Best Cnf Podcasts (2026)

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Episode 505: Leah Sottile and Ryan Haas Talk 'Hush', Investigative Reporting, and Breaking New Trail in Their Careers 1:16:30

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7d ago1:16:30

1:16:30

"We always were having conversations about, if we can't solve it, what then? What is this about? Why isn't it solved? And what is our job? Is the job of a journalist to solve crimes? No, it's to document. So what are we documenting? We're documenting what had to happen for there to be no answer in a situation where there should be an answer," says …

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Episode 504: Seth Wickersham and the Macbethian Tragedy of the American Quarterback 41:14

6d ago41:14

41:14

"You're constantly asking lean, open, neutral questions that start broad and then narrow, and you're asking more lean, open, neutral questions based on their answers. When you do that, it tells the subjects that you're actually listening to them very intensely, and you're asking questions based on the things that they say. And that accelerates trus…

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10.3 ~ Finding Distance 51:50

10d ago51:50

51:50

Maybe some space is for the best.By Life Out Loud Podcast

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Episode 503: An Atmospheric River of Rejection with Jason Brown 49:37

13d ago49:37

49:37

"I will always go back to the well, and I will write until I die," says Jason Brown, author of Character Witness. Jason Brown is here. He is a brilliant short story writer and the author of the memoir Character Witness (University of Nebraska Press). It’s an incredible book and we recorded this conversation at the end of October as the fourth and f…

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Episode 502: Christa Hillstrom Takes Pride in Her Rejections 1:18:12

20d ago1:18:12

1:18:12

"Take pride in your rejections. It's a tough industry for putting yourself out there. You're like, doing a ton of work up front, not knowing if anyone will be interested in it. It's very easy to feel deflated about it. Your rejections are reaching for things that maybe aren't easy reaches," says Christa Hillstrom, writer of 14,445 and Counting for …

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Episode 501: Julian Brave NoiseCat Aimed for a Woven Text 1:12:12

27d ago1:12:12

1:12:12

"It's not actually about the questions you ask. It's about shutting up," says Julian Brave NoiseCat, author of We Survived the Night. It’s episode 501 with Julian Brave NoiseCat, author of the memoir We Survived the Night. It’s published by Knopf. It’s a pretty spectacular debut and we have a lively chat about it and the writing and structuring of …

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10.2 ~ Around the Table 43:55

1M ago43:55

43:55

Two authors walk us through who's here for dinner...and why.By Life Out Loud Podcast

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Episode 500: Structure, Spec, and Panic with John McPhee 1:05:01

1M ago1:05:01

1:05:01

"Anything beats writing. Writing is tough," says John McPhee, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of more than thirty books of nonfiction. Hey CNFers, this is Episode 500 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. There are kilometer stones like 100, 200, 300, and 400, …

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Episode 499: The Post-Book Malaise is Real with Maggie Mertens 1:05:43

1M ago1:05:43

1:05:43

"You start to wonder was it all worth it? Or what's the point in trying to do it again? You know, if there's going to be more disappointment in the future. I think it is something that you know probably just changes as you go on, regardless, right? I want to get that second book under my belt so it's not all just on this one, this one baby, you kno…

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Episode 498: Sasha Bonét on Not Holding Back 1:18:56

2M ago1:18:56

1:18:56

"I have this desire to write as a novelist might write but write nonfiction," says Sasha Bonét, the author of The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters (Knopf). Today we have the brilliant writer, the brilliant mind, Sasha Bonét, author of The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters. This book is a masterpiece that chronicles the …

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Episode 497: The Seduction of Art Thievery with Jack Rodolico 1:06:17

2M ago1:06:17

1:06:17

"I kinda hate it when people say writing is fun," says Jack Rodolico, author The Atavist original "The Blue Book Burglar." Today we feature Jack Rodolico, who is a bit of an audio maven, but he comes to us hot off the Atavist presses to talk about "The Blue Book Burglar: The Social Register was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful— the heirs …

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Episode 496: Jeff Pearlman Finds the Little Guys 1:07:33

2M ago1:07:33

1:07:33

“So much misery. It is so much misery. It is so hard. It's not natural, locking yourself in your room for three years to focus on one person is not mentally healthy. Leigh Montville, great, great writer, said to me years ago, he's like, ‘It's an unnatural thing. You spend two years in a hole to come out for two weeks, you know?’” — Jeff Pearlman, a…

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10.1 ~ All Dressed Up 1:00:20

2M ago1:00:20

1:00:20

This Halloween will be different. Or, will it?By Life Out Loud Podcast

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Episode 495: On Being Merciless with Peter Rubin of Longreads 1:09:15

2M ago1:09:15

1:09:15

"When I came in [to Longreads], I didn't come in and say, I think we need to grow aggressively. I said, 'Let's figure out who we are. Let's figure out what other people aren't doing, that we do , and that we can do better.' And so the only real thing that changed when I first came in was to try to make the editors known quantities," says Peter Rubi…

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A journey with CNF | Interview with Simone Eyles 39:57

3M ago39:57

39:57

Hi guys, I'm Minie, #Italian special needs mum from #Sydney! 🇮🇹🇦🇺Welcome to our channel, where I share our daughter’s journey with #Kabukisyndrome. In this podcast episode, I interview Simone, a mum and entrepreneur who shares her son's journey with Congenital Nephrotic Syndrome of the Finnish type. The interview touches the complexities of kidney …

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Episode 494: Co-Writing a Memoir, Becoming a Publisher, and Finding the Passion with Jeremy X. Wagner 1:17:34

3M ago1:17:34

1:17:34

"As a reader, if I were a fan reading this book, I want the good, the bad and the ugly. I want you to rip the band aid off and tell the truth. Because, from my from my experience, I've read a lot of memoirs that are super boring and just fluff," says Jeremy X. Wagner, co-author of Curtis Duffy's Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef (Dead Sky Publishing). We…

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Episode 493: Masha Hamilton Asks Is the Writing Worth Rearranging Your Calendar For? 1:18:16

3M ago1:18:16

1:18:16

"This has to be meaningful to you. It has to be a story that won't leave you alone, a story that you're willing to rearrange your calendar for," says Masha Hamilton, whose Atavist Magazine story is titled "I've Gone to Look for America." Today we have Masha Hamilton, a journalist, a novelist, a fan of the show, a fan of Pitch Club. You’ll want to v…

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Episode 492: The Host Becomes the Hosted — Brendan O'Meara in conversation with Daniel Littlewood 52:01

3M ago52:01

52:01

"My editor was like, hold on, you need to put your thumb on the scale of why this matters. Now, there's no first person in this, but you have your thumb on the scale, you need to assert your own point of view. Like, this matters, why? says Brendan O'Meara, author of The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine Mariner Books. Who the heck does th…

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Episode 491: How Tracy Slater Broke Her Book into Steps 1:13:31

3M ago1:13:31

1:13:31

"Writing a book is so overwhelming. I need to have a book that's like so many steps in between. So what I do to manage my own anxiety and overwhelm about that is I'm really, really obsessed with breaking everything into little steps so that all I need to do is the next step and then I don't get overwhelmed," says Tracy Slater, author of Together in…

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Episode 490: Seeing the Fish and the Tank with Jeff Chang 1:16:30

3M ago1:16:30

1:16:30

"When I got back to [writing], it was like an athlete or a martial artist coming back to the practice, and the endorphins start running back. And you remember the joy that you had in it, also the struggles of it, but you're back in it, and then I couldn't be stopped," says Jeff Chang, author of Water, Mirror, Echo. Today we have Jeff Chang, and wha…

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Episode 489: Staying Power, Book Promotion, Platform, and 'Slip,' a Memoir-Plus with Mallary Tenore Tarpley 1:25:20

4M ago1:25:20

1:25:20

"For many of us, myself included, it's easy to want to be on the New York Times bestseller list, or the USA Today bestseller list, and to try to get an amazing number of week-one sales, but it's important to remember that those lists are really hard to get on, and there can be this nice long tail in terms of the impact of a book where maybe it does…

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Episode 488: Bill McKibben, the Dark Realist, Faces the Light 59:25

4M ago59:25

59:25

"The point of my book and the point of this big day of action that we're doing across the country is to drive that notion away that this isn't alternative energy, that it's the obvious, straightforward, common sense and very beautiful way to power the world going forward. To use the analogy I've been using, it's not any longer the Whole Foods of en…

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A journey with Auto inflammatory disease | Interview with Sharon Kensell 41:01

4M ago41:01

41:01

Hi guys, I'm Minie, #Italian special needs mum from #Sydney! 🇮🇹🇦🇺Welcome to our channel, where I share our daughter’s journey with #Kabukisyndrome. In this podcast episode I interview Sharon, my first guest who will speak about the challenges of having a genetic chronic condition herself, while also advocating for her daughter (and son). In this in…

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Episode 487: Robert Weintraub and the 'American Hindenburg' 1:22:36

4M ago1:22:36

1:22:36

Robert Weintraub is a best selling author and, most recently, wrote "American Hindenburg" for The Atavist Magazine.. We’re going to hear from lead editor Jonah Ogles about his side of the table and how he advises people to model their stories after previously published ones and how there’s never really a wasted moment by doing as much research as p…

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Episode 486: Cartooning is the Children's Table of Art, says Roz Chast 1:04:57

4M ago1:04:57

1:04:57

"I really love this medium. I think cartooning is an incredible medium. There aren't a lot of rules. You can, if you can, really make it up. You can make it suit you," says Roz Chast a cartoonist and artist whose work routinely appears in The New Yorker. So today we have Roz Chast. You know Roz Chast, and if you don’t, quite frankly I hope we never…

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Episode 485: Tensions and Textures with Poet Patrycja Humienik 1:07:41

4M ago1:07:41

1:07:41

"God, I feel like I'm still enduring that, like it's this sort of ongoing thing where I'm not sure I ever if I'll ever get to a place where I feel like my work and ambitions for the work and daydreams about writing and art-making ever meet my taste," says Patrycja Humienik. For Ep. 485 we've got Patrycja Humienik. She’s a poet and her debut collect…

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Episode 484: Rax King is Sloppy 1:06:03

4M ago1:06:03

1:06:03

"I am tyrannical about noise and about quiet. I don't feel that I can control the amount of mess I make. I mean, I know I can, but I kind of can't. And there's just so many things about my character that are really detrimental to having a writing process, which I need, and it's just so opposed to everything that's going on in my disgustoid little s…

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Episode 483: Off the Page and Into the Ears with Julia Barton 1:17:44

4M ago1:17:44

1:17:44

"That is the main difference between storytelling for the ear and writing, is that the cost of revisions is so much higher," says Julia Barton. We have Julia Barton. Julia was the third hire, I think I have that right, with Pushkin Industries, the podcast giant founded by Malcolm Gladwell. She was the executive editor of Pushkin and helped develop …

Cnf Podcasts

1
The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara

Brendan O'Meara

1
Life Out Loud Podcast

Life Out Loud Podcast

1
Write, Publish, and Shine

Rachel Thompson

51
How We...Special Needs

My Kabuki Girl

1
Episode 505: Leah Sottile and Ryan Haas Talk 'Hush', Investigative Reporting, and Breaking New Trail in Their Careers 1:16:30

1
Episode 504: Seth Wickersham and the Macbethian Tragedy of the American Quarterback 41:14

1
10.3 ~ Finding Distance 51:50

1
Episode 503: An Atmospheric River of Rejection with Jason Brown 49:37

1
Episode 502: Christa Hillstrom Takes Pride in Her Rejections 1:18:12

1
Episode 501: Julian Brave NoiseCat Aimed for a Woven Text 1:12:12

1
10.2 ~ Around the Table 43:55

1
Episode 500: Structure, Spec, and Panic with John McPhee 1:05:01

1
Episode 499: The Post-Book Malaise is Real with Maggie Mertens 1:05:43

1
Episode 498: Sasha Bonét on Not Holding Back 1:18:56

1
Episode 497: The Seduction of Art Thievery with Jack Rodolico 1:06:17

1
Episode 496: Jeff Pearlman Finds the Little Guys 1:07:33

1
10.1 ~ All Dressed Up 1:00:20

1
Episode 495: On Being Merciless with Peter Rubin of Longreads 1:09:15

1
A journey with CNF | Interview with Simone Eyles 39:57

1
Episode 494: Co-Writing a Memoir, Becoming a Publisher, and Finding the Passion with Jeremy X. Wagner 1:17:34

1
Episode 493: Masha Hamilton Asks Is the Writing Worth Rearranging Your Calendar For? 1:18:16

1
Episode 492: The Host Becomes the Hosted — Brendan O'Meara in conversation with Daniel Littlewood 52:01

1
Episode 491: How Tracy Slater Broke Her Book into Steps 1:13:31

1
Episode 490: Seeing the Fish and the Tank with Jeff Chang 1:16:30

1
Episode 489: Staying Power, Book Promotion, Platform, and 'Slip,' a Memoir-Plus with Mallary Tenore Tarpley 1:25:20

1
Episode 488: Bill McKibben, the Dark Realist, Faces the Light 59:25

1
A journey with Auto inflammatory disease | Interview with Sharon Kensell 41:01

1
Episode 487: Robert Weintraub and the 'American Hindenburg' 1:22:36

1
Episode 486: Cartooning is the Children's Table of Art, says Roz Chast 1:04:57

1
Episode 485: Tensions and Textures with Poet Patrycja Humienik 1:07:41

1
Episode 484: Rax King is Sloppy 1:06:03

1
Episode 483: Off the Page and Into the Ears with Julia Barton 1:17:44