Episode 6: Creative non-fiction isn't a contradiction
- Our Stories and Our Selves
- May 12, 2025
- 2 min read
History can be pretty boring when it’s a series of dry facts, but fitting it to a narrative arc, while engaging, can also lead to problems. This week I speak to Kelly Gaumont from the Canuck is a Slur podcast about creative non-fiction, facts, storytelling and the opportunities of new media. Some of the things we talk about are linked below, as is Kelly’s show.
Kelly’s linktree:
And Patreon:
If you have thoughts, drop me an email at ourstoriesandourselves@gmail.com or on Bluesky at ourstories.blusky.social.
Blatantly stealing some of Kelly’s pre-show notes because they are great:
Kate Beaton, creator of the history-heavy comic strip Hark! A Vagrant; was a major gateway for me to develop a newfound interest in Canadian history specifically (although the strip was not at all limited to that), because it was now trying to tell me the same information through a much more engaging medium
Ryan North, creator of the heavily-constrained comic strip Dinosaur Comics
taught me that format constraints (such as having the six-panel visual
arrangement of your comic never change for decades on end) can actually
allow your creativity to flourish as it pushes against those limitations, as well
as allow your audience to have a familiar structure through which they can understand your message
Here is one that refers to the Canadian phenomenon of bagged milk
Ryan North studied computational linguistics, so he wrote a lot of comics about various aspects of language that you can learn a lot from
Some of the other things we mentioned:
Story Garden: https://youtu.be/YUfzr5tJlpo?si=5rEOPHZsyhH5aLjs
Beneath the skin: https://linktr.ee/beneaththeskinpod
Lions led by Donkeys: www.youtube.com/@lionsledbydonkeyspodcast7424
Revolutions Podcast by Mike Duncan: revolutionspodcast.com
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