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Episode 454: Allegra Rosenberg’s Tale of Love on Ice for The Atavist
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Allegra Rosenberg became obsessed with polar exploration narratives during the pandemic. She soon came across the journals of Harry Pennell and learned of his love for Edward Atkinson. Set amongst the backdrop of the South Pole and the looming possibility of WWI, Allegra weaves a brilliant and tragic story.
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Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
Excitement for 'The Life of Steve Prefontaine'
00:00:01
Speaker
ACNF for the frontrunner, The Life of Steve Prefontaine, out by Mariner Books, is available for pre-order. I've gotten some nice notes from people who pre-ordered the book, and I love seeing that. It means a lot to me.
00:00:13
Speaker
ah You can visit the bookseller of your choice, online or in person, and plunk down your $32.99 more. Everything helps. Every author you know under the sun begs for pre-orders, and I think we need to build in budget lines for our favorite writers and our friends who have pre-orders because they mean more than the actual buying of the book itself.
00:00:36
Speaker
I know it's the same thing, but it sort of is, but it isn't, there or whatever. We only have so many dollars at our disposal, so just consider it.
Power of Narrative Conference Promo
00:00:45
Speaker
Promotional support for the podcast is brought to you by the Power of Narrative Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, my home state, or the state I grew up in, celebrating its 26th year, at the conference, and it's in a month, 29th.
00:01:02
Speaker
Hundreds of journalists from around the world are descending on Boston. You can hear from the likes of Susan Orlean, Connie Schultz, Dan Zak, and Connie Chung, listeners to this podcast. Get 15% off your enrollment fee if you use the CNF15 code. So visit combeyond.bu.edu and use that CNF15 code.
Introducing the Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:01:25
Speaker
It was so propulsive. I think I stayed up until 2 reading this diary. And the whole time was messaging my friends like, guys, I can't believe what I'm reading. This is this is amazing. It felt like a dream.
00:01:41
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNN. I know this is insane. Two episodes in a single day. It had to happen. I've got so many in the backlog. We recorded an interview like three months ago. Like, what the hell's going on? I know.
00:01:53
Speaker
That's the nature of this sometimes. Also, it's the Atavistian time of the month. So there are some spoilers here for this amazing story for this month. Visit magazine.atavist.com and read from Antarctica with love.
00:02:05
Speaker
And maybe consider subscribing to The Atavist. I don't get any kickbacks, so you know I'm good for it, CNFers. So this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell.
Allegra Rosenberg's Secret Romance Story
00:02:20
Speaker
This week, or this month for The Atavist, we have Allegra Rosenberg. She's here to talk about her piece, a piece a year in the making that follows the tender relationship between Lieutenant, and I might butcher this, Harry Lewin Lee Pennell and Edward Leicester Atkinson.
00:02:42
Speaker
They being British Navy men and it being the early 20th century, it was a love largely kept secret. But it was something not altogether uncommon for these polar explorers who spent years together on dangerous expeditions.
00:02:56
Speaker
I'll give Allegra a better intro when it comes time to hear from her. Show notes of this episode and more at brendanumero.com. Hey, there. You can follow my anti-social media page, blog posts.
00:03:10
Speaker
And you can sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. Cool recommendations. It goes up to 11. I have historically offered a monthly happy hour for newsletter subscribers, but when attendance is one or none, as has been the case of late, I begin to think that maybe it's not worth my time. Or, clearly, others.
00:03:30
Speaker
If nobody shows up to the party, do you keep sending out invites? Might be time to sunset it. Or move it to Patreon. where you can go to patreon.com slash cnfpod and consider supporting the show with a few clams.
00:03:45
Speaker
First, we're going to hear from lead editor Jonah Ogles.
Jonah Ogles' Favorite Story Feedback
00:03:49
Speaker
And it was one of his all-time favorite stories, Allegra's story here. So you know you're in for a really good slice of the editor's table.
Inspiration from Song Exploder Format
00:03:57
Speaker
There's a parting shot this week about perhaps how to freshen up the podcast.
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Speaker
I'm not just talking deodorant. Maybe it's just some renovations. I don't know. Here's Jonah. Riff.
Jonah Ogles on Editing Process
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Speaker
You've
00:04:21
Speaker
come across most of your editorial revelations when you're looking at Cracker Code. Like, when do those tend to come to you? I think it takes a certain number of reads.
00:04:34
Speaker
I really try to read a piece without making notes the first time. I can't tell you how often like I leave a comment and then the next graph addresses the comment that I just left, you know if if i'm if I just dive right in.
00:04:52
Speaker
So i i think you first have to... like take stock ah of what you have. But in terms of like like those light bulb moments,
00:05:05
Speaker
ah they're just not super predictable. You know, some sometimes it it's really obvious as you're reading a piece, like, oh, God, this this is great, and this is, like, the thing that we need to really emphasize or move up higher in the piece.
00:05:22
Speaker
And sometimes it only happens after, like, you know, four or five reads where I'm like beating my head against the wall because I can't figure out how to get the story to click the way I want it to.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so, and sometimes it doesn't even happen then. And it's not until i like talk to say word or Peter and say, oh my God, like, I just can't figure out how to make this thing really pop in the story.
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Speaker
And it's like an outside pair of eyes who who can finally say, oh well, what if you try this? And then usually like I recognize that somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, that thought had been bouncing around. It just hadn't it just hadn't made its way past like the slush of all the other thoughts.
Second Pitch Success and Unique Story Intersection
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Speaker
And with Allegra's story, I love that she had initially pitched you something you know a while ago that was rejected, but you encouraged her to pitch again. So when you received a ah second pitch, what what drew you to her ah this pitch that would be ah her Antarctica love story, if you will?
00:06:34
Speaker
There were a lot of things that I liked about this this story. I mean, first first of all, like, I love a good expedition disaster story, you know, like that's that was sort of encoded into my DNA at Outside. So so i i was intrigued I was intrigued by that aspect. But what I liked about this story is, like, it's an adventure disaster story Kind of, you know, but but it's more it's it's also this like love story about you know, this relationship that grows between these two men.
00:07:12
Speaker
That's a completely different type of story than your classic adventure disaster. And, you know, it's in an era when, ah you know, like sexuality might not even be a word that they're aware of, or, you know, they might, they're certainly not thinking of it in the way we do today. There's that aspect as well. that That's, that's,
00:07:34
Speaker
kind of this historical look at what it was like to to live as, you know, what we now call a gay man or or a bi man. but But a long time ago in an era before that that was much part of the conversation. And yet at the same time was like more or less commonplace in the in the Navy, you know, like like right away, it was a story we wanted to work on because it had a lot of different things happening in it.
00:08:04
Speaker
That all made it sort of interesting in in like a thematic way, but at the heart of it, she just had really good material to work with, you know, because it's a famous expedition. She has lots of source material to work with on that front.
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Speaker
but she also has Pinnell's letters and diaries, which he's he's just like a great diarist. He's a good writer.
00:08:31
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he He sort of wears his heart on his sleeve or on the page, and and it just makes for this story where you feel like you're really, really close to the characters in the midst of this famous narrative, but but getting a picture of it that you've never had before.
00:08:48
Speaker
Allegra had a draft of something like 26,000 words, was she just writing in a fever dream, kind of writing to grief, too, since her father had recently passed away. And she wrote a really monstrous draft, and then eventually cut this down by half. So as you're as you're reading it, ah what what are the questions you're asking yourself to get get it down to a more manageable, you know efficient, and energetic read?
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it starts off with literally like that I'd start by, by leaving comments faster and slower.
00:09:25
Speaker
And that's like, it and you know, and that, and that's just, those aren't for like, the writer to ever see that's just for me. and and And what that means is like, I started to get a little bored here and in another place, like I would, I want to know more about this. Like we're moving through this material too quickly. I don't really understand what's happening.
00:09:48
Speaker
but I'm curious and I want to know more. That sounds so simple, but that's where I start. And you, yeah so the, the parts where I want it to move faster, I i cut it down. You know, I try to distill it to a sentence or two, if it's a paragraph or maybe to a paragraph, if it's a section, once you start actually like trimming things down,
00:10:11
Speaker
all of a sudden you realize like there are there are just tangents in the story that that aren't necessary. And I will say like the editing of an atavist piece is different than a book.
00:10:24
Speaker
You know, I think most of the things I cut from her draft, for example, would be... like There were things I cut that could be whole chapters in a book and probably should be if she ever writes one about this.
00:10:39
Speaker
You reach a point where you know you you sort of have your central story and you especially as the story moves on, you want to stay as close to that as you can. So especially like in the latter half of the piece or the like the last third of a piece,
00:10:56
Speaker
i really don't like moving away from the action at all. I'm sure I talk about this with writers all the time. Like, Once we get towards the end, we are just staying close to our main characters with like the main plot line so that readers feel sort of propelled to the end. i don't want any reader to like get 75% of the way through and be like, oh boy, they're like launching into new subjects here. like maybe I don't know if I have time to finish this. I'm going to step away.
00:11:28
Speaker
ah so So yeah, i get I get more brutal as the piece goes on. With these stories also, I always love getting that a snapshot of a unique challenge that you faced with this particular piece.
Balancing Narrative and Character Development
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, the the cutting on this one, i maybe Allegra feels differently, but it it didn't feel particularly... like difficult, although i' I tend to like cutting. So that's, that's, there's probably a lot of bias in that.
00:11:56
Speaker
um You know, but one, I think one of the things that Allegra and I were, were in frequent conversation about was you know like there there's this other relationship right in in the story so you've got pennell or it might be pennell i don't know how it's pronounced but in atkinson is sort of your main love story but there's also these other two guys on the ship one of whom like confesses to his his fellow like crewmates or a couple of them that
00:12:26
Speaker
You know, he feels that he was born a woman and and that he's he's not his true self. You know, Dennis Lilly is a name and, you know, he becomes quite close with another character in the story. You know, that was something that, like, I found a a little distracting as we moved through the piece, not because it's not interesting. you know, I would expect, like, multiple chapters on it in a book.
00:12:51
Speaker
it It just came up later in in the story and I wanted to stay close. But Allegra, I think rightly made the point that like, no, this is this is important to sort of talking about this this subculture that we're diving into where men in the navy had these relationships with each other um that that may have been sexual that may have been romantic which may have you know been purely platonic but maybe bordering on on one of the others and she felt it was important to include it and and so we had to find ways of doing that so that it didn't feel like readers had necessarily been pulled out of the main narrative
00:13:32
Speaker
but were still given enough space about it that they could make sense of it. She had a very keen sense of of what she wanted, what she felt like needed to be in the piece.
00:13:45
Speaker
And so we had conversations about how to how to get those things in in a way that that felt natural and
Writer-Editor Collaborative Dynamics
00:13:52
Speaker
like it wasn't going to trip the reader up. Very nice. well I like hearing that thought process and the questions you're asking for the job at hand. So that's always wonderful to hear you your side of these things.
00:14:04
Speaker
Like that's an important part of the edit process, you know, is is having those conversations. Like one one thing I wish writers maybe recognized it a little more is like,
00:14:17
Speaker
There's not, and I'm probably undercutting myself, some writer will use this against me someday, but like, there's not necessarily like a right way of doing or or a wrong way of doing it. And and obviously that's a broad statement. but But what I mean is like, you know, a writer writes a piece with a particular, with their own sensibility and their own sense of story and and what they like and what they don't like.
00:14:44
Speaker
An editor is doing that exact same thing, you know, and and it doesn't mean they're like, ah my way is the right way or that you know my way is better than ah any other editors.
00:14:57
Speaker
But you know when you're a writer and an editor working on a story, it's a lot like being in a relationship. It's like, okay, we we are trying to make this story work within our relationship.
00:15:08
Speaker
you know So like things that the writer and I both agree are working, great. things we both agree aren't working, awesome. But then there are all these other things that you you've sort of got to, you have to have conversations about.
00:15:22
Speaker
And you' you're basically trying to convince each other, well, this is important to me for this reason, or like I really don't want it in here for that reason. There's a give and take to it in the way there is in in any other relationship where you say, okay, like I can live with that, but maybe I want this other thing in there too.
00:15:41
Speaker
And that that's just part of the process. i think I think writers sometimes get frustrated, you know, when like I i don't necessarily see see the things the same way they do.
00:15:52
Speaker
there It's important to just keep talking about it and try to figure out a way forward through it which which i think like allegra and i i hope she's happy with i'm i'm thrilled with the piece like this is one of my favorite pieces ever and allegra was great to work with and i thought we had a ah really great dialogue ah about all of those types of things as we worked on the story yeah yeah so it's a yeah great piece and as always always great to get your side of the table jonas we're going to kick it over to allegra now and uh yeah as always thanks for the time yeah thanks for having me brendan
00:16:33
Speaker
Time to hear from
Allegra Rosenberg's Inspiration and Journey
00:16:35
Speaker
Allegra. She's a journalist, historian, writer, writes about media, tech, AI, science, music, travel, business, internet culture, art.
00:16:44
Speaker
Jeez. She's working on a book by set to come out by Norton, not sure when, about fandom, and she's super into polar exploration.
00:16:56
Speaker
Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Wired, Slate, The Atlantic, now The Atavists. Her website is Allegra, with two L's, Rosenberg.com. And you can find ways to follow her on Blueski, Instagram, Substacky, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.
00:17:14
Speaker
ah So yeah, great ah great great conversation here. Just about how she went about it, when she knew she had the story, she had enough to formulate the pitch and get it going.
00:17:28
Speaker
How she just went about it, how she went about the work and why she loved the story so much. So here we are. It's time to hear from Elektra.
00:17:50
Speaker
Like when you need advice or if you're stuck, you know, what's the kind of advice that you typically seek? Well, i would say that for my whole life, my creative mentor was my dad and that's someone that I would always go to for encouragement.
00:18:09
Speaker
But unfortunately, he passed away last year. And so it's really been a journey of me trying to move through life without that sort of, you you know, unconditional so creative support. He was a musician. He was a creative himself. And so You know, that's one of the things that I have ahead of me. It's a big job to try and replace, you know, that kind of relationship. But of course, you need you know so many different people ah to replace just one person in that case. So it's definitely a journey that I'm on.
00:18:36
Speaker
And when you had those kind of conversations, what ah you know, what was it in particular you might have sought? Yeah. Well, I mean, really, he was my biggest fan. And, you know, who knows whether that was because he was just my dad, but he really was like, you are an amazing writer.
00:18:50
Speaker
Like, you can do this. You know, whenever i sort of fell into self-doubt or, you know, wasn't believing in my ability, he would be there to back me up. I had a sub stack or I mean, I still have it, but he would read every single thing I put out for my sub stack and send me this big, long comment about what he liked about it, what works really well.
00:19:08
Speaker
And so that kind of encouragement was was so so much a big part of why I felt able to pursue writing as a career. How do you wrestle with self-doubt?
00:19:20
Speaker
Well, I know what I'm good at. So if I'm ever like trying something new that's super challenging, I just make sure that there are other areas of my life that I'm more confident in that I'm moving forward in so I can get those wins somewhere else.
00:19:32
Speaker
And then, you know, keep keep up with the challenge and maybe some of the setbacks in another area of my life where I'm I'm trying to do something new. And what might you identify as the kind of stories that really drive you?
00:19:44
Speaker
I mean, I am interested in the human stories that are inside, you know, other stories. so you know, stories of, in this case, exploration and science and war, ah but in other cases, I'm interested in like the history of technology and the history of communication.
00:20:03
Speaker
you know, what are the sort of human relationships and stories that are inside these bigger sort of arcs of history? You know, i grew up reading Mental Floss magazine and Wired magazine and and you know all these stories from the most fascinating parts of human history and culture. And I was always super interested in the people behind it and like, you know, what their lives were like, you know, the lives of inventors and public figures. But like, you know, all the super interesting stuff that you know maybe isn't the sort of headline, you know, what were people really like?
00:20:32
Speaker
And, you know, for you, what are some of those things that lit you up that made you that kind of put you on this path? I would say that it's, I don't know if it's quite like that for me because I'm always motivated first by a topic or subject and then the desire to communicate my enthusiasm about that that topic. You know, i come from a ah fandom background. I've worked in the entertainment industry. and And when I was working with bands and musical artists, it was always, you know, starting from
Motivation and Enthusiasm in Storytelling
00:20:58
Speaker
a place of me being a huge fan and then putting myself in a position to
00:21:02
Speaker
communicate to other people in the industry, labels and stuff like that, why this band is good, you know why you should sign them. And I know best because I'm um sort of their biggest fan. So I love taking on that role of being this sort of communicator of enthusiasm and and helping interest in something spread. And that has carried over into my writing career where I'll find something super interesting or something that I think is super compelling. And what my job as a writer then is, is to portray or to convey that compelling nature to a wider audience.
Pitching to The Atavist and Engagement
00:21:34
Speaker
um But, you know, some authors that I've really been enjoying lately, especially like I've been reading a lot of historical fiction because I'm super interested in how the facts can be used to support, you know, interpretations of stories. So I'd say that two authors who've been really important in that realm lately for me have been Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker, who are two ah British historical fiction writers who i've I've really been loving their work lately.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, a moment ago, kind of what the crux of what you were saying of almost being like ah a hype man of sorts for a story you're into. Like that's kind of the crux of writing a query letter and getting an editor excited about it. And ah so right just, that you know, as you were formulating, say, the query for or the pitch for um this piece for The Atavist, you know, what what did that look like? What went into that for you?
00:22:29
Speaker
Sure. Well, I have obviously known about the Atavis for a long time, and i had I think I had seen that their pitch call was up on Study Hall, which is a fantastic resource for freelance writers that I really recommend that everybody subscribe to. It is so worth the money. It is how I've gotten some of my biggest stories accepted, including this one. um i saw that they had an open pitch call.
00:22:50
Speaker
I sent over a pitch for a personal essay-style memoir piece that I had been thinking of doing, which wasn't accepted, but I got a really kind rejection letter from um from Jonah Ogles at the end of this. He said, know, this isn't what we're looking for, but feel free to pitch us again.
00:23:03
Speaker
So I went and found a rejection email that Jonah wrote to me on July 2nd, 2018, when he was still at Outside Magazine.
00:23:14
Speaker
Hey Brendan, thanks for thinking of us. I love a good mystery, but this pitch suffers from something that a lot of pitches struggle with, posing questions without offering answers. For us to be interested in a pitch like this, we'd need some additional reporting that made it clear that we'd be able to tell readers what's actually happening.
00:23:31
Speaker
So I'm going to say no to this. But again, thanks for thinking of outside and good luck. Aw. and And then as it happened a couple months later, I had reached a certain point in my research for this story, which had been ongoing independently, you know, not even really planning to do anything with it, but just doing this research since the top of 2023.
00:23:53
Speaker
and' reached a point about a year after that, so February of 2024, where I was like, I think this story is ready to be seen by a wider audience. I think I have all the material that I'm probably ever going to get and and I really want to tell this story. So I'd spent, was probably like two days laboring over this pitch, um preparing to send it to Jonah, really making sure that I conveyed the access, the work that I'd already done, the fact that I at that that point had been introduced via email to some some family members, some descendants of the people involved,
00:24:25
Speaker
um And I had another research trip already planned that I could incorporate into, you know, ah an atavist version of the story. And I just sent it off. was just like crossing my fingers. And I was super lucky because Jonah previously worked at Outside Magazine, which a travel magazine, and was was already familiar with the story of Captain Scott's expedition, which is sort of the the background to this more personal story. So i was lucky that he had the um the context for why this was such an interesting and compelling story to tell.
00:24:53
Speaker
How did this story get on your radar in the first place? It's a great story. I have been interested in polar exploration for probably four or five years at this point. It was like my pandemic hobby, and it just turned into such a huge part of my life over the past few years. and i got in the habit of reading diaries of these explorers just for fun and because there's a bunch that have been published.
00:25:18
Speaker
There are a bunch that are available online through museums and archives. During the pandemic, a lot of ah museums, especially in far-flung parts of the world, began making a lot of their material available digitally for researchers because it was hard for researchers, obviously, to to travel to archives. So especially in Australia and New Zealand, um they started uploading a bunch of their stuff. And Pennell's Diary was one of these PDFs that was uploaded. And i found came across it one day. i was like, you know, I'd really love to read another one of these great diaries from this expedition. I think I've read them all. I don't think that there's any left. And I came across this one and i was like, I think this is going to be my evening reading. So I just sat down and started reading this, you know, like 400 page handwritten PDF.
00:26:00
Speaker
And as I read it, the story just unfolded completely organically because you're, you're reading it sort of week by week in Pennell's handwriting, you know, the story of him getting the job on the expedition, getting on the ship, meeting Atkinson,
00:26:14
Speaker
Saying goodbye, seeing him again, missing him. And and it just all sort of, it was so propulsive. I think I stayed up until 2am reading this diary. And the whole time was messaging my friends like, guys, I can't believe what I'm reading. This is this is amazing. It felt like a dream.
00:26:29
Speaker
And that's when I knew that there was this story there that hadn't been told. Isn't
Discovering Untold Polar Exploration Stories
00:26:33
Speaker
it crazy? Like when you come across a story, like how has this not been told? And you feel like you're in on this secret and you're like, holy shit, I got to get this.
00:26:40
Speaker
I don't know. i got to i got to get on this. I got to get this secret out. But maybe before someone else gets it. But I'm like, you feel like you're sitting on something that is just so hot. Right. Yeah, absolutely. and and And part of it was that really only two or three people had ever read this diary in full before. And I happened to know both of them.
00:27:00
Speaker
they're other members of the polar research community. And for various reasons, neither of them had chosen to publish this specific part of the story, I think, because One of them had read it quite a long time ago in the scheme of things and didn't feel that it would be appropriate.
00:27:15
Speaker
And another one of them also read it a while ago and just it it wasn't quite relevant to the project that they were working on that they had read it for. But he's quite an obscure member of the expedition. He wasn't in the shore party.
00:27:26
Speaker
He doesn't come up a lot in Cherry Garrard's worst journey in the world. So there was a lack of interest. And then there's also the fact that obviously ah the family, his family knew of his sexuality, as it were. And, you know, that was just something that was known in the family that no academic or researcher had really been interested in So you you read through this this diary. ah And so what happens what happens next for you?
00:27:54
Speaker
um Well, that's when I sort of start the process of of compiling it into sort of a semi-private blog post because I want to share this with the research community. I have kind of like the opposite of hoarding when it comes to research. it's I'm always so eager to share with people because I want to, again, communicate that enthusiasm and and and communicate that that joy of a discovery.
00:28:15
Speaker
So I pretty quickly... whipped up a blog post with some of the best quotes from the diary. And I didn't even go looking for further sources. i The other two researchers I mentioned, i I reached out to them and I said, but do you know anything further? Like, I think my main question at that point, because I only had Pennell's point of view, was like do you think this was a reciprocated relationship?
00:28:37
Speaker
And both of them said like, yes, insofar as much as repressed Edwardian men can reciprocate something like this, they very much did love each other, which was, you know, ah wonderful to hear. and And so then after that first blog post had gone up, that's when I decided to to get that other side of the story, go out to other sources beyond this original diary and and see what else I could find.
00:28:58
Speaker
So how do you track down the the family and people that um can bolster ah the narrative even more than your initial research? Yeah, I mean, well, they commented on the blog post. They're like, yeah, that's that's Harry Pennell. If you ever want to chat about him with us, like you know email. And I'm like, okay.
00:29:17
Speaker
um And they also, ah the the two other researchers I mentioned had also both been in touch with members of the family. So you know everyone in the polar world knows or knows of each other. It's a very small community. um And so it was not that hard to yet to make to make those connections. Yeah.
00:29:34
Speaker
So as you're starting to gather that information, at what point does the and the the photochemical development of this story start to really take shape for you?
00:29:46
Speaker
It's the thing, it's like, you know, as a reader of historical fiction, you can, I'm sort of well-practiced in an imaginative sense of spinning up a whole story based off a sentence that I read, right?
00:29:57
Speaker
Like, you know, doing primary source research and and and sort of, there's there's an involuntary sort of narrative building that tends to happen in my mind. when I'm reading you know something like this. And I sort of see it like a movie, I think. So you know just some of the imagery in that original diary. I mean, Pennell is this fantastic writer.
00:30:17
Speaker
One of the things that makes this story made this story so easy to write is that he's a much more expressive writer than most men of his generation. I would say Scott, Captain Scott is another example of a writer who is like incredibly expressive and and really skilled at spinning a ah narrative ah in a diary in particular. And Pennell's the same way.
00:30:36
Speaker
Some of the things that he writes, you're just like, oh my God, like I can see it when he talks about before the the train arrives to take them to Christchurch where they're gonna break the news of Scott's death, he and Atkinson go and sit in a field together waiting for the train. And I just felt like I could see that, just the way that he describes it. i mean, he's a very vivid writer at least, but you know quite you know an amateur, he's writing for his diary.
00:31:00
Speaker
yeah It's not like writing for publication, but he has this natural narrative sense that's so useful from a from a writer's perspective or somebody that's going to do something with that material. I mean, he really builds the whole thing sort of for you. I think that's beautiful.
00:31:16
Speaker
And as you're you know writing the piece and coming together you know and yeah structuring it in in a way that really has that that energy ah behind it, no what did you find were some yeah unique challenges as you were synthesizing it, as you're going back and forth with Jonah?
00:31:32
Speaker
Yeah, well, let me tell you, the first draft of this was over double the length. I think I binged out 26,000 words in about 30 days of the first draft of this piece.
00:31:46
Speaker
And to give myself some grace there, that was the month after my father died. And it it absolutely was a kind of coping mechanism you to write about somebody else's story of of grief and of hardship.
00:32:00
Speaker
But I also was just and i i'm incredibly familiar with every inch of this story at that point. And there was so much that I wanted to say. And I i feel like I know these guys so well.
00:32:11
Speaker
And so it's hard from that vantage point, that closeness to a story to step back and see what are other people actually going to care about. i feel sorry. I'm i'm ah very apologetic to Jonah about it. And I feel bad that I gave him this huge honking draft to work with. But it just sort of poured out of me.
00:32:29
Speaker
So that that wasn't the hard part. The hard part was cutting it down because it felt like. I felt like physical pain every time he would cut one of my favorite, but quite irrelevant bits. I think for me, one of the major things that got cut were, I mean, the fact that Pennell's diary, which is the main primary source, goes through this entire, you know, almost year that they spend together back in England.
00:32:51
Speaker
And also there's a set of letters that are about when they're both going home on separate ships to England. And there's a lot of material there. I mean, he basically talks about what they do every single day. And so a lot of that had to get cut. And I just had to say they they did this and this and this and this.
00:33:05
Speaker
But some of the great moments that got cut there, like, yeah, when they're on these separate ships going home, they're writing to each other. And then Atkinson is escorting Oriana Wilson and her sister home on a steamer.
00:33:17
Speaker
And Oriana and her sister both wrote these long, long letters describing that voyage, which are so wonderful and vivid, just about Atkinson's personality, seen from a different vantage point to Pennell's. And because we don't have a first-person narrative from Atkinson, it was tough for me to cut that section because I felt that that section gave Atkinson so much more character and so much more color.
00:33:41
Speaker
ah in terms of talking about how these two women saw him and how he acted on the ship, you know, sort of out of a naval environment and out of the expedition environment, how he took some time to warm up to people and was very quiet, but all these girls at the table had crushes on him and, you know, he's very charming and he would, you know, sit with Oriana and they would like count all the birds because she missed her husband who was a bird watcher who died on the expedition. Anyway, beautiful sequence, pretty much all cut except for one line.
00:34:11
Speaker
And as you're yeah synthesizing the and generating the pages and the work, you know, what what were some of the passages or scenes that really jumped out at you that were so vibrant and kind of maybe even fun to write?
00:34:27
Speaker
I think there are so many that could be their own little vignettes, like the scene where ah the ship is about to leave after dropping everybody off for the first time and Atkinson has snow blindness because he's been out on the ice and he can't really see Pennell as he says goodbye to him. And, you know, they're they're about to spend a whole winter on the ice and and they don't know if they'll be there when.
00:34:47
Speaker
the ship gets back. So it's a very touching moment. And the fact that Pennell, again, like feels the need to mention that in his journal, it's like, he wishes that Atkinson could have seen him when they said goodbye. Like he, he feels like a pang, I think. And so that's ah that's a beautiful scene.
00:35:04
Speaker
And then, There's a moment where ah further into the piece where the ship has come back and there's this whole snafu with one of the Lieutenant Evans is sick with scurvy and Atkinson, you know, doesn't know if he's he has to stay with him on the ship because he's so sick. And so they they they put the lieutenant on the ship and suddenly Atkinson's on the ship for a couple of days, just sort of keeping watch of this guy with scurvy. But he's there with Pennell as Pennell sails back and forth trying to to rescue some other men.
00:35:32
Speaker
And Pennell says, well, this lieutenant is sick with scurvy and my whole plan of coming in and staying with everybody on shore for the season is canceled because of that. But at least Atkinson is here now for these couple days on the ship and I can spend this time with him. And he again, he comes out and says that it's wonderful to imagine Teddy Evans just sort of lying half dead with scurvy, being completely neglected by Atkinson, who just wants to spend all his time chatting with Pennell up on the bridge.
00:35:56
Speaker
I think you ah you illustrate well a kind of restlessness that is inherent to a lot of the the men central to the story on the water and exploring and in ah in charting charting the unknown. There is that restlessness at the heart of the story.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, something that I regret I didn't really get in, wasn't able to get into, because again, this is such a character focused story is how these men, you know, were very, very active participants in imperialism and they were enthusiastic and they really saw it as their purpose.
00:36:26
Speaker
ah You know, they were Navy men, they were in the, you know, the sort of Imperial Navy. And that is what gave them a lot of that drive and purpose, that nationalism that thought that they're doing it for England. That's a really interesting thing to play against this very tender, very intimate love story. It's like even these people that we tend to think of as you know and pawns in this larger story with a lot of atrocities and a lot of really difficult stuff, even...
00:36:51
Speaker
Even they were off you sort of having these these romances that couldn't be fully spoken aloud. So how do you how do you grapple with that as a writer and as a reader? Like, how do you interrogate that? And and if if I'm able to expand this into a larger project, that's something that I'm really looking forward to picking apart.
00:37:08
Speaker
You know how did the way that they felt about themselves writers ages of imperialism factor into their perceived need to get married to women and their need to be at the front and to to be serving in this war.
00:37:23
Speaker
yeah We have another character in in this and this piece who's a conscientious objector, right? you know how did How did they relate to him in that state ah versus like Atkinson, for example, very enthusiastic participation in in his wartime duties?
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, there's that element, too, as World War one is breaking out. like there There is almost this this hustle to want to participate in that. And that's unthinkable readers today, right? it's It's one of these moments where the past seems very alien.
00:37:54
Speaker
You have these men who are having these quite familiar and understandable feelings of yearning and logging longing. And in the next sentence, they're like, all I want to do is go to war, which... Is a mindset that I think for a lot of readers is going to seem quite foreign.
00:38:09
Speaker
And yet was very, very, very commonplace and even expected among the men of their generation. What is it about the the polar exp expert? lay ah geez I can't even say the damn word that like the polar exploration world that ah that you find so appealing.
00:38:25
Speaker
Well, again, it's that contrast between this incredibly alien and scary thing that they were doing and were so excited about doing, which is basically like flinging themselves into this cold void that, you know, they didn't know.
00:38:40
Speaker
whether they would come back or whether they would survive. you know, they were so enthusiastic about exploration a lot of times because of of this sort of element of nationalism. ah And they were doing these things that we a lot of us can't imagine doing, like hauling hundreds of pounds of food through the ice and facing blizzards and scurvy and all this this terrible and terrifying stuff. And at the same time, they were making their own little domestic world of of friendship and loyalty and trust and and and sort of having these little human dramas that play out, you know, sometimes quite petty, sometimes quite moving in and amongst this incredibly alien context, right? So it's that...
00:39:21
Speaker
contrast that sort of the way those two elements play off of each other ah that I think is for me really, really fascinating and keeps me coming back. I mean, of course, there's a sort of inherent appeal to tales of daring do and adventure. and But one of the things that I ran into when writing the story is the fact that and the fact checker is like, well, we'll make sure we get the mileage right. You know, how many miles did they have to go and what latitude where they they were at? And um that's something that a lot of readers of these kinds of works really care about. It's like who got how far and, you know, what tools did they have? And I'm like, to be honest, I could care less.
00:39:57
Speaker
ah For me, it's about the people and about the emotions and about, you know, the the the sort of human side of the story. And when I had to fact check, like the mileage, I was like, I don't know, you know. Yeah. I don't pay attention to that sort of thing. I know. I know what you mean. Like, I have a ah book coming out in a couple months about a very famous runner.
00:40:16
Speaker
And part of me, like, as I was in the nauseating rereads of the and rewriting of the book, it's just like I would come across ah a time for a race. And it's like, oh, my God, do I have this time right down to the hundredth decimal point?
00:40:32
Speaker
Because there's going to be some... Some running nerd out there is you like, no, wasn't three fifty one point three. It was three fifty one point one. like And you're a fraud. You fucking idiot. And it's just like, i ah yeah, so that's guy I understand where you're coming from. I care more about the heartbeat, but there are some people out there like if you get one decimal point wrong on a time or a latitude, you're like, they call you a fraud.
Balancing Accuracy with Human Storytelling
00:40:55
Speaker
I fully expect that to happen with this piece because I think we had to reach some kind of decision about using geographical miles versus nautical miles and you know all this little fiddly stuff. But yeah, no, that's that's definitely a thing.
00:41:06
Speaker
um But yeah, it's like a lot of the attention with Scott's expedition in particular has it been about why did they die? you know what where Where were the failure points? Whose fault was it? And I hope that this story you know goes some way in towards presenting a sort of alternate canon where that question doesn't really matter, right?
00:41:25
Speaker
you know, this sort of endless back and forth of articles and in polar academic journals about like, well, was it Atkinson's fault? Was it Mears' fault? Was it Cherry's fault? Was it Teddy's fault? You know, the fuel and the food and the this and the that. I'm like, well, let's do something different for a little while, actually, because there's so many other stories that should be told about, you know, the people that were on this expedition and and why they were there and what happened to them afterwards.
00:41:50
Speaker
And through the course of, ah you know, your your body of work, but, in you know particular, in this piece, ah yeah do you like working with dead people versus living people?
00:42:03
Speaker
um Well, I love getting to interview subject matter experts and like people who are there. so that's one thing that I miss out on when I'm doing like these historical pieces. I love getting to talk to somebody who like really knows their stuff. And I've been doing a lot of that with my freelance pieces for National Geographic lately, which has been super fun.
00:42:21
Speaker
But at the same time, ah there's a particular joy associated with primary sources that I really, really, really love. ah my ideal, i think, piece would be something that mixes the two of those, right? Getting to really dig into the archives and then getting to go talk to an eyewitness or two or something like that.
00:42:40
Speaker
i'm I'm reading a biography of Ernest Shackleton right now that was written in the 1950s. So they they they went, you know, and he had died in the 1920s. So they they go through all his diaries, but then they also talk to a bunch of of people who who were still alive at that time who knew him.
00:42:53
Speaker
and And I like that mix a lot. um And I think it presents, you know, the possibility for, different perspectives and, you know, sort of raising certain questions about memory and stuff like that.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah. And when you were, you know, as you were getting into the the more back and forth with Jonah and the in the rewriting, we talked about the drastic cuts that you needed to make. ah But throughout the the restructuring and the reorganizing around that, you know, what did you find to be, you know, some of the the other ancillary challenges that ah came across your desk?
00:43:25
Speaker
Well, definitely fact checking. And that was my own fault because my sources were not in order. and then, you know, there's so much amazing visual stuff.
00:43:37
Speaker
And, you know, i' i'm I have no input as the writer into the sort of art direction of the piece. I wanted to make sure that they were supplied with image references. And then with fact checking, I think there were certain things, and this is very much, it you know, the effect of having been at this research for almost two years,
00:43:54
Speaker
is that the fact checker would say, where's the source on this? And I would say, i just know that it's true. I read it somewhere, perhaps years ago. um But luckily she was very, very patient. So trying to figure out how I knew what I knew,
00:44:07
Speaker
right yeah And um I'm really lucky that the members of the polar research community were super patient with my questions when I would go back to them for sources um on things like, you know, ah pronunciation and how did we know that this guy hated this other guy again? And, you know, so everyone is super, super generous with their time and with their resources. So, I mean, this piece absolutely could not have existed without the collaboration of a whole research community of really enthusiastic people.
00:44:36
Speaker
And I i love in looking at your your website, too. It's almost got like a kind of a circus-like feel to it. ah by ah Yeah, it's ah based off 19th century woodblock printing. Yeah, ah that it's great. And it's it really illustrates, I think... ah the wide swath of what it means to kind of be a working writer and these days, you know, just the, you know, the degree to which you have to diversify all those things as much as we might want to write, you know, four or five long features a year and call that a career. That'd be awesome. But those days are, ah those days are done.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But I, so just for you, i think a lot of people out there who listen to the show, they like to get a sense of how a writer makes a living. So how do how have you, you know, started to just cultivated that for yourself through different revenue channels, ah be it journalism or, you sometimes even like content work? Yeah.
00:45:32
Speaker
I mean, it's it's quite hard and I'll be completely transparent. I have accepted a full-time role ah beginning 10th, which I'm super, super excited about. But that's going to be my first full-time role in journalism. it was quite a journey to achieve and it only came on the heels of you know the last couple years of really, really intense work.
00:45:51
Speaker
freelance work and and and pitching and, you know, finding places for myself in the field. You know, I was lucky. I started off with a part-time position at the social media platform Tumblr while I went to grad school.
00:46:06
Speaker
And then while I was doing both of those things, I also started building my freelance portfolio with um some working, collaborating with some sub stack writers on, you know, put it, placing, I had regular columns and and would play stuff with them.
00:46:18
Speaker
Those had a pretty wide readership and that got me the attention of a book editor, ah which through a long through a long process is how I ended up getting ah my my agent and my deal for my my first book, which is still forthcoming, still working on that.
00:46:32
Speaker
um But then once I had that, I could start saying, well, I'm about to be a book author and you know putting that in my sort of slug for the pitch is a pretty – pretty good thing. And so I started getting more freelance work and and sort of building up on that.
00:46:46
Speaker
If you had a ah good, you know, a good idea, you know, how often were you pitching that? How many outlets might you be pitching it to? You know, how did you kind of keep it the momentum of it going in case it was, you know, turned down? Yeah. Keep it out. Keep it going.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah. That's a tricky question, just because while I was doing a lot of this pitching, i was also doing, write it working on my book manuscript or, you know, doing free other freelance work. So um I would try to pitch at least a couple times a week. I mean, there's like the amount of volume that you have to put out for pitching to like maintain a steady flow of of pieces is pretty crazy.
00:47:22
Speaker
And I think sometimes I would, you know, get distracted with other work and then suddenly realize like I had sent out no pitches and then I would have no work. um So it was definitely a challenge. But I think, sorry, I'm pulling up my data because for the last two years, I've tracked how many pitches I send and how many articles that I wrote. So in 2023, which was my first full-time year of freelance writing, sent 55 pitches and I 27 accepted and 23 published. Yeah.
00:47:51
Speaker
And then 2024, surprisingly didn't do much better. i had 107 pitches sent and only accepted and only published.
00:48:04
Speaker
So they they did very, cause a lot of that in 2023, I had some steady editors and then who left their positions and I had to really start from scratch in 2024. But also in 2024, I accomplished, i I was, I had bylines in nine new publications and I made relationships with new editors and I was published in some prestige outlets, which I was pretty proud of. So, you know, you win some, you lose some, it's really hard to be a freelance writer.
00:48:32
Speaker
Oh, for sure. And it's such a ah numbers game. And I feel like but you sharing those numbers is really helpful because ah know people just don't know what the batting average is And I would say like you're you've got a pretty good batting average there on that alone.
00:48:48
Speaker
um I would say like even a a normal batting average is far, far lower, too, at least in my experience. So it's just like if we talk about those numbers, then when people get...
00:48:59
Speaker
you know, eight rejections out of 10, they're not going to feel as shitty to be like, oh, I'm actually kind of i'm on pace, you know, that's fine. Instead of feeling like, oh, my God, I'm such a failure. And also part of it is some of those pitches last year, I would send a ah them in bulk, like many pitches to editors that I had a good working relationship with.
00:49:18
Speaker
So they wouldn't even progress to like the full, you know, fully written out pitch stage. The editor would just say, no, I'm not interested that idea. And it would save me a lot of time and energy. And also that number of total pitches sent went up because I did start multi-pitching and like sending pitches to ah multiple outlets at the same time, which I don't think I'd really done the year before that, but like just out of necessity, like I, you know, like I can't wait to hear back from one before sending to the other because some places could take ages to get back to you, even if you know the editor.
00:49:45
Speaker
And bringing it back to your Atavis piece, you know, when you, you know, now that it's ready to ah go out into the world and and be consumed, you know, what is, ah you know, what are you hoping people take away from it, from all the work, all the cutting you did, all the reporting and research? You know, what are you hoping and resonates with ah people the most? Yeah.
00:50:04
Speaker
Well, that is a great question because I have been thinking of nothing else for like the past year as I've been working on this peach like piece. Like, please, like, let me remind you, I pitched it last February and it's finally coming out.
00:50:15
Speaker
I have been thinking, I just want people to cry. My fact checker said she cried. my mom was like very emotional when she read it. And I'm like, I want people to get sad because sadness, at least when you're reading something like this, to me, is a form of enthusiasm. Like you're feeling something. You're really like, you know, moved. I want people to be moved because it's a story that really moves me.
00:50:35
Speaker
And beyond that, I want to show people that polar exploration is an area of history where – There are so many stories like this. There are so many like deeply emotional stories of friendship and connection and and loyalty and tragedy.
00:50:50
Speaker
And if this piece can get some people who've never picked up about a book about polar exploration to pick up a book about polar exploration, I will be very, very happy. i want to send people down that rabbit hole, down that funnel. And at the bottom of it, there's this amazing community where you will you know be welcomed.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think last year I had I'm blanking on the author's name, but I'll make sure I splice that in. But ah he released the The Battle of Ink and Ice. Daryl Hartman. Daryl Hartman. There we go. Yeah, he was on the show last year for that book. And it's just another one of those great books that's...
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah, that it deals with, well, that one had had a lot to do with newspaper rivalries and and exploration. But yeah, it's just like it's such a ah know a weird, wonderful subculture that's so well documented because everyone kept these amazing journals for the most part.
00:51:39
Speaker
Yeah. And also they were like, you know, like celebrities. They were the rock stars of their day. There's so much, like I did a lot of research in newspaper archives for this story because, you know, after they returned and there was this terrible tragedy that was headline news, like they gave interviews. And so like,
00:51:54
Speaker
yeah know That's another voice to be put to use in a story like this. um Yeah, Battle of Ink and Ice is a great book. And it's also a great example of the way that um polar history intersects with sort of communications and print history and print culture, and which is, like I said, another one of my big nerd areas. So I really liked that book.
00:52:13
Speaker
Nice. Well, Allegra, when I ah ah close down these conversations to bring them down for a landing, I love asking for ah you for a recommendation for the listeners out there. And that's just like anything you're excited about.
00:52:24
Speaker
That's ah making you happy that you're like, oh, yeah, I want to share that. ah This brand of socks or this fanny pack. ah Yeah, whatever whatever you like. Yeah. um Knitting. All I have been doing basically lately while I wait for this new job to start is knitting.
00:52:39
Speaker
And I highly recommend getting into knitting if you're the kind of person that always finds yourself scrolling through your phone while watching TV. It's a great way to wean yourself off of that second screen and sort of direct you know stop scrolling because you have to have your little knitting counter app open on your phone so you can't look at anything else.
00:52:55
Speaker
You're watching TV, you're knitting, you're sort of at peace, you're engaging your fine motor skills. And at the end of it, you got a cute hat. So strongly recommend knitting for all of the sort of ah unmedicated ADHD people out there.
00:53:10
Speaker
As one, I can tell you that it's a really great sort of tool. to calm the mind and to center yourself and to and to get in the zone and stop looking at your phone. Oh, I love it, Allegra. That's wonderful. So yeah well, the awesome. Well, thank you so much for the for this incredible out of a story you've written ah and for carving out some time to talk some shop on on the show about it. So thanks, Allegra.
00:53:31
Speaker
up Thank you so much. I'm so excited for everybody to read this story. i am super, super proud of it. I'm getting emotional just thinking of, you know, how long of a process this has been and and how ready I am to see it out in the world. um So thank you so much for having me.
00:53:52
Speaker
Yes. Big thanks to Jonah and Allegra for their time. Remember to consider subscribing to theatavismagazine.atavist.com. Pre-order The Frontrunner. And consider the Power of Narrative Conference in a month's time.
00:54:06
Speaker
CNF 15 to get a nice little discount. Visit combeyond.bu.edu. It's only a month away. Okay, so listen. I've long thought about how I can renovate the interior of this podcast. Anytime I do it, I tend to get a little bit lazy and just don't.
00:54:24
Speaker
um I've long admired how Rishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder edits his episodes. If you haven't listened that podcast or haven't heard of it, it's great. He features a musician, be it John Baptiste or Metallica.
00:54:42
Speaker
And he clearly interviews them about how they construct a song. So they kind of deconstruct the song that they have coming out. And then they kind of layer it and put it together. And they basically narrate how they think their way through the construction of a song.
00:54:59
Speaker
And Rishikesh...
00:55:03
Speaker
pretty much edits himself out of the entire final cut. He's rarely in there. Episodes are always under 30 minutes, and I think that's a real sweet spot to get to.
00:55:14
Speaker
like I'm almost beginning to think asking for an hour of someone's time is rude. Say nothing of the north of our 90 minutes, two hour podcast out there. like I ain't got time for that.
00:55:29
Speaker
I was thinking how to energize the show a bit. And that might mean getting brutal with the edit. Like if I find myself drifting off at all, or like just kind of drifting during the edit, that's probably a good sign I should cut it.
00:55:46
Speaker
And I can't um and ah my way to a tight edit. You know, I would cut 90% of those out so it's a better listen on the ear. But that's like...
00:55:57
Speaker
trimming the passive voice into active voice and hoping to cut large swaths of your manuscript. Like you got to take a chainsaw to, uh, to the manuscript to really cut things down.
00:56:09
Speaker
It's gotta be the great stuff, like the really great stuff or, or it goes. And it's not an ns insult to the guest. I've long thought that if you spend an hour with me, we're gonna keep most of that hour. Like if I speak to someone like an Isabel Wilkerson Ta-Nehisi Coates, like how do I cut that down to 30 minutes from 60?
00:56:30
Speaker
You'd be a monster, but I think maybe I should. I listened to a conversation with Hanif Abdur-Aqib, who's previously on the show, on Song Exploder, and it was 30 minutes.
00:56:43
Speaker
And I felt like that was enough. It was really good. I'm guessing it was close to an hour of raw tape, and the edit brought it down to just the gold. And you wouldn't think of leaving the fat on a piece of writing.
00:56:55
Speaker
And many, many, many podcasts have a lot of fat to lose. Many of mine do, despite my editing. So I'm going to try to see what happens when I get savage with an edit.
00:57:10
Speaker
Problem is we talk about, on a particular episode, we talk about the book at hand or the article or essay. and we also talk about process and craft. And that can get long and wordy, yeah probably enough for two episodes.
00:57:24
Speaker
but i I think I can make a ah tighter product that is not as bloated, but it still has what you love and a fraction of the time.
00:57:35
Speaker
So that's going to be my goal. I'm not going to try to take too big of a bite of that apple, but I am going to get really, really tight about the editing.
00:57:46
Speaker
We'll see if it sticks because sometimes all I want to do is clip out the verbal tics and move on with my day. And I'd welcome your feedback. So you can email the show creative nonfiction podcast at gmail.com. You can let me know what you think.
00:57:59
Speaker
you know, if you'd like it a little bit tighter, so long as it doesn't sacrifice the material that you've come to enjoy from the show. I think I can deliver the same thing and maybe make it 15 minutes shorter.
00:58:13
Speaker
Ideally 30, but let's not get greedy. All right? So stay wild, see you neffers. And if you can't do interviews. so yeah