The Riff

It’s the last rager of the year. Thanks for being here. Seriously.

The end of the year is an opportunity for reflection. Like, what the hell happened to the podcast audience this year?

To quote Buddy the Elf, “That’s shocking.”

My wife saw the graph and immediately googled my name to see if I had done or said something stupid that would lead me to be some micro-pariah. Nothing, which is great! But also … WT actual F?!

I understand it was an election year, which drained all of our batteries. I understand that people might be listening to fewer podcasts. I understand that people’s attention might be more frayed and to hang for an hour is a tall task. (It always was, and I never took that for granted, but it’s like how inflation means your dollar doesn’t go as far. There’s been this inflation of attention where it takes twice the effort to listen to the same hour. Does that make sense?)

This also was a year that Longform sunsetted and a year where I’ve gotten more book pitches than ever. It goes in waves because of publishing schedules, but the book pitches number in the several hundreds. I publish 52 interviews a year. There are unhappy people.

Perhaps people outgrew the show. I know that has happened with my listening habits. Or I didn’t have enough “famous” people on the show. Perhaps people just got sick of me. I’m sick of me. Listen to any of my parting shots and you know how much I hate myself. [SIDEBAR: The parting shots are at the end of the show for a reason. I could understand people getting sick of me if I forced them to listen to my incessant, insufferable blather at the top of the show. If you listen at the end, then, well, you’re really electing to. Plus, the listener analytics show that very few people make it through 50% of an interview, which is really fucking depressing. SIDE-SIDEBAR: Don’t look at analytics.]

But it’s a real kick in the beanbag because this audience was a reason why I was attractive to a big publisher. It was the reason my Prefontaine biography sold. And now, I mean, the trend doesn’t lie. I’m not an analytics guy, but you can’t ignore that disturbing trend. With a book coming out in 2025, losing several thousand listeners in one year is … troubling.

All this is to say that I’m not quitting the show or fundamentally changing the substance of the show. I know the pod has value to many of you. I get the occasional email saying how much a listener appreciates the show, so I know it’s in service of something bigger than myself.

In times like these, be it a blog, a podcast, a YouTube series, you have to remember your WHY. Also, just as important, your WHO. You’re my WHO, friend.

As you know, this newsletter starts here and goes up to 11!

The Books

I. The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster by John O’Connor. John came on the podcast a few years ago, and he’ll be back on to talk about this cool book.

II. The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir by Neko Case. Just started this. Pod TK.

III. Blackness is a Gift I Can Give Her: On Race, Community, and Black Women in Hockey by R. Renee Hess. Just started this. Pod TK.

IV. Low: Notes on Art & Trash by Jaydra Johnson. This book kinda fuckin’ blew me away. Pod TK.

The Other Stuff

V. Cool mini-doc on the great New Yorker cartoonist Barry Blitt.

VI. Hopefully this will feel irrelevant this December 1, but Charles Bethea’s piece, “The Home Front,” is brilliant and chilling.

VII. Is creativity dead? … he says while sharing a link to the most basic forms of newslettering.

VIII. Newsletters are not blogs.

IX. A test between yourself and yourself? Paint me paralyzed! The two-day rule for habit formation, friend.

X. Kim H. Cross wrote about the final issue of Creative Nonfiction. [A couple years ago, the staff of the magazine dissolved over internal conflicts. The result was the end of the magazine. This story doesn’t really riff on that backstory, but if Kim writes something you should probably read it.]

XI. Six writers on procrastination. Also, if this procrastination plagues you, listen to this episode of Ologies.

A Few of My Favorite Books from 2024

For the book lover in your life, here’s a list of a few of the best books I read this year and links to buy them (I don’t use affiliate links, so you know my recommendation is true). For next year, I plan on actually writing down all the guests’ recommendations for a fun, holiday shopping list.

Memoir and Essay
Low: Notes on Art & Trash by Jaydra Johnson
Farm Girl: A Memoir by Megan Baxter
Nola Face by Brooke Champagne
First Love by Lilly Dancyger

Biography and Journalism
The Icon & the Idealist by Stephanie Gorton
Valley So Low by Jared Sullivan
The Message by Ta-nehisi Coates
Dream by Mirin Fader
Indigenous People’s History of the United States, a graphic interpretation by Paul Peart-Smith
The Long Road by Steven Hyden
The Last Shot by Darcy Frey

ICYMI: November on CNF Pod

Episode 436: Mira Ptacin and the Story of How One Town Drove Out a Nazi
Episode 437: Much Ado About Fact-Checking with Wudan Yan
Episode 438: How It’s All Connected with Taiyon J. Coleman
Episode 439: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith Bring a Graphic Interpretation of ‘An Indigenous People’s History of the United States’ to Life
Episode 440: How to be a Truffle Pig with Kate McQueen

CNFin’ Happy Hour Returns!

Figure since it’s the end of the year, maybe we’ll talk about goals for 2025.

Thursday December 12, 5 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. PST
Meeting Link: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/85002008446?pwd=HfIorJUrxpfcberIP0t4cOOIh2rVL3.1
Meeting ID: 850 0200 8446
Passcode: 7ZaZP0

Beware The Front Runner

I’m guessing that sometime in January there will be a pre-order link available for The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine by ya boy B.O. We need to hammer the pre-orders, CNFers. HAMMER them.

I know I bag on myself at every turn, but this book, thanks to the tireless work of my editor, is pretty special.

Thanks, CNFers, see you next year!

b.o.