technical writing for economic development
00:35:58
Speaker
organizations, I've worked for nonprofits. Yeah, oh, I had a fun little stint for a while writing the reading passages on like state standardized tests, you know, and you have to like read a passage about fireflies and then answer five questions. Like, yeah, I got to write the thing. All right. All right. That was pretty fun. That actually taught me quite a lot about writing.
00:36:24
Speaker
Wow. Nice. Nice. And so you've got you know this piece this piece will be out by the time people hear hear this. So in what ways is this this piece putting a certain degree of fuel in your tank to tackle the next story whether that be fiction or nonfiction.
00:36:44
Speaker
I'm always writing fiction, so that's just sort of like an engine that churns along. I'm working on my third novel and querying my second, because I parted ways with my agent. But anyway, but nonfiction wise, within this story, there are so many different side paths that
00:37:05
Speaker
I didn't even get a chance to get into because they weren't really part of this narrative arc. But I definitely want to do another deep dive into history kind of story that has me spending a lot of time in the library and then trying to find something that has some resonance for today that can tell us something about the world we're living in today by illuminating something from the past that we might not be aware of.
00:37:33
Speaker
Is there a target decade you have in mind for that? I really dig the early 20th century. There's something about that time. It's like close enough, but it's so far away when you think about just the differences in societal norms and access to technology and all kinds of things.
00:37:55
Speaker
Well, that's great. Well, Laura, it was great talking to you about this incredible piece that you wrote. And I can't wait to dig into more of your body of work as it comes out. So this was wonderful to get a primer on what it is you do. And I'm so glad we got to have this conversation. Thanks so much, Brendan. It was so fun.
00:38:18
Speaker
Alright, thanks to Lauren Sayward for the time and the work. If you enjoyed this little ditty, consider heading to Apple Podcasts and leave a kind review or hell. You know what, just maybe a not kind review of the podcast. I mean, kind ones work better, but I'm not here to tell you what to do.
00:38:37
Speaker
When you're a middling writer and podcaster like me, and I suspect there's a chunklet of you out there too whores, you know those people in the middle, not the main headliners of the festival, you know who you are. You know that we live and die by reviews. I always read new ones on the pod, so if you have a few moments, heck, while the water's boiling for your coffee or your tea, by all means leave a review. Kind ones preferred.
00:39:03
Speaker
You can also head over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for my up to 11 monthly newsletter. 11 cool things from my brain to your inbox. Been doing it for about a decade.
00:39:17
Speaker
I put in a link to an exclusive CNF and happy hour that typically happens the second Wednesday of the month. Last month we did a writing group where we just wrote for an hour and that was it. This month I might just make it a happy hour again.
00:39:34
Speaker
on a theme where we talk and hash a few things out you'll just have to subscribe to the newsletter to find out first of the month no spam so far as i can tell you can't beat it keep the conversation going on instagram at creative non-fiction podcast and twitter at cnfpod and or at brendan omera that's gonna do it i typically have a parting shot where i just riff about something that's on my brain
00:40:01
Speaker
In all honesty, I kind of burned out and just don't feel like doing that. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. We'll be back at it again next week. So in the meantime, stay wild. See you in efforts. And if you can't do interview, see ya.