S4 Ep. 7: The Facts of Life: Claire Messud and Brendan O'Meara on Creative Nonfiction in an Era of 'Fake News'

fiction/non/fiction

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by novelist and essayist Claire Messud and journalist Brendan O’Meara. First, Messud discusses her new book of essays, Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write, and the difficulties of grasping the facts when we’re bombarded with so much information daily. Then, O’Meara shares craft insights from his interviews for The Creative Nonfiction podcast and discusses the connections between newsrooms and literary nonfiction. He also previews his memoir-in-progress about his father.

To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.

This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.

Selected readings:

Claire Messud

• Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write
• The Emperor’s Children
• The Burning Girl
• When the World Was Steady
• The Woman Upstairs
• The Hunters
• The Last Life

Brendan O’Meara

• Six Weeks in Saratoga: How Three-Year-Old Filly Rachel Alexandra Beat the Boys and Became Horse of the Year
• The Creative Nonfiction Podcast
• Episode 60—The Godfather of Creative Nonfiction: Lee Gutkind
• Episode 99—David Grann on 'The Killers of the Flower Moon' and Why Every Story is a Struggle
• Episode 121—Susan Orlean on Pacing, Structure, and 'The Library Book'
• Episode 227: The Futility of Reassurance and Being on the Hook with Seth Godin
• “Isolation,” audio magazine

Others:

• Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
• The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
• The Plague by Albert Camus
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Selected Writings of Paul Valéry
• Continental Drift by Russell Banks
• NW by Zadie Smith
• Another Country by James Baldwin
• The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
• The Company You Keep by Neil Gordon
• Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
• Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
• Bronwen Dickey
• David Carr
• Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby
• The Living and the Dead: War, Friendship and the Battles That Never End by Brian Mockenhaupt
• The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
• The Heart and Other Monsters by Rose Andersen
• Jean Guerrero
• “Host of ‘The Daily’ Clouds ‘N.Y. Times’ Effort To Restore Trust After ‘Caliphate’” by David Folkenflik, NPR

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