130. The Brain-Tingles of Narrative Non-Fiction with Candice Millard

Here's Where It Gets Interesting

Sharon McMahon

Government, History, Storytelling, Education

4.9 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Sharon speaks with best-selling author Candice Millard about the history she explores in her new book, River of the Gods. Candice is a writer of literary nonfiction, and uses storytelling as a way to connect readers to the narrative of history. Candice shares some brain-tingling facts with Sharon about the subjects of her books–Winston Churchill and Presidents Roosevelt and Garfield–before talking about her newest book that centers around the search for the source of the Nile River. At its heart, it’s a story about human nature, about the expedition’s triumphs, failures, jealousies, perseverance, and erased heroes.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello friends, welcome! So excited that you're here today because I am chatting
0:05.8	with one of my favorite authors, Candice Mallard. You have probably heard me
0:10.3	recommend Destiny of the Republic many times. And Candice has a brand new
0:16.4	book out that is full of adventure and intrigue and history called River of the
0:23.2	Gods. And I'm so excited to dive into this conversation with Candice about her
0:28.5	writing process and how she chooses stories and where this story even came
0:32.8	from in history. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the
0:39.2	Sharon Says So Podcast. I am absolutely delighted to have Candice Mallard with
0:44.8	me today. She has been one of my favorite writers for a long time. I am a very
0:50.9	avid nonfiction reader and so it's truly a pleasure. Thank you so much for
0:55.6	having me. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to meet everybody in your book
1:02.4	group. So thank you so much for giving me a chance to talk about my work. I have
1:06.6	been a writer of nonfiction for 20 years now before that I was a National
1:10.4	Geographic. This is my fourth book of nonfiction but it's literally nonfiction.
1:16.1	It's storytelling. What I want is to bring people into the story because what I
1:20.2	love when I read is to totally get lost in a story. Forget where I am, what I'm
1:25.2	doing, who I am and just get sucked into the story. And that's what I try to do
1:29.5	with the books that I write and that's what I hope the experience will be for
1:33.2	the people who read this book. Narrative nonfiction I think is perhaps one of
1:38.2	the hardest genres to write well because there is this tension between I
1:43.0	want to craft a compelling narrative that the reader will be interested in
1:47.0	continuing getting lost in. But I also have to be true to the facts. Right. It
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