Ep. 65 Crafting a Compelling Narrative with Dave Cullen

Our guest today is two-time New York Times Best Selling author Dave Cullen. His first book, Columbine, is one of host, Traci Thomas', favorite books. Cullen is most recently the author of Parkland: Birth of a Movement. Today we talk about following journalistic instincts, crafting a compelling narrative, and then we get a sneak peek into Dave Cullen's forthcoming book, Soldiers First.

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Everything we talk about on today's episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

• Columbine by Dave Cullen

• Parkland by Dave Cullen

• Kevin Davis

• Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson

• Oklahoma City by Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles

• Truman Capote

• A Mother's Reckoning by Sue Klebbold

• Soliders First by Dave Cullen

• Rough Beauty by Karen Auvinen

• The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury ("The Long Rain" story)

• William Lychack

• Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Becoming by Michelle Obama

• The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil

• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

• There There by Tommy Orange

• We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

• Speak Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

• The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

• Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov

• Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson

• Lucia Berlin

• Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

• Ernest Hemingway

• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

• Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem

• Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

• Anton Chekhov

• Leo Tolstoy

• Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Jennifer Egan

• Jonathan Lethem

• Wearing Dad's Head by Barry Yourgrau

• William Faulkner

• Charles Dickens

• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

• Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway

• Anne Waldman

• A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

• The New York Times

• Dave Cullen in Slate

• Dave Cullen in The Daily Beast

• "Author Dave Cullen on how Columbine 'changed everything' — but America 'did nothing'" (CBS News, 2019)

• "Echoes of past gun tragedies offer lessons for prevention" (The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC)

• Johnathan Karp

• Laquan McDonoald (AP News)

• 16 Shots (WBEZ & the Chicago Tribune)

• Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

• Ross Perot Fast Facts (CNN)

• "My George HW Bush reality check as a young journo" (Dave Cullen, Dave Cullen's blog)

• Salon.com

• Joan Walsh

• Matthew Shepard

• "The trial that wasn't" (Dave Cullen, Salon)

• Russel Henderson (The New York Times)

• Woody Allen

• Oklahoma City Bombing Fact Facts (CNN)

• Rammstein

• KMFDM

• The Harry Potter Movies

• Springsteen on Broadway (Netflix)

• The New York Times Magazine

• "Don't ask, don't tell, don't fall in love" (Dave Cullen, Salon)

• "A heartbreaking decision" (Dave Cullen, Salon)

• "Mexican Filmmakers Panel" (Charlie Rose, 2006)

• Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• Alfonso Cuarón

• Guillermo del Toro

• Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

• "2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners Announced" (The Los Angeles Times)

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)

• Jack Nicholson

• Louise Fletcher

• By the Book (The New York Times)

• The Crown (Netflix)

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