The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara

"You don't have to go to the far ends of the earth, but I'm willing to do that for you, and tell you what I found," says Susan Orlean, bestselling author of several books, including her latest, Joyride: A Memoir. Look who's back! It's Susan Orlean, author of the memoir Joyride about her roller coaster career as a writer and journalist spanning decades from her time at Willamette Weekly here in Oregon to the summit of The New Yorker, from her first book Saturday Night to reaching bestseller heights with The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin, and The Library Book. It's a book that braids her life story along with hard-earned writing wisdom. We talk about: * Using notebook and pen over the recorder * The quality of her attention * Resilience * What is it that clicks with her for a story * Working through three regime of trust at The New Yorker * The more you learn of the world the better * Curiosity as a form of compassion * Idea generation * Her 'best' rejection * Why books loom larger for her * There is no end to a story * The breeding ground of jealousy * Letting the reporting meander * And Patreon questions! This episode pairs well with: Eps. 61, 121, and 281 with Susan Ep. 500 with John McPhee Ep. 514 with Tony Rehagen Follow the show on Instagram @creativenonfictionpodcast and subscribe to my newsletters Pitch Club and Rage Against the Algorithm.

"You never know what insight or information you're going to glean from someone, and so I want to be open to surprises. And not have any preconceived notions of what, who this person is, what they're going to tell me, imposing my own values, beliefs, whatever on them, because it's all a discovery," says Pulitzer Prize-winner Barry Meier, whose piece "You Can Run" appears in The Atavist Magazine. Barry Meier is here for another Atavistian chat! Yeah, these have not come out in as timely a manner as I had hoped. The late delay of the "revived" one with Mac Montandon, and having pods that were getting moldy in the can too precedence. Anyway … Barry Meier has won this little award you might have heard of called the, what is it, oh, yes, the Pulitzer Prize as part of a team of reporters in International Reporting for the New York Times. He's also been a finalist for the Pulitzer and a two-time winner of the George Polk Award. He's got a new piece out for The Atavist magazine titled: You Can Run: When their parents ripped two young sisters from their privileged lives, gave them fake names, and took them on the lam, they thought it was because their father was in trouble with the IRS. It would be years before they learned the truth about his life of crime." He's the author of three books, Pain Killer, which was the first to chronicle the Sackler family and the origin of the opioid epidemic. "The book that started it all," wrote Patrick Radden Keefe, whose book Empire of Pain was heavily informed by Barry's work. Barry also wrote Spooked and Missing Man. You can learn more about Barry at barryemierbooks.com [http://barryemierbooks.com/] . In this conversation we talk about: * Using the boundaries of an envelope to map out a story * Interviewing and the tools he uses or doesn't use * Being open to surprises * Beginnings, endings, and pacing This episode pairs well with Ep. 385 with Robert Kolker

"I always think, 'Jesus, this person could be reading War and Peace, and they picked up this dopey little book.' You know what I mean? So the best thing I could do is be interesting or helpful. I can't be boring, and I've got to try to be helpful," says Austin Kleon, author of Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again. What a pleasure to welcome back Austin Kleon to the show to chat up his new book, his first in seven years, Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again. It's published by Tarcher. Like Austin's previous books in Steal Like an Artist,  Show Your Work, and Keep Going, this pink wonder is the size of those old double-album CD cases you'd get in the 90s and it's packed with insights and inspiration Austin learned from his two young boys about being an artist and how to be a creative person in times where creativity is needed more than ever. Fun stuff. So Austin is a funny, irreverent, sometimes cranky, but almost always inspiring based on his posture in the creative world. The stuff he curates and his generosity in sharing it is a big reason his Substack audience is 309,000 people strong and as of this taping, #5 in art & illustration on the stack.  You can also learn more about him at austinkleon.com [http://austinkleon.com/] where he frequently blogs, though he's turned the dial down on that a bit in favor of the paid audience of his Tuesday newsletters. I've been plugged into the Kleon-verse since about 2014 right when Show Your Work came out and he made appearances on Creative Live with Chase Jarvis, so it's been cool to see the arc of his career to date. In this episode, we talk about: * Place and his Ohio roots * The farmer approach * The idea of uncertainty * Knowing less * Getting back to that thing * The most punk thing Metallica did * What if Austin is the apprentice now? * A revelation from Fiona Apple * How his paid newsletter audience helped cook the book * Researching in the open * Knowing what weight class he's in * Being interesting and helpful * Going full-on Beast Mode * The coveting of creative people * How jealousy shows what's broken in you * And how his kids brought punk back into his life If you're going to pair this episode with anything, check out: * Episode 146: Austin Kleon * Episodes 169 and 433 with Chase Jarvis * Episode 266 with Kristen Radtke * Episode 369 with Akeem S. Roberts * Episode 480 with Dana Jeri Maier * Episode 486 with Roz Chast

"Maybe your first images are some bulked up organism, or whatever. Then there's that kind of like sinewy strength that you see in like middleweight fighters. Roberto Duran comes to mind as the epiphany, like a super powerful, sinewy guy, right? And so I think that's what we're talking about too, is just those different forms of power, economy is really seductive to me now," says Maccabee Montandon, whose piece on his brother Asher is featured as a "revived" Atavist story. The factory is running behind here at CNF Pod HQ, but we've got the first of two Atavist pods coming this month. It's Maccabee Montandon being featured for The Atavist's "revived" series. This story, originally published by Gawker in 2013, details the story of Mac's brother Asher, who was murdered in Los Angeles in the 1990s. Mac is a journalist, writer, filmmaker, all around creative person and in this episode we talk about: * Obsessions and the best forms to tell stories * Being creatively impulsive * Word economy and sinewy strength * How the proximity to tragedy often activates people * Writing through grief * And his strength as a writer (he's fast) Visit magazine.atavist.com to read "A Hollywood Ending."

"They want the secret, and the secret is little and often over the long haul," says Dan John, author of several books on strength and fitness, most recently The Fitness Forge: Master Coaching Tools that Build Real Strength. Today we've got a bit of a curve ball, a backdoor slider, but not really. It's Dan John, who is something of a Swiss army knife of wisdom and kindness and strength and conditioning. He's been a long time strength coach and a master communicator of how to get real-life strong, not influencer, flash-in-the-pan strong, the kind of strong that allows you to fill out your shirt, carry all the groceries in one go, and shovel the driveway without leaving yourself in traction for four days. I've recommended his books many times on this show and in newsletters, and his approach to strength very much rhymes with writing, so that's a big reason why I wanted to invite him on to talk it out. You can visit danjohnuniversity.com [http://danjohnuniversity.com/] to learn more about him  and to buy books like the Easy Strength Omnibook, Easy Strength for Fat Loss, his two Armor Building Formula books and his latest The Fitness Forge: Master coaching tools that build real strength. The real crux of easy strength is that it echoes what Percy Cerutty, the Australian running coach, had his runners do in the 1950s, and it's an approachable system that doesn't feel like you've been put through a wood chipper. I spent most of my 30s training like I was a juiced up bodybuilder, hobbling around most days with that deep, bone ache. As I've aged, training in that manner is unfeasible and, well, fucking stupid, plus easy strength is awesome for running, which I'm doing quite a lot these days. So Dan John has been a champion discus thrower coming up on the coattails of the great throwers of the 1970s, guys like Brian Oldfield and Mac Wilkins and Peter Shmock. His lifting approach has always been geared around utility, not aesthetics, by and large. He has written many books like Mass Made Simple, 40 Years with a Whistle, Can You Go, Never Let Go, and several others. Some are only available on the big A, others are available as PDFS through his website. They imbue a sense of possibility, that things are achievable, and that little and often over the long haul  is doable and repeatable. If you're into fads, Dan is not for you and he often injects so much personal anecdote and wisdom from a life of nearly 70 years into his work and his podcast, the Dan John University Podcasts where he answers listener questions every week. He's very centering for me. Even hearing him talk through something as simple as his daily pirate map, which is a collection of daily habits, and merely hearing him so often articulate that defrags my computer, if that makes any sense. So in this conversation, we talk about: * Parasocial relationships * Marvel and Greek heroes * The spiderweb effect of his brain * Open Culture * Little and often over the long haul * The secret * Being a slave to habits * Parallels between lifting and writing * Collecting the links * Getting small, easy wins out of the way * Inspiration is for amateurs * Having skin in the game * And community making us great You'll find dan @coachdanjohn on instagram and of course visit danjohnuniversity.com [http://danjohnuniversity.com/] to see if his books or his inner circle is right for you.