The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara is a weekly podcast that showcases leaders in narrative journalism, essay, memoir, documentary film, radio and podcasts about the art and craft of telling true stories. Follow the show @creativenonfictionpodcast on Instagram and visit patreon.com/cnfpod to support!

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara is a arts podcast hosted by Brendan O'Meara, with 564 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Brendan O'Meara hosts The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara, a arts show with 564 episodes published.

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  Episode #543

  Episode 543: Doubt, Vulnerability, Confidence. Is Chris Bennett Talking About Writing or Running?

  Aug 28, 20261h 14m

  "I think it's a great point with writing. You know early on you realize like putting pen to paper or starting to type early on was a massive achievement. There were huge gains, and now you're still grinding to figure out like 'I don't know how to end this chapter. How do I not know how to end a chapter? I've been writing for 20 years. What's wrong with me?' And you realize like this is the gig. This is part of the fun, though. It's also part of the grind, which is why if you asked a runner their their most fun runs, they're usually their hardest runs, and it's the same thing with any other passion," says Coach Chris Bennett, author of This is About Running. This is Not About Running. It’s Coach Chris Bennett! He is the Nike Running Global Head Coach and now he’s the author of This is About Running. This is Not About Running.: Lessons for Between and Beyond the Start and Finish Line. It’s published by Dey St. If you’re looking for workouts and training plans and pace charts and Zone 2 up the wazoo, this is NOT the book for you. But if you’re looking for a 220-page metaphor for being a better writer, a better person, and yes, maybe even a better runner, then you’re going to love this book. I read it twice. The chapters are, by and large, lean and range from confidence to doubt to hope and play and regrets. Maybe this podcast is about writing and not about writing. A little more about Coach Bennett, who is something of a real-life Ted Lasso. Prior to working with Nike, he was a high school history teacher who helped coach one of the most successful running programs in the U.S. He attended the Univ. of North Carolina where he captained the XC and Track teams. After college, he spent five years on the Olympic Development Nike Farm Team out of Palo Alto, CA. He used to live in Oregon, but moved back to his native New Jersey. In this episode, we cover a lot of ground including: Why longform content is not dead How he went from working in finance to Nike How he cultivated his coaching philosophy Confidence vs. Arrogance Vulnerability Reckoning with and the fear of success The power of just focusing on yourself Self-sabotage And how running helped his writing I’d pair this episode Ep. 419 with Maggie Gigandet and her Atavist story about an ultrarunning couple and Ep. 525 with Mary Cain and her memoir of abuse at Nike called This is Not About Running.

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  Episode #542

  Episode 542: Earl Swift and the Battle to Get the Reader to the Last Word

  Aug 21, 20261h 17m

  "Our our first job, job one, for anybody writing a book, for anybody writing a story of any kind, any length, is to get the reader to that last word. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter what pretty words you drop in the middle of the story. Doesn't matter how brilliantly conceived it is. The story has failed because you have failed to get the reader to the end," says Earl Swift, author of Up on Cove Mountain. It’s Earl Swift with his tenth book. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem, and he makes his fourth trip to the podcast to talk about Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail. It’s published by Mariner Books, and what a book it is as it recounts Earl’s first hiking of the AT in 1990 and the happenstance, devoid-of-reason tragedy that befell two fellow southbound hikers in Molly LeRue and Geoff Hood. In that quest for meaning, Earl, now in his 60s, hikes the trail again to ponder the meaning of reason, luck, chance, and the enduring allure of the trail. What a joy to welcome Earl back to the show. This was a toe-tappin’ good time. The toes were tapping. We start the conversation with: How to handle a book advance What drove Earl to return to the AT How Flip flopping the trail reflected the structure Making the AT chronicle feel fresh Trail angels Narrative wormholes The people he relies on for story help Luck How hiking the AT is like reading and writing Hiking your hike How he kept track of things on the trail Proportionality Getting the reader to the last word And how nonfiction is a construct You can learn more about Earl at earlswift.com and follow him on IG @earl.swift. 

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  Episode #541

  Episode 541: 'Touch the Work Every Day' says Shanda McManus

  Aug 14, 20261h 7m

  "I applaud anyone out there who's done the book circuit and trying to reach readers, because I'm not in this to make a lot of money, not at all. I just want people to read the story. I kind of felt like I owed it to the book to do my end of this effort. That's kind of fueled me to keep going too," says Shanda McManus, MD, author of Brother Epistles: A Sister's Memoir. Today we have Shanda McManus. I’m sorry, Dr. Shanda McManus, whose debut book is a memoir titled Brother Epistles. It is a memoir written in letters to her brother Monir, who was murdered in 1992 in a drive-by shooting in Philadelphia. Monir was an Army veteran and when he was out of the army, he was involved in the drug trade and got caught up in a turf dispute. In Shanda’s telling, we learn so much about Monir and you feel the love and the grief nearly 25 years after his death. It’s a wonderful book and you’re going to hear quite a bit about it shortly. So Shanda, this was nice, this was fun. You’re really going to dig it. She’s an assistant professor of family medicine at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. Brother Epistles, published by Split Lip Press is her first book and it received a starred notice from Kirkus Reviews. Shanda’s writing has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, among other places. She’s got other myriad accomplishments that you can read about at shandamcmanus.com and follow her on Instagram @shandmdwrites. In this episode we talk about: How she thinks about promotion What we owe the book The apprehension of working with an editor The lawn sign that changed her life Post-It notes Integrating grief Finding compassion for her younger self How the story you tell leads you to the form The guilt of getting out Food journeys How place informed her writing How she shaped the book Touching the work every day And the power of reading aloud Parting shot on some major but minor changes to the podcast, but for now, it’s high time we queue Shanda

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  Episode #540

  Episode 540: Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss Tackle the Atomic City for The Atavist

  Aug 7, 20261h 22m

  "You have to remember to slow things down. In this world where there's this fast-paced news cycle, and everybody wants to get it out first, this is a different genre, so to speak. You have to slow down. You have to build that trust. You can't expect to get these details on the first interview. More importantly, you have to show you care," says Mitch Weiss, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and co-author of Toxic Lies for The Atavist. "When it comes to the writing, it helps that Mitch and I have similar worldviews and we have a similar voice to our writing, so it doesn't look choppy to readers. It's easy for him to take a chapter and I'll take another chapter, and we can make it flow together," says Holbrook Mohr, a Pulitzer finalist and co-author of Toxic Lies for The Atavist. Mitch and Holbrook’s story is Toxic Lies: For Decades, workers at the nuclear facility in Kentucky were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Management assured them nothing was wrong. Then four friends risked everything to reveal the truth. It’s a whistle-blower narrative and while the story dates back decades, you can feel the weight of the impact of industry encroaching on rural communities – i’m speaking specifically of data centers today – and what catastrophe and oversight will workers be subjected to next? How will they be exploited in the name of shareholders? To Holbrook and Mitch’s credit, they have very little by way of an internet toehold, Holbrook is on Twitter @holbrookmohr and Mitch is @mitchsweiss on IG and Twitter, but I’ll give them a greater intro when we reach their part of the podcast: spoiler alert, there are Pulitzer Prizes involved. Holbrook and Mitch are award-winning journalists with the Associated Press. They have reported together on a culture of abuse in the U.S. gymnastics program, the use of “less lethal” force by police, and the dangers of medical devices known as spinal-cord stimulators. They are the authors of the book Broken Faith: Inside of One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults. Mitch won the Pulitzer Prize and Holbrook is a Pulitzer finalist. They have been working together as a tandem since 2009, lots of work for the AP, and now independently as they navigate the choppy waters of freelance investigative journalism. In this conversation we talk about: Collaboration and trust The death of the dad book Stress testing a story as a magazine story before a book Adapting and being nimble Keeping interviews short Developing trust with sources over time Slowing things down Hearing how sentences sound And how they decompress after reporting on intense material So let’s waste no more time.

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  Episode #539

  Episode 539: How Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Writes Biographies of TV Shows

  Jul 31, 20261h 21m

  "We probably have some sense of what narrative is. So when your brain starts turning into the little movie camera because this is a juicy scene, then it's like, well, what would I want to show? What what would I want to know here?" says Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit'rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America. Dude, we have Jennifer Keishin Armstrong here today. What brings her to the CNF Pod-o-Verse is her latest book, her ninth, titled Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit-rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America. It’s published by Dutton with a forward by Nick Offerman. Jennifer also is the best selling author of Seinfeldia, and we talk about that as well, how timing is everything and there are so many things out of our control … She can be found @jmkarmstrong on IG and jenniferkamrstrong.com . OK, so Jennifer’s Parks book came out earlier this year and it’s a wonderful, breezy read about one of my all-time favorite TV shows, a show that is deeply important to me. We watch it all the time. We own the DVDs so we actually OWN it, not beholden to the whims of streaming platforms who can deplatform shows at the click of a mouse, presumably. Jennifer’s book takes you behind the scenes with actors, writers, producers and shares never before told anecdotes and insights as to why this show has such staying power despite nearly being cancelled after every season. So, yes, we talk about Parks, but we mainly talk about: Dictionaries When your brain turns into a movie camera Jennifer’s “practice book” she never talks about Her guidelines for pursuing a book How the dialogue around TV has changed in the last 25 years The ruthlessness of story craft How Parks got out from under the shadow of The Office Serendipity and non-meritocracy Living on the long tail Lessons from the Parks run And all the things out of our control Instagram: @creativenonfictionpodcast Substack: welcometopitchclub.substack.com

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