HeyJaredThe 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.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 10, 2026
Latest episodes
Episode 547: Catherine Grace Katz Needs a Portable Murder Wall and PB&J to Write (opens the original)
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"I had a really interesting conversation with a publisher for my first book, and the publisher asked me, 'How are you going to get out of the story?' And I think that's the thing that people often go into it having a great idea of two thirds of a really good story, how it goes up through the climactic action of your narrative. But then there can be this like long trail off where people can't bring themselves to wrap the story up, or not put as much thought into exactly how the story ends," says
Episode 546: Seth Wickersham is On That Hill (opens the original)
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"Writing is such a lonely job, and I feel bad for people who don't have a crew. I think you really have to have a crew. I had a college crew my first couple years at ESPN. There was a bunch of us who were young writers and very ambitious. That was a crew. And then we have our group now of people who are on various text threads, you need a band to always know where your head is at any given time, so they can help you tap into those things when you're doing your work," says Seth Wickersham, author
Episode 545: Stories Can Sit in the Notebook for Years. Just Ask Matthew Wolfe. (opens the original)
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"There are a lot of stories that I come across that almost work or that don't quite work. And early in my career, I think I'd try and chase stories or force them to fit or force them to be a story when they don't actually work as a story," says Matthew Wolfe, author of the book Fires in the Night and the Atavist story "The Bleeding Hearts." Today we welcome back Matthew Wolfe for the third time in about a year. Why, you ask? Well, his first appearance was Ep. 482 for his Atavist story "The Talen
Episode 544: Writing a Book is Like Driving a Bus, says Joshua Robinson (opens the original)
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"Sometimes you swing and a miss on a story, or you get scooped by someone, and I think there's a constant feeling of like you're only as good as your last story, as the last thing you published, and it's hard to shake that," says Joshua Robinson, co-author of The Playbook: The Hidden Forces Shaping Winners and Losers in the Modern NFL (Mariner Books). Joshua Robinson is here. Now, it was SUPPOSED to be a two-headed monster with Jonathan Clegg but SOMEBODY got pulled into an urgent news situation
Episode 543: Doubt, Vulnerability, Confidence. Is Chris Bennett Talking About Writing or Running? (opens the original)
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"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
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