The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara Episode 502: Christa Hillstrom Takes Pride in Her Rejections
"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 The Atavist.
It’s that Atavistian time of the month. Not much by way of spoilers, but you know you’re in for a double dose of CNFin’ insights as we will hear from editor-in-chief Seyward Darby and, of course, the writer of this month’s feature, Christa Hillstrom. Her story is titled 14,445 and Counting: Inside a Texas nurse’s quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in America. You can read the story at magazine.atavist.com. A sub is only $25 a year. No, I don’t get kickbacks; yes, I pay to subscribe as well. I’m the hipster doofus of the people.
The Atavist doesn’t usually do profiles, per se, but this profile is of Dawn Wilcox and her “sacred work” of logging every femicide in the country, which is to say violent deaths directly against women by men. It’s a tough one, not gonna lie. Not because it’s not well done, but because, well, read the title.
OK, so this piece is pretty heavy, but it’s a story of obsession and what the central figure calls her “sacred work” to bring attention to this epidemic of sorts.
The credits for this piece are: Ed Johnson was the art director, Sean Cooper copy edited it, Emily Injeian fact checked it, Naheebah Al-Ghadban illustrated it and Jonah Ogles and Seyward Darby edited this suckah.
Christa Hillstrom is a freelance journalist based in the Pac Northwest, but hailed from Minnesota originally and even attended Northwestern’s grad program in journalism. Doesn’t get better than that.
She’s an award-winning reporter, editor, and multimedia producer in human rights, global health, gender-based violence, and trauma/resilience.
We talk about:
- The little treasures in research
- The cost of doing this kind of reporting
- Outlining
- Task initiation
- How she wrote herself into this story
- Justing doing the writing
- And taking pride in your rejections
Check out her story at magazine.atavist.com and check out this conversation … right now.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com