As Told To

"We ain't doin' none of this Tuesdays with Morrie shit," baseball great Dave Parker once told his collaborator Dave Jordan, as they worked together on the soon-to-be-Hall-of-Famer's memoir. "We goin' out poetic and wild." As Told To podcast guest Dave Jordan is a writer and filmmaker and founder of Instream Sports, a pioneering athlete-author writing platform. He is the co-author of the acclaimed...

Upon publication, acclaimed chef and restaurateur Beejhy Barhany's  Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond was hailed by The New York Times as "a work of extraordinary scope and ambition." In the hands of As Told To podcast guest Elisa Ung , the award-winning book collaborator and food writer, her story leaps off the page and invites readers to tast...

Best-selling ghostwriter Elisa Ung credits her lifelong love of musicals with gifting her the tools she relies on in her collaborative work. "They've taught me to listen for rhythms and cadences in authors' voices," she writes. "They help me understand how to respect readers by telling the most powerful story in the least amount of time." Elisa's path to this type of storytelling might seem famili...

"Sometimes my memories feel like a dream," writes Brandy, the Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and actress, in collaboration with New York Times best-selling author and As Told To podcast guest Gerrick Kennedy . In this "Between the Lines" episode, we revisit a passage from Brandy's just-published memoir Phases , in which she reflects on the inspiration for her title. As you list...

"You're a co-pilot, you are a therapist, you are an archivist," reflects journalist and cultural critic Gerrick Kennedy of his role as a ghostwriter. Kennedy is the co-author of the just-published memoir Phases , from singer, songwriter and actress Brandy—an immediate #1 New York Times best-seller. He is the author of two previous books, and his work has appeared in a variety of publications, incl...

In this "Between the Lines" episode, we look back at Harvey Araton's 2011 classic When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks . In any other NBA post-season, Harvey's latest book, The Goal of the Game , a soccer novel for young adults about a seventh-grader who discovers the power of the beautiful game to hurt and to heal, would be spotlight...

Harvey Araton is not quite ready to set down his pen. After covering sports for more than 40 years for the Staten Island Advance, the New York Post , the New York Daily News and The New York Times , where he served as a "Sports of the Times" columnist for more than 15 years, he continues to write. His latest book, The Goal of the Game , a soccer novel for young adults about a seventh-grader who di...

Join us for our "Between the Lines" feature, as we shine an extra shaft of light on the work of our podcast guest. In this installment, we're highlighting a memoir entitled The Maple Crew , by pioneering filmmaker Jessie Maple, written in collaboration with As Told To podcast guest E. Danielle Butler . The book stands on Danielle's bookshelf as a compelling example of her work, and her commitment...

Narratives that matter. That's the lane currently occupied by "collaborative storyteller" E. Danielle Butler, co-author of more than two dozen books, many of them written with business executives, pioneering artists, and faith leaders, helping to translate lived experience into lasting legacy. It's a path she didn't know she was meant to walk. In fact, she didn't even know what a ghostwriter was u...

In our latest "Between the Lines" installment, we shine a light on the best-selling collection of inspirational profiles by former "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell – the New York Times best-seller We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America , written with journalist and author Kate Andersen Brower. Brower, our current podcast guest , a former White House reporter for Bloomberg News...

We're back with the second installment of our new "Between the Lines" feature here at the podcast factory—a bridge to take listeners from our current As Told To episode to our next installment.  Here's a passage from Arsenio: A Memoir , the latest collaboration from podcast guest Alan Eisenstock . The book, an immediate New York Times best-seller, chronicles the life and career of comedian and pio...

What happens when a ghostwriter/collaborator looks on as the subject of her latest book becomes the lede of a story neither one of them set out to tell? That's the question at the heart of this conversation with journalist Kate Andersen Brower , co-author of the New York Times best-seller We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America , written with "60 Minutes" correspondent and former "CBS E...

" Did I do that? " Yes, in fact, he did. After a successful career as a writer on hit sitcoms like "Mork and Mindy," "The Nanny," and "Married with Children," podcast guest Alan Eisenstock managed to step from television writing rooms and reinvent himself as one of the publishing industry's most sought-after collaborators.  His most recent books include New York Times best-selling memoir Life's To...

We're trying something new here at the pod shop – a kind of palate cleanser to follow our latest full episode .   What gives? Well, we keep hearing from our listeners that they'd like to sample one or more of the books under discussion in each of our every-other-weekly conversations with writers and creatives who write and create in collaboration, so we thought we'd offer a brief reading in this s...

"Memory without responsibility is just nostalgia," reflects podcast guest Doron Keren, the keeper of his family's harrowing Holocaust survival story. "Someone has to make sure that stories like this live and are experienced by future generations." Keren, a retired dentist, has determined to do just that, working tirelessly to help shepherd first his mother's story ( The Girl in the Green Sweater ,...

"It's a constant hustle," reflects podcast guest John Rosengren on the life of a freelance journalist. "Ginning up ideas, developing them into pitches, sending them around, facing rejection… sometimes it can wear me down." But sometimes, too, it can be endlessly rewarding, as we can hear as John looks back on a rich, wildly prolific journalism career. Over the years, John's articles have appeared...

Award-winning music journalist, critic and artist development consultant Holly Gleason returns to the podcast for a solo outing to discuss her eclectic and electric career as one of the music industry's leading voices. Over the years, she has written for Rolling Stone , the Los Angeles Times , the New York Times , Playboy , Spin , and the Miami Herald .  Holly's most recent collaboration, the #1 N...

As a freelance writer, Jenna Glatzer has lent her voice to books, articles, essays, blog posts, scripts—even greeting cards and doormats, she's proud to say. She is the author or co-author of more than 35 books, many of them written in collaboration with some of our leading actors, athletes, CEOs, models, reality television stars, medical professionals and news personalities. Oh, and Celine Dion !...

What makes a good New Yorker cartoon? More to the point, who makes a good New Yorker cartoon? In our latest episode of As Told To: The Ghostwriting Podcast , we visit with the magazine's self-described "toonsome twosome," the cartooning team of Bizzy Coy and Lia Strasser, and discover what it takes to tap the talents of a like-minded soul to help you discover your best creative self.  "It was out...

"This is the best book about how it used to be," writes the influential music critic and record industry analysts Bob Lefsetz, in praise of Paul Rappaport's wild ride of a memoir, Gliders Over Hollywood: Airships, Airplay and the Art of Rock Promotion . "[It's] the only book I can remember that truly details what it was like inside the star factory." After a career spanning more than three decades...

"It's off the record until it's on the page." That's a line from our As Told To podcast conversation with award-winning author/ghostwriter Joanne Gordon, reflecting on the level of trust that exists between author and subject in a successful book collaboration. A former staff writer and contributing editor at Forbes , where she wrote about management, career, and workplace issues, Joanne is the au...

This episode originally aired on June 7, 2022. Two-time Emmy Award-winner Bruce Vilanch has written jokes for Bob Hope, Lily Tomlin, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and virtually every Hollywood star to grace the Academy Awards stage from 1989 – 2014.  As one of the entertainment industry's most sought-after joke writers, the actor, comedian and songwriter was perhap...

Join podcast host Daniel Paisner as he moderates a panel discussion at the second annual Gathering of the Ghosts ghostwriting conference earlier this year.   Dan is joined by former As Told To guests Jodi Lipper , Lisa Dickey , and Ellen Daly , as the veteran collaborators compare notes on craft and process—a fun, spirited, insightful reflection on the very many ways authors and journalists are wr...

"As a ghostwriter, I've trained my ear to listen for what's really there or not there, to discern what's underneath or between someone's words," writes veteran collaborator Samantha Rose, in her stirring, soaring new memoir Giving Up the Ghost: A Daughter's Memoir . "I hear what's implied, what's withheld…" Samantha's gifts as a storyteller are very much on display in the pages of her new book—a h...

Nelson and Alex DeMille's The Tin Men is an electrifying read and a chillingly timely one," writes The New York Times best-selling novelist Megan Abbott of the third and final father-son collaboration in the Scott Brodie & Maggie Taylor series. "[It's] both a master-class in suspense and a haunting exploration of the dangers and costs of a surrender to technology, an abandonment of the human." Yes...