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Episode 393: Katya Cengel and Finding Enough 'There' There for The Atavist
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Katya Cengel (@kcengel) is a journalist and author who wrote "The Truth is Out There" for The Atavist Magazine.
- In this episode we also here from editor Jonah Ogles on:
- What sets pitches over the top
- Pitching multiple times
And trust
Katya takes over and talks about:
- Untidy endings
- Earning trust with sources
- And finding enough 'there' there
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Social: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and Threads
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Listener Engagement
00:00:00
Speaker
Before we get started, I'm bringing back the quid pro quo written review for editing and coaching. If you leave a written review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, I will edit and coach up a piece of your work of up to 2,000 words or a pitch letter or something. Anything. Just don't exceed 2,000 words. I can only do so much.
00:00:24
Speaker
When your review publishes, send a screenshot to Creative Nonfiction Podcast at gmail.com and we'll start a dialogue. It's like a hundred dollar value. So if I were you, I would totally do it. And someone from Spain is taking me up on the offer. Very nice. Also, here's my requisite shout out to Athletic Brewing, my favorite non-alcoholic beer out there. If you visit athleticbrewing.com, use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout. You get a nice little discount. I don't get any money.
00:00:55
Speaker
Merely celebrating this great product is why I'm giving it a shout out. I love it. It's nice. Skip the hangover, man. Skip that shit. It's also the Atavistian time of the month, so there will be some spoilers. So consider visiting magazine.atavist.com to read the story and subscribe. I don't get any kickbacks or anything like that if you subscribe as a result of maybe me turning you onto them.
00:01:22
Speaker
But if you choose to subscribe as a result of this podcast or others of the several dozen Atavistian themed ones, just email me at creativenonfictionpodcastatgmail.com to let me know. Or go to at creativenonfictionpodcast on Instagram or threats and let me know. It would just be cool. It'd be nice to know that this is a funnel for the amazing work that Sayward Darby and Jonah Ogles are doing over there, okay?
Techniques in Narrative Nonfiction
00:01:50
Speaker
what you're always balancing throughout is this is not, we're crafting and not making things up or anything, but a lot of the techniques of fiction, right? To its narrative nonfiction, it's crafted, but yet these are real people in real lives and it's their story as well.
00:02:17
Speaker
All right. How's it going, CNF? It's CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast. The show where I speak to badass people about telling two stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara, but then again, you knew that. This week we have Katya Sengal on the show for her Atavus piece titled The Truth is Out There. A father's disappearance, dark family secrets, and the hunt for Bigfoot. Yeah, it all connects, man. It all connects.
00:02:45
Speaker
This story is about the searching for elusive truths, as Katya writes. She is a freelance writer and author based in California, but we'll give her a more thorough intro just before we actually hear from her. You know, Ian, you know the drill with this. Today, hey, it's Friday, December 1st, depending on when you listen to this, but that's when this podcast is published. CNF Fridays, one more month left in 2023. What a year, man.
00:03:15
Speaker
It being the first of the month, newsletter dropped. Today. Juicy S.A. this month. You won't want to miss it. You know the deal. Head to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for this monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. It's good stuff. Subscribe to the podcast or not. It's up to you. Subscribe to the newsletter or don't. Totally up to you. First of the month, no spam, so far as I could tell. You can't beat it.
00:03:44
Speaker
In this episode you'll hear about untidy endings, forging trust, and how pieces of this nature can at times feel exploitative.
Pitching Stories & Handling Rejections
00:03:53
Speaker
Journalism as a whole can often feel exploitative. It's something I've wrestled with all the time.
00:03:59
Speaker
When we hear from Jonah Ogles on this piece, he'll talk about what gets pitches over the top and why you shouldn't fear pitching the same place repeatedly. Speaking from experience, I know that if I get a rejection, I'm less likely to keep re-pitching them because I'm just projecting, but it just feels like I'm annoying them. Like, oh my God, here's Brendan again. Ugh.
00:04:23
Speaker
But that's never the case. They're getting so many pitches, they will barely remember you. Or if they do, they'll be like, oh, okay, maybe this is the one. Cliff Notes version, you're not bugging them. All right, so right before, right before we get to Jonah, I want to give a shout out to Adam, I'm sorry if I pronounced your last name wrong, Adam Sowards, or Sowards.
00:04:48
Speaker
And Lauren McKinney, new patrons over at patreon.com slash cnfpod. Mira from Spain, who has taken me up on the written review offer for editing, had this to say about the podcast. I like to, anytime you give a written review of the show, I love to read the review and give you a shout out. So here it is. That extra push you need, the best ever podcast for writers, at least for me.
00:05:15
Speaker
I always listen to it when I am stuck in the procrastination mode and it always motivates me to sit down and start writing. The day I listen to Brendan and his guests, I get some work done. Plus, I discover amazing writers who I can learn from or get encouraged by. Thank you, Brendan. You got it. Thank you, Mira.
Editing Challenges & Solutions
00:05:37
Speaker
And with that, now let's turn it loose and hear some brilliant insights from Jonah Ogles.
00:05:53
Speaker
So you've got this piece with Katya here, and wouldn't you know there's something of a shipwreck involved? Yeah, there is a shipwreck. Just as you started that sentence, I was like, oh god, we're going to talk about ships again.
00:06:10
Speaker
I don't have anything else to say about chips at this point. Yeah, it's great. Katya and I had a really good conversation about it the other day. What we got to talking about eventually was how this interwove cryptozoology and this mystery to find this missing person
00:06:32
Speaker
and just how those two threads are just so, so thematically congruent and perfect and I think really blew this piece up and really cracked the code of it.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's something extra, you know, to bring to a story. It's not just this one, it's not sort of like plot A is the whole thing, you know, like there's this whole other part of it that you're right does speak to it and really speak to like the
00:07:07
Speaker
shipwreck missing dad part of the story in really interesting ways. But that's a hard thing to do in the writing. It's one thing to sort of like talk about it, to like a friend at a bar or something. You could be like, oh yeah, I can kind of see how that would work, but then to actually like do it on the page.
00:07:34
Speaker
I think is a tough thing to do, but Katya, I think, really pulled it off in a really artful way, kind of a quiet way, just sort of let those two threads intertwine themselves almost in the background. It's a sort of thing that I'm not even sure I could instruct a writer how to do it.
00:07:59
Speaker
Keep trying. You're almost there. Keep moving on it. With every piece, is there always almost unilaterally a moment of where you have to talk the writer off the ledge at some point or another?
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, it happens. Not in every story, but it's pretty common. A big part of the job is being a pseudo therapist and just sort of like, yep, you're on the right track. Don't give up. You're right. A lot of it, I mean, we talked about following your gut last time we talked, and I feel like that's a lot of what I do.
00:08:44
Speaker
for writers is just sort of a firm, like, yeah, you're right, that will work, and maybe here's how it could work, or you're right, that's not working, here are the weaknesses I see with it. But it's sort of just like giving the writer a wall to bounce things off of.
00:09:04
Speaker
And when I was speaking with Katya, she was especially happy to finally land at a piece with the Atavists. She pitched several times. This was actually off mic with her, and I was like, oh, that could have been something. It just didn't come up in our conversation, but that's always something
00:09:19
Speaker
I like to unpack a little bit because I think there is a tendency for a lot of people who they might pitch and they get rejected and then they're like I I don't want to pitch again just because I don't feel like maybe annoying the editor with like another pitch another idea and everything and.
00:09:37
Speaker
I think that's probably bad practice and insecurity on the pitchers part. So maybe you can speak to, it's okay, as long as you're writing decent pitches, even though they might be rejected, it's like, well, you know what? Keep trying. You're not really annoying us.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. And that was, I mean, in no way was Katja annoying us by pitching us ideas in the past. And she's one of those writers.
00:10:09
Speaker
There are some writers who pitch you a lot of ideas and you know they're close or you know they're a good writer and you want to work with them. You see their name and you're like, oh God, please let this one be right for us. That's the case with Katya because she's a great writer and we wanted
00:10:32
Speaker
We wanted to get ideas from her and we try to encourage people, especially those who are sending in good pitches that are close. We try to always say in the rejection, like, please keep sending us ideas. We want to work on you with something. And there have been writers who have been sending me ideas for years that we haven't quite landed on the right one, but that I really want to work with.
00:10:59
Speaker
And even the writers who send in ideas that are pretty far off, I'm never annoyed. I'm never annoyed by receiving pitches from writers, even if they're way off base. Like I don't have a problem saying like, this isn't right for us for these reasons. Sorry, good luck finding a home for it. I think writers who send in a lot of pitches, in some ways I even feel like more
00:11:26
Speaker
I feel like a greater pressure to try to help them refine the pitches they're sending to us, either that particular pitch, which I always try to give some feedback on why an idea wasn't right for us, but even on pitching generally. We'll get writers who send us very brief pitches, and after two or three of them, I'll say,
00:11:51
Speaker
Hey, look, these are never going to get through, you know, like unless you, unless you expand them, like, and here's kind of what we're looking for and here's what a good pitch looks like. So yeah, writers shouldn't feel, if they're getting a response from an editor, I think it's fine to keep pitching them even good to try to build that relationship.
00:12:15
Speaker
And when a pitch is just falling short, say it's like 80% there, what is usually wrong in the 20%?
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it varies from pitch to pitch, or maybe I should do like a full review of all pitches that I've rejected and see if there's like, yeah, a common thing that I could just correct for writers and help them up their odds. But, you know, sometimes it's that
00:12:47
Speaker
I mean, a lot of times we can't see the ending clearly. That's a really common one, where we're like, yes, you have a great first act, we see all the action in the second act, but we just have no idea how this story is going to end, and it's hard for any editor
00:13:06
Speaker
to assign a piece like that, but especially for us when we only get to publish 12. If we just assigned every story that had a good first two acts, we'd be backed up for like the next six years with stories. So that's a really common one. Sometimes it's that the source material just isn't quite there. I feel like a lot of the historical ones we get, it's like,
00:13:34
Speaker
you know, I have this great story and hear all these things. And I think there are a bunch of papers at this library that would also help illuminate the piece. And I'll be like, that's great to know. Go look at them and come back. You know, because you just can't... Yeah, which I guess is kind of the same thing I was talking about earlier. Like we just can't see the full piece yet. And editors really like to be able to imagine it from start to finish.
00:14:03
Speaker
It's almost like, and I have no background in law, I don't know how lawyers operate, but I do understand that when lawyers are in a courtroom, they're not asking questions they don't really know the answer to. And so you're building a case and so it's like,
00:14:23
Speaker
You need to be positive. There can't be any mystery as to how it ends. You don't need to have done all the work, but you really do have to have hammered home basically the tent pole of each act to be like, yeah, this is where we're taking off and this is how we land.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, right. Right. That's a great analogy because it is you need to have like the evidence to support what is going to happen in the story. And that's an interesting point to make about when I'm talking about Katya's story in particular, because there's
00:15:03
Speaker
It's not a traditional ending to her story. You know, like it's not tidy. It's, it's not like all these questions that you've had as you've been reading this. Well, guess what? Here's the answer. Um, you know, it's just more open-ended than that. And it's, her story is more about almost a feeling than it is plot points, you know, like the, the shipwreck happens and the dad goes missing.
00:15:30
Speaker
And then after that, there are little things that are revealed, but what draws you through is an emotional resonance rather than a plot slowly revealing something to you. Or what it revealed, maybe a better way to put it, is what it reveals only clouds things up more. It's a tough story to tell, a cool way of telling a story, I think.
00:16:00
Speaker
In the absence of a tidy ending, which does a lot of the heavy lifting for the pacing and even the writing of a story, what do you want to see in place when it is cloudy at the end and it doesn't wrap up in that nice little bow?
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, Sayward and I talk a lot about wanting our endings to feel like readers have landed on some solid ground. And we almost always follow that up by saying, we're not saying every question has to be answered.
00:16:36
Speaker
But there should be something sort of pulling at the reader throughout the piece, and the ending needs to speak to that and make them feel like there's not even like a finality to it, but like their understanding of it has changed in some significant way.
00:16:58
Speaker
And so in a piece like that that's what you're aiming for you know it's not like you know we found the dad here is this is. This is what happened it's it's more about okay here's the process these kids have.
Crafting Emotionally Resonant Endings
00:17:15
Speaker
gone through throughout their lives and here is sort of like the piece they've made with it or the ways in which they haven't made peace with it yet. It's almost like a feel thing, you know, like you just
00:17:30
Speaker
you're just looking for an ending that kind of feels right and you sort of like cast about and try different things you know like the ending on this one if i remember right we tried a few different endings and we ended up
00:17:46
Speaker
And my memory is kind of hazy because it was a longer, it took us a while to edit this piece, but I think what we ended up doing was we ended up ending the story sooner than we anticipated. Like I think she had a different section.
00:18:03
Speaker
towards the end that we ended up just cutting because we were like this if we end it here this actually kind of feels a little bit better but that that's a situation where you're sort of like how does the writer feel about it how do i feel about it how does say word feel about it you know it's it's sort of like work by committee does everyone feel good about this
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, and it is a wonderful piece, and you just brought up that it was something of a challenging edit. What challenges did this one present to you in particular?
00:18:39
Speaker
Well, because there isn't an obvious, it's not like a criminal on the run where all you have to do is follow them from the time they set off. It is more nebulous. And so you're trying to find the ways in which the pieces will
00:18:58
Speaker
fit together because the story can change drastically based on when you drop in some cryptozoology stuff. Where Bigfoot appears, you want it to sort of speak to what came before and after it.
00:19:18
Speaker
And in the absence of like a clearly defined plot, you're sort of doing that by feel and kind of trial by trial and error. I mean, mostly what I meant by it, it was a long editing process, it just kind of took us a while to actually like get to the story. And there was a lot of trial and error on like, let's move this here, let's try this and see how the pieces all fit together.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I think a lot of people who listen to the show and are practicing writers, narrative journalists, they intuitively know that the editing process can be a little messy. Let's try on this pair of shoes. Ah, it's a half size too small. So let's try on this size. Take that for a walk. See how that feels. And it's just great to hear you talk about that, and that it's not like an indictment or a criticism on the part of the reporter or the writer. It's just like, OK, you know what?
00:20:12
Speaker
the fit isn't quite right. These laces are too tight. It's not wide enough. Going back to my days as a fitter of running shoes at Fleet Feet in Albany, New York, but it is that idea. There's a lot of that trial and error, and then through no fault of anyone's own, it's like, okay, now we can, this seems to be in better service for this story. And it's not because you're not skilled, it's just like,
00:20:38
Speaker
This one is asking these questions and we need to just do what's best for the story.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and sometimes that's fairly obvious, you know, like if Sayward and I both read a draft and we say, and we have the same question, you know, early in the piece, but the answer to that question is only revealed later in the draft and much later. You know, sometimes it's like, oh, we just need to move that up, you know, and it kind of makes sense to everybody.
00:21:10
Speaker
But there's no one perfect way of telling any story. And so when you're a writer working with an editor,
00:21:23
Speaker
or an editor working with a writer, you're just trying stuff. And it needs to make sense to those two people and then usually a top editor at any publication. So you've got to kind of clear it with three people and you're relying on trust that all three of those people are good readers,
Trust & Collaboration in Storytelling
00:21:46
Speaker
that they're smart, that they have a good sense of how things should work.
00:21:50
Speaker
and no one is seeing a major issue with the structure of the piece or the way that it's all coming together. And I'm sure that's sometimes frustrating for me, you know, if a writer has a very different opinion.
00:22:05
Speaker
I'm sure it's sometimes frustrating for writers, too. But you got to do your best. And I'm not speaking to Katja. It's the experience with Katja at all because it was wonderful and kind of a flawless editing experience. But sometimes it's tough. I feel like when things do get a little contentious with writers, one of the most common emails I send is,
00:22:31
Speaker
Look, we've just got to trust each other. Nobody's trying to ruin any story here. We have a difference of opinion, but we've got to trust. I need you to trust me that when I say this needs to happen earlier, it really does. We can find a way to smooth out transitions and work through it, but something isn't working and we got to try to fix it.
00:22:59
Speaker
Oh, I love it. I love hearing the dialogue that you have from your side of the table, as always. And this one, the ending is untidy, but I think it really is the perfect ending. And Kati and I spoke about that, too. I think it just comes together so well with those various threads of trying to seek out these elusive truths that you can never quite get your hands on. So it's just an outstanding piece. And as always, Jonah, it's just great getting your side of the table on these things.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to talk about. And I agree 100%. It's a really nice story. And I hope people really enjoy it and have a good time reading it.
00:23:46
Speaker
All right. That was a great start. Right. So next up is Katya. Her work has appeared in the New York Times magazine, Marie Claire, the Wall Street Journal. She's at Casey single on Twitter. And that's C E N G E L on X, I guess, and Instagram. Her newsletter is sometimes gonzo.
00:24:08
Speaker
She's been awarded grants from the International Reporting Project, the International Women's Media Foundation, and the Interview Center for Journalists. Gosh, we get it already. Ugh, you're good. Haha, just kidding. You're gonna dig this CNF, you know, in one final, one final thing. Katya mentions working with Sayward Darby on this piece a bit, which Katya did. And then Sayward went on sabbatical, how dare she, and handed the reins over to Jonah.
00:24:38
Speaker
So you'll hear reference to to the Darby-in-Chief herself. Okay? Alright, we're starting right here with how Katya arrived at this particular story. Magazine.adivis.com. Get to it.
00:24:52
Speaker
You know, and I was trying to remember that before this conversation because it was one of those that had been years in the making just because there was idea and then
Creating the Atavist Piece: Katya Sengal's Journey
00:25:03
Speaker
that. And I think it was first came through in either a Google alert on Bakersfield or just from the California Sun newsletter had a story about Bakersfield. And I've just always been fascinated by Bakersfield, California. I live on the coast.
00:25:21
Speaker
And the interior of California just doesn't get as much. Most of the stories you read are out of San Francisco or LA. And so I'm always looking for stories out of a different area. And there's so many people there and so much going on there, but we just don't hear those stories as much. So I was instantly intrigued when I heard that part. And then there was this connection. So I heard just about Brian, who's one of the adult children
00:25:49
Speaker
in the story telling about he was a reporter himself who at the 50-year anniversary of his father's disappearance on this boating trip decided to kind of revisit it. And so that just intrigued me and especially because so Brian's dad was from Bakersfield and Brian had been growing up in Bakersfield.
00:26:13
Speaker
But the boat trip was in the Central Coast, Morro Bay. And so I'm near that Central Coast area. So again, that connection between those two areas had caught my attention. And so I just started, reached out to Brian to see if there's something more there. And him being a journalist,
00:26:35
Speaker
it made it a little easier to reach out and kind of understood what I was going after. But I still didn't know what the story was, if there was something more there. And then talking to him, he started talking about other family members. And so I started reaching out to the other family members. And then I knew there was something there, but I still didn't really know what. And that's when I had started talking with Atavist, and she helped me figure out, okay,
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, this is interesting, but there's not a story. And so it was through some conversations with her and emails that we started figuring out what the actual story was.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, the whole concept of figuring out if something is there, a lot of people, and myself included, you feel like you have something on the surface that is meaty and juicy, but you have to do quite a bit of legwork to determine if there is enough there there. So in the case of this, at what point did you realize through all your legwork that yes, in fact, there was enough?
00:27:41
Speaker
they're there. I think when we started in the back and forth she had said something about really finding, I'm not good at the exact words, it was at the tension or just the narrative arc and I knew it needed one but I kind of thought I could get one through something and she really
00:28:05
Speaker
honed me in on that. And there was this one, one of Brian's brothers, these are all adult children at this point, and they'd, their dad had disappeared when they were young. And he
00:28:19
Speaker
was just fascinating himself in that he devoted his life to searching for creatures that most of us think don't exist, like Bigfoot and sea monsters. And it was something, as a journalist, I was instantaneously curious because I just like learning about people and things I don't know about. And I knew nothing about these, you know, except for the quick hit little, you know, things making fun of Bigfoot or sea monsters. But I was intrigued that it was a real thing
00:28:48
Speaker
in his quest for this and very, he takes it very serious and very scientific thinking towards it. And so that really intrigued me. And then it was actually conversations with the editors out of us that really
00:29:06
Speaker
ironed out, okay, there is something here. We've got this, we can tie together this aspect of this person and this earlier story and how it impacted them. And so I think it, that's one thing I really liked about this, my first time doing something for out of us.
00:29:24
Speaker
is the collaboration process which we've lost so much with other outlets because everything's rush rush and such and so you don't get to talk with editors as much and think through a story because a lot of times on your own you can't figure it out and say word really helped me focus in on okay
00:29:43
Speaker
We need kind of fewer characters, but more there than just all these little interesting tidbits. And we honed in on one of the adult children, Bruce, who had this fascination with unknown creatures in Bigfoot and sea monsters and how he'd actually kind of been doing this search for all these years and connecting it to what it was like. And then all these other mysteries
00:30:14
Speaker
kept popping up too, that we were able to, the way we wove those into the story, when we chose to reveal those, kind of helped drive the narrative. When you're reporting on a piece of this nature that are longer and nuanced, with a lot of character involved,
00:30:39
Speaker
What is the calculus that you're undergoing when you're looking at what it's about with a lowercase a and then about with a capital A? Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
I'd get so what it was about with that lowercase, I wanted it to be about everything I got really into fascinated about, more obey the area where the
00:31:10
Speaker
he disappeared and about the connection between Bakersfield and Morro Bay and I really got into the nitty gritty and then the and Sayward was like yeah this is interesting but kind of going on a tangent and so I think it really helps having that editor having someone else especially on these long things because you get so into them for so much time having that
00:31:37
Speaker
outside person read it and be like, no, no, hone back in. This is what it's really about. And I think that that was key for me, because it does you get these other interesting aspects. So working with other people, and editors, and a team who, who can help keep you kind of on track. Yeah, I think
00:32:01
Speaker
a lesson learned from that and trying to find what the central thing of is that big A about, capital A about, is also thinking there's never a wasted word. Even if it's gonna get cut in the end, sometimes those thousand words to get to 200, those 800 that get cut, they weren't for naught. They serve the purpose, even if they don't make their way into the final typeset.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's so true because that whole section, a lot of it got cut down, but some of the quotes that were at the end of that section stayed in and it took me all of that to get to those, right? And so I kind of needed to work through that and then
00:32:47
Speaker
you get through it. It is interesting because you think with long stories like this, not that they're wasted words, but there might be some that in a short story you couldn't, but there really aren't. You really need to, everything has to really keep it moving. And I think that was something
00:33:04
Speaker
I, in my first draft, I didn't do as well as I kind of got into the language and the beauty of it and forgot to keep it moving as much as it needed to keep going forward because you really got to keep people's attention in a longer piece like that.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, especially with it's like keeping the page turning or in this case keep people scrolling and people are largely reading these things on a device that is connected to other attention sucking things. So it's all the more it's like such a greater imperative to figure a way to keep the pacing right. Speaking of pacing, you know what?
00:33:43
Speaker
How did you ensure that it was, that it did just have this sort of a river's pull to it?
00:33:53
Speaker
And I think, I don't know if I wanna say lucky, but one of the good things was, over time, the adult children kept learning these twists about their father and his history that I didn't even know until I kept it. It's how I learned about him a bit too. In the reporting process, there'd just be this another thing thrown out and like, really, what? And so remembering to,
00:34:20
Speaker
let the reader learn those in the same way and let them know there are more of those twists still coming. So hint at it, but not give it all away at once. And then kind of hopefully have them also be interested enough, I think, in the people themselves that they want to keep understanding. And I think, again, their say word was good on because at one point I
00:34:45
Speaker
I revealed things earlier on. And she was like, no, let's not put them all in one place. Let's kind of move them throughout to keep that tension going. So I think it's that figuring out when to reveal things and how much to give away and how to hint at other things. There's a lot of structure.
00:35:09
Speaker
Talk a little bit more about the structure of it and how you arrived at it and retinkered with it. It's so vital to anything, to any piece, but especially the longer and longer they get to have some concrete structure in mind. Yeah, I actually started, I thought the most dramatic was the boat
00:35:36
Speaker
scene but obviously it wasn't there so I had to use documents recreate and stuff but then I think it was say word I worked with Jonah later so I can't remember who it was so I did a lot of the initial stuff with say word and then later stuff with Jonah was like well this is great and it's gripping but it's not really the stories about the people now more that part so
00:35:59
Speaker
They encouraged me to kind of start with Bruce instead of with that. And once they told me that it made sense because
00:36:08
Speaker
the living people are always going to, you know, capture your attention a bit more. And so then I decided to start with Bruce when he's actually out there looking for relic hominoid or Bigfoot Sasquatch and kind of be there with him and then get into
00:36:30
Speaker
well, why is he doing this search? Where's it come from? And then what are the other mysteries in his life? And could there be this connection? So then kind of take it back to the story of his father and do that. But then kind of keeping Bruce throughout in his journey is one of the central ones, but then also putting in some of the other adult children and their journeys during this.
00:37:01
Speaker
and then kind of ending back with Bruce in his search. Do you have a master document spreadsheet or even index cards or something where you're like tracking the progress of each individual person so that you know how much stage time everyone has at a given moment?
00:37:22
Speaker
I always love when I see writers who do that and I really admire it, but I've never been good about that. I have like a folder where I put my out of this folder where I put, and I have a document for each person, and then I'll sometimes have separate documents for scenes. So I just make a new document for everything. And so there are just all these documents and it doesn't really, the way you describe
00:37:47
Speaker
makes a lot more sense, and I wish I worked that way, but I don't. I don't know if I could train myself at this point, so I just have these different, but keeping each person in their own document helped me a lot, and so I'd kind of do that, and then I'd keep, and then I also had paper documents, so really, I have a very unorganized way of doing it.
00:38:08
Speaker
Yeah, it can get so unruly and out of hand. I am someone who is chronically disorganized and it's very hard to keep things from spiraling out of control and to the point where you'll be going along and then you might
00:38:27
Speaker
I don't know, reread a transcript or reread something and it's like reading it for the first time. You're like, oh my God, how did I miss that the first time around? It's like I have to build in so many redundancies so I don't leave good things on the floor just because I forgot they were there because I'm so disorganized.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's so much in stories like this when you're working on for quite a long time and you do so many interviews and some of which you won't end up using, that yeah, you'll forget, oh, wait, there was this really good nugget. And to get through it though on the document, because there's so, so much text there at that point, I will, I'll do a lot of bolding when it's something I really want to make sure I get. But yeah, then when I have dozens of documents, it's,
00:39:13
Speaker
I have this gigantic spreadsheet for a book that I'm working on right now, and what's helped me in organizing all of these articles chronologically is color-coding various things. If my central figure is quoted in a particular article, I just have that colored green. And then if someone is talking about him, I have that colored yellow. And if it's a really juicy story,
00:39:42
Speaker
or an article, I'll bold it. And then certain other things, like if there's a YouTube video of an event, like I have that colored red. If there are letters written that I've filed, I color that light blue. So that way, at least at a glance, I can kind of see things.
00:40:00
Speaker
And that's helped me in having a little checkbox if I've used the piece already, if I've cited it, citing as I write, all these redundancies that are built into place just to cover my tracks, because it can get so out of hand.
00:40:16
Speaker
That's a great idea. Yeah, actually, when you say the sighting, that's one of my biggest struggles because I'll kind of have in my notes where I got things from. But then once those things get moved around later, then I totally lose track of where that was on the recording, where that was in the thing, because maybe it actually got cut out and then it comes reappears.
00:40:38
Speaker
That's actually my hardest part is when it gets to like the citing and the fact checking and remembering, okay, I know I have verification for that, but where was it again? Which tape was it on? Yeah, and fortunately, I've been, it's very clunky to write this way, but it'll be better in the long run. It'll be like, you know, the whole site is your right.
00:41:00
Speaker
and I have over to the far right-hand side of this big spreadsheet is a Dropbox link and then I copy that link and when I footnote the citation, I hyperlink the citation and that way a fact checker can go in, click that, it'll go to the shared folder and they can find anything.
00:41:18
Speaker
And anytime I'm pulling anything in, I'm just like footnoting that thing. I work in a Google Doc, so even if you cut and paste things, those citations move with it, which is pretty nice in that regard. But yeah, I'm just terrified of, you're always terrified of those moments where you're writing along and you have this great detail, and you know you have it somewhere, but you can't find it so you can't use it.
00:41:48
Speaker
That's the worst. Yeah, it is. Did this story, the cryptozoology part, I think really, I think that really makes the story hum. It's this parallel track that is so thematically congruent to the rest of the mystery. When that came into it, did that crack the code of the story for you?
00:42:14
Speaker
Yes, I think you're right, that. And I don't know if I saw it as much as a say word at that point because I was telling her, well, the aunt's really fascinating too. She's the one who thought she saw Alan, the disappeared dad at one time. And she also has this daughter who she believes was kidnapped and things. And I was like, there's a whole lot there.
00:42:41
Speaker
the cryptozoology when we saw that because it was just even if and Bruce doesn't really see the parallel or doesn't think but it's like these two big mysteries that you're never going to find an answer to and so it just seemed like yeah there's really parallels there and it's just a fascinating thing too that I don't think is explored at least in the
00:43:03
Speaker
publications I read as much, cryptozoology isn't something I hear about much, right? Maybe just like, you know, the more humorous short thing about a search for Bigfoot or something, but not as a serious kind of quest. I didn't know that much about that. And so and I think a lot of readers probably who aren't interested in it, don't know a whole lot about that. So it was kind of like this subculture that was fascinating.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, and then talk about something that can pull you down a rabbit hole and be like, this is so cool, this is so interesting. And then eventually you're like, well, it's got to still stay on point with the greater story.
Building Trust with Story Subjects
00:43:45
Speaker
I imagine that there was a temptation to want to keep going down that road.
00:43:50
Speaker
Oh, yes, I was actually really, he's actually really also into the sea monsters and Loch Ness Monster, sea serpents and lake serpents. And there was this study and I was really like, oh my gosh, that would be so cool if he goes and searches for the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland and I could go with him. And I was just really getting into all these things and like, oh, when's the next search? When are these things? But, you know, it's also his work very, um,
00:44:22
Speaker
fact-based and very tested and trialed and very, it's not this spontaneous type thing, right? And so there's a lot of planning and thought that goes into everything and very method. And so it wasn't kind of how I imagined like, oh yeah, we'll go for a sighting there and do that. But it's like anything where there's just a lot of dull downtime with nothing and that. And then it was also when I started, it was
00:44:51
Speaker
post-COVID, so he wasn't going to be going to Scotland or anything like that. With a story of this nature where you're dealing with a family and the subject matter can be very delicate, how did you navigate just getting an earning trust with everyone here?
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think Brian was my key to that was approaching Brian first because he was a journalist, a television reporter, and then also teaches journalism and still works as a television reporter. And so I approached him as
00:45:29
Speaker
Fellow journalists who I also teach journalism at a university. And so we had this, you know, kind of connection right away and just saying, this is a great story. And he agreed. He also thought it was a great story. That's why he had done that. And he understood we were speaking the same language as journalists.
00:45:47
Speaker
And that was a big help. And I, other family members, I met them all through Brian. He helped connect me. And I thought, you know, that's the way to do this. If Brian understands what I'm trying to do, have him reach out to those siblings and say, would you be willing to talk? And then after I talked to a few more, some of them really like Dee Dee, the one sister of the siblings.
00:46:12
Speaker
really wanted to talk and was really open. And so that was easier. And then some of the others were a little more maybe not as interested in talking, but I think they did it for the sibling then at that point, right? I remember Bruce said at one point, you know, well, my sister really wanted me to talk to you, so I'm going to do it. And so I think just
00:46:39
Speaker
trying to show them that I was genuine, that I was just interested in the story and their family and I didn't really have an agenda other than telling a story and letting them do the talking and then trying to not
00:47:00
Speaker
I think a lot of times in a lot of these it's listening, right? It's, you know, you can ask questions and stuff, but really just listening and letting them start with their story, what they think is important before I get into all my questions and just learning from them. And there were also a really
00:47:23
Speaker
nice family that I think also raised very polite, too, that they weren't going to be rude to me about. You know, they felt if I was polite to them and such, they're not going to just be like rude or anything. And so that also worked in my favor that they were just the way they were raised, what was to be friendly about this and open. And of course, whenever you can meet them in person, it's so much easier. But some was done on phone.
00:47:53
Speaker
and some was done in person. It was harder the trust for that one of there was one survivor left from the boat accident and he was harder to get and
00:48:10
Speaker
Even when I got him, he still was rather reluctant, but just kept showing up in person help because it was harder for him to get rid of me that way. And again, letting him talk and just trying to ask for things, but not be too pushy and be very respectful. This is really difficult for him. And he has other things he'd much rather be doing than talking to me.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, there's something to be said, and it's very hard to do, especially where technology makes it such where it's easier to text or email. Even calling and cold calling now is all the more difficult. It spikes my cortisol to even pick up the phone and cold call people.
00:48:52
Speaker
but there's something to be said for door knocking and showing up in person. Is that something that you would, I don't know, it's a good nuclear option to earn and garner trust in a sense.
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah. And I actually, I did, I had spoken to him briefly on the phone before, so he did know I was coming, but I made a point I did not want to do it. I knew if I tried to do an actual interview on the phone, I'd get like two minutes or something. So when I was on the phone, I said, is there a time I can come and meet with you? And then he reluctantly said, yeah. And then
00:49:31
Speaker
He knew I'd driven quite a ways to get to him. So I think that also he was like, okay, she came this far. I'm going to at least give her some time. So letting them know, you know, this is important enough to you that you're going to put some effort and go out of your way a little. And I think people respect that.
00:49:48
Speaker
And so yeah, I think, well, I have done the just knock on the door before and it's, it's risky, but sometimes that is the only way. And, but when you can give a little warning, but say, look, I want to put the time into this to actually meet you in person. I think especially these days when so often we don't do anything or much in person, I think it there's automatically they're going to give you a little more time that way.
00:50:14
Speaker
Yeah, you can be far more disarming in person. Nowadays with just our various online avatars, even if we have our actual face as our Instagram profiles, it's still to be face-to-face, person-to-person, hand-to-hand. It's like, okay, this is an actual person, not just some internet avatar.
00:50:40
Speaker
facsimile of a person who I don't even know, maybe in an age of AI, are you even real? And so it's almost like we have to we have to let the pendulum swing back and do everything as more analog as possible. And that might be a case of slow is fast.
00:50:59
Speaker
I agree, and especially you're having a conversation that's about something really difficult to talk about it and something that happened a long time ago. I mean, when I went there, and of course it was a Zoom interview, I could have seen on the screen or something, but he went and then got, he's like, well, maybe you'd want to see this. And he got the folder with all the documents from the articles written about the boat accident, those things. And it was something that,
00:51:26
Speaker
Seeing that and feeling that really different than hearing that over the phone. Oh, I have all these old articles, but seeing that and seeing in the corner, it was like 20 cents for the newspaper or something. And there were some articles that I had researched old articles that I had not been able to find. I don't know if they were never archived or what.
00:51:47
Speaker
having that there and seeing the way the order he put them in versus he had these other mementos of his stepfather. His stepfather had been the boat owner and stepfather died in the accident and the body was found. And so some of the memorabilia about his stepfather and the words his stepfather received and his recognition for his service in the Navy or Coast Guard and such
00:52:15
Speaker
mixed amongst these newspaper club scenes. It was just interesting to see that, that you wouldn't grasp from someone just telling you about that.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah, and doing stuff of that nature in person, it allows luck to sometimes work in your favor, where otherwise maybe it wouldn't. And I feel like so much of research and reporting is really serendipity, and sometimes it's in-person stuff. It at least gives luck a chance to work in your favor.
00:52:46
Speaker
Exactly. Timing luck and getting people, even some of the phone conversations I had, it was good the first time and then they didn't want to follow up later. And so I just lucked out. I caught them at a good time the first time when they were already interested in exploring this and going into that. Yeah. There's so much out of your control. Yeah.
00:53:09
Speaker
And it's maddening. I've had conversations with some friends just in terms of research, and you don't want to leave any stone unturned.
Uncovering Unforeseen Story Elements
00:53:18
Speaker
But what drives me, what keeps me up at night, quite literally, is not knowing certain stones are there to
00:53:25
Speaker
Overturn in the first place. It's just like sometimes a conversation I have with someone leads to a newspaper I didn't even think about like I didn't even know it existed because not on newspapers comm I didn't know this person was in this area at that particular time So I didn't know to even look at that newspaper
00:53:42
Speaker
and suddenly I've been turned onto that paper that I otherwise wouldn't have and those are the things just not knowing the stones are there like if I know the stones are there I'll overturn them but oh my god I didn't know that stone existed that keeps me up at night
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and with this story, there were some of those that the sister, they didn't know they had that they found out about later. I didn't know anything about that to partway through the story. And I wouldn't have even thought to ask because it's not something you usually ask. Do you have any siblings that your dad had that you didn't know about until then? And so it was like,
00:54:19
Speaker
How do you know to ask for that? You don't. And luckily, it did come up later. They brought it. But I remember it was kind of just an aside at one point. And then I'm like, wait, wait, stop. We need to get further into this.
00:54:32
Speaker
And part of the story too, which you get to towards the end, is I think part of all the siblings, part of their motivation in agreeing to do this was they were hoping that you would in fact solve this mystery. And you had to kind of walk them back a little bit that this is, you know, I'll do my best, I'll do my due diligence, do my reporting, do everything to tell a good story and to find, to unlock those answers.
00:54:59
Speaker
I think in the back of their mind, they're probably hoping that like, oh, maybe you will find the answer. Yeah. And I think there's a part of me early on. I thought, well, so much these days you read so many stories, especially with anything involved DNA or something like that, where the journalist has actually been able to help find some answers to things. But without the body, I was pretty sure it was going to be
00:55:27
Speaker
I wasn't going to find anything. And so from the beginning, I kind of told them, look, you know, my goal. I'm going to look into the story and I find some interesting things, but I doubt I can solve what wasn't. But I think even myself, there's this little hope. You always have a little hope that, oh, maybe I'll stumble across the right thing and there will be something there. And so, yeah, that
00:55:51
Speaker
that was there all along and something I did revisit with some more than others. Some were really like, he's dead. There's no way and you're not going to find proof or unproof or whatever. But Dee Dee probably the most out of all of them really was like, and she admitted it. I asked her at one point, she's like, yeah, I hope you're just going to like
00:56:12
Speaker
sum it up and tell us this is how it was and kind of get that resolution. And some other people I interviewed said, yeah, I hope this gives them the resolution and closure that's there, which I think is revealing in itself, though, that people
00:56:32
Speaker
think that's possible and how you kind of live your life when it isn't really, you know. I think especially in this day and age when so much is, we can go back, as I was reading the other day, someone who died thousands of years ago,
00:56:48
Speaker
scientists are going back and trying to figure out what they died of and thinking, you know, because there's so much that science can do that we think everything can be known, but there still are a lot of things we'll never know. And I think that in this day, when so much is known, is even harder to take in some ways. Yeah.
00:57:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like Patrick Radden Keith basically solved the murder mystery and say nothing by accident. It just kind of happened. You wish that for the people at the heart of it, but it's like you still have to report the facts, report the truth.
00:57:23
Speaker
And as a story, unto itself, it works better with the unknown, just from a story perspective. But just as a reporter myself, and I'm sure you experience this too, you walk it back and you're like, oh man, there's still real people at the heart of this where they would really love to have that closure.
00:57:44
Speaker
they're not gonna get it but like story mechanic wise it like it works better this way and and it has a good satisfying read to it there's always that dialogue you're always having with yourself like oh the story is great this way but it's like oh but there are still real people that hurt at the center of it yeah that's what you're always balancing throughout is this is not a
00:58:09
Speaker
we're crafting and not making things up or anything, but a lot of the techniques of fiction, right, to its narrative nonfiction, it's crafted, but yet these are real people in real lives, and it's their story as well. And it has a real impact on them. So yeah, it's balancing those different
00:58:32
Speaker
Not needs, but yeah, it's just it's it's definitely important to always keep both of those in mind Yeah, that's always the calculus like a this inherently feels exploitative Especially the more the more artistic you turn the dial on a nonfiction story of a sensitive story You're like, okay. Well, who is this?
00:58:53
Speaker
Who is this for? Is this for my gratification of my own artistic ego? And you're using these people for your own status and your own prestige and your own byline? Or is it actually in service of something in honoring the people at the center of it? It's so hard to juggle.
00:59:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm reminded of that journalism dictate never a source should never be a means to an end. And I think sometimes once more just reminding yourself of that because we do get we get stuck in the story so much that
00:59:29
Speaker
forget. Okay. But then also as a journalist, you're not writing for your sources. So you do have to balance your like, well, it was that out of a story, it's an older one, but I read recently about the doctor in Sudan.
00:59:44
Speaker
Popping in here for just a moment, Katya is referring to Atavist issue number 53, aptly titled The Doctor. And let's see, here's the deck, if you will. Tom Catena.
01:00:00
Speaker
I think I'm pronouncing that right, is the only surgeon for thousands of square miles in southern Sudan, his hospital and his life, are constantly under threat. There is no end to the carnage he must treat and no sign of it letting up. Why does he refuse to leave?
01:00:20
Speaker
he's viewed as a hero and he does all these great things, but he also does some things that maybe are a little questionable or something. So I really respected the journalist for giving us all of that. And I think it made the doctor more of a real person as well, because yes, he does all these heroic things, but he also, he's not perfect. And I think that, well, maybe the doctor might
01:00:47
Speaker
take offense to one little thing, hopefully they see the overall thing of they're just showing you as a human, right? And a real person. But it is hard to do when you put that line in and you're like, oh, I know they're not going to really be happy with this line, but it's true and it's important. And it does serve a purpose. Yeah.
01:01:10
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Katya, bring these conversations down for a landing. I always love asking the guests, you in this case, for a recommendation of some kind. And it's just like anything you're excited about that you want to share with the listeners. And so I just extend that to you, what you recommend.
01:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, it was funny. I was actually thinking way too much about this. My best answer was Chutney and Cookie, who are not cookies in Chutney. They're two little kittens, my friend's kittens. And those little things have brought me the most joy recently. And I'm a dog person.
01:01:44
Speaker
And I've rethought the whole cat thing because of Chutney and Cookie. And so I'm recommending kittens. There's no shortage of kittens at the shelters. So they all need good homes and love and care. So yeah, that's a great one. These are actually our two rescue kittens as well. And the woman who rescued them did a really good job of just making them really affectionate. I never knew cats could be just so
01:02:12
Speaker
affectionate and have such personality. So yeah, we'll go with tortoiseshell rescue kittens. Fantastic. Well, this was such a great conversation about your story. And it allowed us to pull on a lot of different threads, be it structure or ethics and about composing these kind of things. So this is wonderful, Katja. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you so much for having me.
01:02:44
Speaker
Well well well, we made it to the end of yet another.
01:02:49
Speaker
Hardback episode of the podcast? All right, I suppose at some point or another I'm gonna have to riff about the prefontaine book. Hey, before I get to that, thanks to Jonah, thanks to Katya for, you know, coming on the show, making this possible. Okay, but yeah, all right, prefontaine book, whatever. I'm all over the place. Okay, here we go. Honestly, I just want to let it cook. There's a part of me that's just like, you know what? No one wants to hear about the
01:03:16
Speaker
The labor it's just like to show me the book who I don't care how you're getting there just get there
01:03:24
Speaker
It's in the slow cooker, man. But I'm going to have to flash fry this thing soon to develop a hearty crust. I crossed the 60,000 word mark on the writing this week. Still have so much research and reporting to do. Running into a wall with some people who don't want to talk to me, which surprises me at this point, but whatever. They're prerogative.
01:03:48
Speaker
I'm definitely, I've definitely done more than 100 interviews with 80 plus people. Jeff Perlman does that much in a month, but we know where the comparison game gets us, so we're not gonna go there. Today marks December 1st, four and a half months to deadline.
01:04:06
Speaker
I still haven't read a single word I've written? I still haven't broken it up into chapters? You're probably wondering, what the fuck are you doing, BO? And you wouldn't be asking a bad question. I talk on the phone with Bronwyn Dickey on the 15th of every month, because that's the mark of when I'm a full month closer to death. April 15th, 2024 being the final deadline.
01:04:33
Speaker
This might sound weird, but we've never met in person, but I consider her one of my closest friends. And I hope you have someone like her in your life that you can turn to like that. And maybe that's what I feel like riffing on this week. Not the usual bitching and moaning I'm guilty of, or whether it be wannabes on social media or the toxic desperation of people seeking attention before it's due.
01:04:57
Speaker
But in our own small ways, how can we leverage whatever influence we have, large or small, to open doors for others and hold that door open? Not let it hit their ass on the way out or in. You know, Jane Friedman, she shares her platform with other writers. Roxanne Gay shares her sub-stack with emerging writers.
01:05:18
Speaker
I like to think that this little podcast does something similar. I want to keep celebrating people on the show who don't look like me, who don't sound like me. I'm not perfect, I know. But it's my goal, mission, if you will, to get more people onto the stage, many who might not get opportunities. I made a joke on threads that as 2023 comes to a close, I worry that there aren't enough podcasts with dudes talking to dudes.
01:05:44
Speaker
So much of the podcast fear is white men talking to white men. And these are hosts with audiences that make mine look like a drop in the ocean. Quite literally. Well, not literally.
01:05:55
Speaker
Doesn't it pug you when people say literally and it obviously they mean figuratively or Metaphorically, I checked in with a podcast. I used to listen to back in the day, but grew fatigued by his constant interrupting of the guests his name-dropping his reliance on his network of dudes always dudes I Did a gender audit on his show
01:06:22
Speaker
Five years ago, and it was something like eight to one of like dudes to women I checked back in recently went down the list of his recents and sure enough Dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, I mean how lazy and if you really want to get into it how irresponsible Like I said, I'm far from perfect, but I'm trying and I'll continue to improve but the most 52 new episodes a year I simply can't do more seeing efforts. I just can't I can't
01:06:50
Speaker
Not unless I actually made a living from the show But so so there's finite real estate I can't do two shows a week when that would be nice give more people opportunity, but damn I can't read that much And if you even have like a modicum of leverage
01:07:07
Speaker
Consider using it to open doors and lend a hand instead of threading or tweeting about, I don't know, a blog post you wrote about your mental health journey. Listen, I'm not denigrating mental health. Y'all need to address it in whatever way we see fit. The less destructive ways, the better. I could take my own advice there.
01:07:27
Speaker
I go to beer versus doctors. But if I see another one of those stupid fucking videos of people like on Instagram, they're like set up their camera and they kind of like backtrack and then they look all coyly at the camera and then they like point to the corner and like text pops up. I'm going to throw my phone at Lachlan. And listen, he's got enough problems.
01:07:51
Speaker
God damn it, this got way too long. But here we are. Stay wild. See you in Evers. And if you can't do Interview, see ya.