"I love talking with people. I also like that process of trying to shape messy reality into some kind of story, or that moment when you're alone with your notes, and you're trying to figure out how to organize it, and how to bend it into something that works as a story that will carry readers. That's the probably that's the kind of calmest moment for me," says Matthew Wolfe, author of Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and Secret History of Eco-Sabotage.

Hey, CNFers, another LIVE podcast recording, this at Hodgepodge Books & Taps in Eugene, where I spoke to author and journalist Matthew Wolfe and about the art and craft of telling true stories. Pretty great. I love bringing my rig to places and gigging the podcast. This was a standing-room only event and they sold out of books, and two kegs were kicked. Is it the CNF Pod effect? You tell me.

Matthew was on the show last year when he had an Atavist story so I HAD to talk to him, haha, but he reached out to me several weeks ago wondering if I’d be willing to interview him as part of a book event and I was like, I know a venue and we’ll make it a podcast. HIs book is Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage. It’s published by Viking.

I cut out the Q&A portion of this because you couldn’t hear the question and I wasn’t assertive enough to repeat the question into the mic. I’ll be better about that in the future, but also, that’s the ephemeral part of the live experience: part of why we attend live events is because it’s here and then it isn’t.

So in this live podcast, Matt and I talk about:

• The ledger of invisible debts
• Asking questions in a stakeless way
• How Matt interviews
• Shaping messy realities
• How research is like cooking
• Broad stroke outlining
• Writing through quotes
• Why he’s still drawn to this kind of work
• Competing with the phone
• And the blood, flesh, and messiness of human existence

Do enjoy.

"One of the things that Patrick Radden Keefe told me was, when I'm doing interviews, I'm always thinking about the anecdote that I will tell someone later at a bar, this is the thing I talk about. That's helpful because there's so much to work with even in one interview or one scene, and the those little gems that you pull out instinctively when you're talking to other people have value, and so I'm often thinking about that in terms of writing," says Alex Ronan, who wrote "The Extremist in the Family" for the Atavist Magazine.

Today we welcome Alex Ronan who wrote The Extremist in the Family: The Kerrs were devoted to one another and to their faith. But when one of their own rejected modern medicine in the name of God, they faced a dire question: What if her children ever needed a doctor to save their lives?

There’s a note as well: This story contains descriptions of child abuse and death. It draws from testimony given by many of the named subjects and extensive court records.

That sets the table, no? It reminded me of the Metallica song “The God That Failed.” You should check it out. It’s what happens when people who believe in divine healing reject medical treatment on religious grounds and die. This story has newborn deaths in it, wholly preventable with a little vaccine that addresses Rh incompatibility. Essentially, when an Rh negative mother conceives a child with an Rh positive father, and the fetus is Rh positive, the mother creates antibodies that attack the fetus’s blood cells, which will lead to a potentially fatal case of jaundice, if untreated within a day or so after birth. Abigail, the baby, was Rh positive. Prayers did not, nor could they ever, have saved her. She wasn’t the only one.

Alex Ronan is a journalist whose work has appeared in Elle, New York, The New York Times, n + 1, The Nation, and Vogue. She was a 2023 recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She has had work optioned for film/television by Amazon Studios and Hulu, which is kinda cray. You can find her on Instagram at alexronan and on Substack at reallyalexronan.

This was a really rich conversation, and she really came to play ball, which I always appreciate. We talk about:

Using short fiction as a model for nonfiction writing

• How she builds character in nonfiction
• Active listening
• Divine healing
• The family, the story, and the stakes
• Putting the reader in different people’s shoes
• Walking before writing
• Seeking the anecdote (a tip she learned from Patrick Radden Keefe)
• The power of practice
• And what she struggles with

Parting shot will be right after this part of the podcast. Let’s wait no more. Here’s Alex Ronan.

"The mission of a nonfiction writer is to get the damn thing done," says Wil Haygood, author of several books, including his latest The War Within A War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home.

I’m so thrilled to welcome back Wil Haygood to the show to talk about and celebrate his latest book The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home. It’s published by Knopf.

Wil is one of the most accomplished journalists and authors working in American letters and just a good-ass dude. He’s the author of several books including The Butler (which was made into a movie), Showdown, The Harlem Renaissance, In Black and White, Sweet Thunder, and Colorization.

He and I both have ties to the Goucher College MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program and he was generous enough to blurb my first book, Six Weeks in Saratoga, and it’s those little things like that that can make an insecure, low-on-confidence person like myself feel like a king for a day.

Had a great time catching up with Wil. He was on the podcast back on Ep. 295 when I interviewed him as part of Goucher’s winter residency, so that’s a fun one to check out. When we spoke, the U.S. had just started bombing Iran in a senseless barrage of violence that appears to have been a monumental loss for the U.S., so that is some of the context of this conversation as we talk about Vietnam and how this country still wrestles with the legacy of it. Wil is one of the good ones and so happy you get to hear him chat about:

• How he needs the research to be finished before he writes
• Exploring the riddles of America
• His encounters with the late great David Halberstam
• How luck and fortune come into play
• Shoeleather reporting
• Tape recorders and notebooks
• The stirring cover of this book
• Why this country still grapples with the Vietnam War
• Highlighting untold stories of women who served during Vietnam
• And what kept him going through the doubt

Stick around for a parting shot Chuckanut conference prep and an update on the forthcoming audio magazine.

"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 . 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 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."

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 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 to see if his books or his inner circle is right for you.

"It all has to come from within. So we each have to be in conversation with ourselves and with the work. It's really a relationship, not a project," says Ramona Ausubel, author of Unstuck: A Writer's Guide.

Today we have Ramona Ausubel, author of Unstuck: A Writer’s Guide. It’s published by Tin House.

Ramona’s curriculum vitae is pretty dope. She’s the author of the novels The Last Animal, Sons and Daughters of East and Plenty and No One is Here Except All of Us and the craft book Unstuck: 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page.

Had a TON of fun with this one and it’s a craft bomb.

Ramona’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, The New York Times, Electric Literature, and The Paris Review online. She has taught with Tin House, Bread Loaf, and she’s a professor at Colorado State University.

This is a really fun and really crafty chat. We talk about:

• Why people want to be writers in the first place
• The people who stick around
• Coming up with ways through
• It's a relationship not a project
• No writing is ever wasted
• Nobody needs a kind-of-written book
• Submission clubs
• The offering is the action
• Community
• Shame, doubt, and envy
• Lifelong process of voice
• Inviting in other influences
• When querying asking 'who will you be?'
• Platform

You can learn more about Ramona at ramonaausubel.com and follow her on Instagram @ramonaausubel.

If you like this episode, I would definitely check out:

• Eps. 48 and 207 with Roy Peter Clark
• Ep. 49 with Dinty W. Moore
• Ep. 50 with Ted Conover

"I say this all the time, and I'll say it again: the truth is a block of wood, and I know the sculpture I carve out of that block of wood looks different than the sculpture my mother carves out of that block of wood, right? But the truth — the block of wood — is what what happens, but the art we make out of that is up to us," says Isaac Fitzgerald, author of American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed.

We’ve got Isaac Fitzgerald returning to the podcast. He’s going to be at Powells on May 29, 7 p.m., in convo with Lidia Yuknavitch, and I’ll likely be heading up the 5 to photo bomb them because Isaac has a new book out called American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed. It is published by Knopf. Great talk. We were buzzin’, man. In any case, you know Isaac maybe from his bookish appearances on The Today Show, and he’s also the author of the brilliant memoir Dirtbag, Massachusetts, a coming of age story.

I liken American Rambler to a coming of middle-age story and as Isaac walks and drives in the footsteps of one John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. It’s a book that deals with that squishy time as we crest into our forties and reckon with mortality as well as the greater disconnection we’re collectively experiencing, which is why Isaac set out, largely on foot, to put his phone down and live in the world. His essay on walking for The Guardian, linked up in the show notes, very much informed and even catalyzed American Rambler.

So Isaac is a pretty special dude. I love the posture he takes in the world. When I had lunch with Lidia before her live appearance on the show, we talked about how Isaac had jumped into the comments on a couple of our Instagram posts and Lidia asked me, “Is Isaac coming to this?”

I said, “I don’t think so. I mean he’s in New York.”

“It would totally be like him to just show up.”

And I kinda love that idea. I want to make more of that effort myself.

So in this episode we talk about:

• Putting the phone down
• Living in the world
• Walking 20,000 steps a day
• The tension between building community and withdrawing into solitude
• The scaffolding of the story
• How he was late to the arc of his own story
• Stories become what they’re supposed to be
• How the truth is like a block of wood
• The black dog as literary device
• First lines
• And how On The Road informed American Rambler

Isaac can be found on Instagram at isaac.fitzgerald and you can join his Substack list Walk It Off and learn more about him at his website isaacfitzgerald.net. He’s also collaborated with the brilliant cartoonist Wendy McNaughton on two books about tattoos, Pen and Ink and Knives and Ink. Great stuff.

If you like this episode, I would definitely check out Isaac’s first appearance on Ep. 353. I’d also check out:

• Ep. 100 with Mary Karr
• Episode 200 with Nick Flynn
• Ep. 358: Erica J. Berry
• Ep. 472 with Melissa Febos
• Ep. 503 with Jason Brown