The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara Episode 510: Daniel Pollack-Pelzner's Doesn't Waste His Shot in Lin-Manuel Miranda Biography
"My teenage daughter looked at me. She said, 'Oh, Dad, you should put that in a folder called nobody cares.' Okay, not everything I learn will be in this book. And then the question became, 'What is Lin-Manuel learning from this story?' And if he's not learning anything from it, even if it's fun, it's got to go in the deleted scenes," says Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster).
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, the Notorius DPP, is charismatic as he is brilliant. Maybe some of that seasoning rubbed off on me. One can dream. He teaches English and theater at Portland State University. He received the Graves Award from the American Council of Learned Societies for outstanding teaching in the humanities. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, the Atlantic and the New York Times.
Wanna know how sickening Daniel is? He has a BA in history from Yale and a PhD in English from Harvard. Gross. Ew, right? Ew. You can learn more about Daniel’s disgusting intelligence and equally freaky contributions to the culture at danielpollackpelzner.com and follow him on IG at danielpollackpelzner.
This conversation was so lively and great and we talk about:
- How he pitched Lin-Manuel Miranda on being his biographer
- Being driven by curiosity
- Having to earn scenes
- The “fun of it” framing
- Balancing salt, acid, fat, and heat
- Maintaining a sense of play with the work
- What Daniel learned from Lin-Manuel
- And taking the harsh feedback from trusted readers
Show notes: brendanomeara.com