How To Write Narrative Non-Fiction With Matt Hongoltz-Hetling
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Joanna Penn
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2020
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What is narrative non-fiction and how do you write a piece so powerful it is nominated for a Pulitzer? In this interview, Matt Hongoltz-Hetling talks about his process for finding stories worth writing about and how he turns them into award-winning articles. In the intro, I talk about Spotify (possibly) getting into audiobooks and Amazon […]
The post How To Write Narrative Non-Fiction With Matt Hongoltz-Hetling first appeared on The Creative Penn.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, |
| 0:08.9 | bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing options and marketing ideas for your book. |
| 0:17.3 | You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more information at |
| 0:23.0 | TheCreativepen.com. And that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. |
| 0:31.0 | Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn. And this is episode number 504 of the podcast, and it is Sunday, 23rd of August, 2020, as I record this. |
| 0:42.0 | So today I'm talking to Matt Hengoltz Hetling on how to write narrative nonfiction. |
| 0:47.9 | And this is fascinating because it's about the type of story that just happens to be true. |
| 0:53.5 | This is not a genre that I write at all, |
| 0:56.4 | and Matt is also Pulitzer Prize nominated, so he has some serious writing jobs, and we can all |
| 1:01.8 | learn more about that. Matt's process for whittling down interviews of three hours or more |
| 1:07.1 | into coherent articles is something I found particularly interesting, as well as how |
| 1:12.6 | he sees characters, otherwise known as people, that he writes about. So that is coming up. |
| 1:20.8 | In publishing news, there has been much chatter about audio this week as Amazon invited podcasters |
| 1:26.7 | to join Amazon Music and |
| 1:28.3 | Audible and Spotify started advertising for a head of audiobooks, which had bloggers in a tizzy. |
| 1:35.0 | Neither of these things have been officially announced as directions for either company. |
| 1:39.9 | So in a way it is conjecture, but there is a lot of it. |
| 1:42.9 | I read about it, well, I heard about it from a number of sources, but it was reported in the hot sheet by the wonderful Jane Friedman. So I reckon I can talk about it in public since a lot of people are talking about it. So I have seen a lot of authors in Facebook groups worried, very worried about Spotify getting into audiobooks. |
| 2:04.3 | As of course, many musicians have seen their incomes plummet with lower streaming rates. |
| 2:08.6 | But I have to counter this as a user of the excellent algorithm that Spotify has. |
| 2:16.0 | With 138 million paying subscribers and 299 million monthly users, |
| 2:22.1 | Spotify is by far the biggest audio platform in the world. Now at the moment, in terms of |
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