As Told To

This episode originally aired on Feb. 14, 2023 "I moved on to the next thing I was going to write," says the noted dramatist and television writer Winnie Holzman, recalling the cancellation of her critically-acclaimed series " My So-Called Life ," after just one season. "That's what we do as writers.  We move on to the next thing."  Indeed. In Winnie Holzman's case, one of those "next things" turn...

Hal Donaldson's faith-based humanitarian organization Convoy of Hope is a magnificent agent of change.   In partnership with local churches, businesses, civic organizations, and government agencies, the organization is deeply committed to healing the world in all its broken places, through children's feeding initiatives, community outreach and disaster response.     Convoy of Hope currently feeds...

What does it take to help channel one of the most singular voices in rap in an entirely new medium? Join us as we chat with novelist and screenwriter Aaron Philip Clark, co-author of the just-published thriller The Accomplice , written in collaboration with rapper and entertainment mogul Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.    Aaron is perhaps best known for his International Thriller Writers Award-nominated...

"Lots of ambitious books announce themselves," writes Lauren Christensen in The New York Times Book Review of podcast guest Betsy Lerner's debut novel Shred Sisters . "This one doesn't need to." High praise for a first-time novelist, but that's not surprising considering Betsy's long and distinguished career as an editor and literary agent. A born storyteller (and, story-sharer), Betsy has helped...

Over the course of her nearly forty-year career, singer-songwriter Jill Sobule has earned a singular spot in the American songbook. Best known for her breakout 1995 singles " Supermodel " (from the "Clueless" soundtrack) and " I Kissed a Girl " (which came out more than 10 years before the Katy Perry hit of the same name), her quirky, heartfelt, cheer-filled songs are difficult to categorize: she...

"The task of writing is to take a character and put him up a tree and start throwing rocks at him," notes novelist, screenwriter, comic book writer, and television showrunner J. Michael Straczynski. The two-time Hugo Award-winning author is perhaps best known as the creator of the television series "Babylon 5", and as the screenwriter for the 2008 Oscar-nominated Clint Eastwood film "Changeling."...

Best-selling author, investigative journalist, political commentator and memoirist Nancy French is a storyteller at heart. She's helped to write more than a dozen books, including five New York Times best-sellers, with a variety of collaborators from conservative politicians to Olympic athletes to reality television stars.   Her latest memoir— Ghosted: An American Story —was published in Spring 20...

Originally aired Dec. 6, 2022. Frank Santopadre is a veteran comedy writer and the longtime co-host of " Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast ," with the late, great Gilbert Gottfried. Prior to working with Gilbert, Frank helped to write jokes and supporting material for numerous awards shows (including the Daytime Emmys, the TV Land Awards, and the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize). He has...

Join podcast host Daniel Paisner as he moderates the keynote panel discussion at the inaugural "Gathering of the Ghosts" ghostwriting conference earlier this year—an event jointly sponsored by Gotham Ghostwriters and the American Society of Journalists and Authors .   Dan is joined by music journalist Holly Gleason and former  As Told To guests Seth Davis and Jodi Lipper for a spirited discussion...

Hope Edelman is an author, ghostwriter, essayist, writing instructor and life coach. The through-line connecting much of her work, from the collaborations she's helped to write to her own best-selling memoirs, is the theme of parent-loss. "Navigating motherhood without your mom is like assembling a complex puzzle without the picture on the box," she writes in a blog post on her website. She's been...

Television director, filmmaker and author Adam Nimoy, the son of actor Leonard Nimoy, knows what it means to grow up in the chilling shadow of a famous father. He also knows what it means to tell a helluva story, and he does so in the pages of his new memoir  The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy . The book explores the author's complicated relationship with his father and refl...

Michael Franklin is the co-founder and executive director of Speechwriters of Color , a community of expert and aspiring communicators helping to give voice to leaders at every level of the public, private and non-profit sectors. As a proud partner of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel , the organization has placed dozens of candidates in both full-time and contract roles as speechwr...

Ellis Henican— New York Times best-selling collaborator, Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist, and popular television news pundit—had perhaps the coolest side-gig of any of our podcast guests to date. He provided the voice of "Stormy" in the adult animated television series " SeaLab 2021 ," which ran on the Cartoon Network for four seasons.  This spring, he's also provided the "voice" for bo...

"Celebrity memoirs have always been my favorite book genre," reflects podcast guest Chelsea Devantez, the Emmy-nominated writer, comedian, director, and host of the celebrity book club podcast " Glamorous Trash ." "That is what happens when your nearest bookstore growing up is a Wal-Mart. That was my fate."  Chelsea is just out with a celebrity-adjacent memoir of her own, I Shouldn't Be Telling Yo...

"You gotta be the best on your worst day." Words to live by from the mother of Ronda Rousey, the mixed-martial-artist-turned-professional wrestler known as "the baddest woman on the planet." Rousey's mother happens to be first American to win a gold medal at the World Judo Championships, and she also happens to be the mother of podcast guest Maria Burns Ortiz, co-author of Rousey's just-published...

"Reading to me is like breathing," notes Zibby Owens, the creator and host of the Webby Award- winning podcast "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books," who joins us on the podcast to discuss her lifelong love of reading and writing and her commitment to championing books and authors. Indeed, Zibby has built on the success of her podcast to become the publishing industry's "most powerful book-fluencer...

"This is an author who really has his finger on the way kids think,"  The New York Times says of podcast guest Todd Strasser, the author of over 150 books, including the award-winning young adult and middle-grade novels The Wave , Give a Boy a Gun , and Fallout . He is also the author of the wildly popular Help! I'm Trapped series of books for young readers, as well as several other best-selling s...

Veteran magazine journalist Genevieve Field joins us to discuss her mid-career pivot into ghostwriting, as she celebrates the success of her "Andy Award"-winning collaboration with Hollywood stuntwoman Kimberly Shannon Murphy.   Glimmer: A Story of Survival, Hope, and Healing , Murphy's unflinchingly honest account of intergenerational familial abuse, was honored this winter with an inaugural "And...

Seth Davis is a veteran sports journalist and broadcaster, and The New York Times best-selling author of Wooden: A Coach's Life and When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball . He is the co-author of the just-published memoir It's Hard for Me to Live with Me , written with NBA veteran and University of Kentucky basketball legend Rex Chapman—a book that transcends (and upends!) the s...

Veteran journalist and collaborator Mark Dagostino is the author of more than two dozen books written with some of our most compelling public figures. He has helped to write seven New York Times best-sellers, including the #1 best-selling  The Magnolia Story , with Chip & Joanna Gaines, co-stars of the hit HGTV show "Fixer Upper." Mark began his career at  The Boston Globe , as a general assignmen...

"What really amazed me here was that so many of the authors who submitted stories wrote something completely outside their genre," reflects best-selling author Douglas Preston, one of the project editors behind the dynamic new collaborative novel Fourteen Days . "This book is full of all kinds of weird stories."  Yes, it is. And so is podcast guest Douglas Preston, co-author of dozens of New York...

"Sometimes the truth is just too much, and sometimes it's not enough." That's a line from Sarah Tomlinson's new novel, The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers , the story of a young ghostwriter scratching at the truth that threatens the legend of the fictional rock band of the title.  A veteran journalist, essayist, music critic, ghostwriter, and memoirist, Sarah's work has appeared in The Boston G...

"How do you tell someone else's story, but make it authentic?" That's the question at the heart of this episode of As Told To: The Ghostwriting Podcast , which is really a repurposed, repackaged edition of a recent episode of Missing Pages , the critically-acclaimed investigative podcast hosted by renowned literary critic Bethanne Patrick—known to readers across social media as "The Book Maven." B...

Kevin Anderson is one of the publishing industry's leading authorities on ghostwriting and editorial development. As the founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of Kevin Anderson & Associates , a Manhattan-based firm that specializes in developing collaborative projects, he is uniquely positioned to weigh in on what it takes to write a best-selling book. His firm represents over 200 widely-published writ...

"I'm quite good at detaching and passing the tissues and just listening," says Andrew Crofts, one of the world's most prolific ghostwriters, on his ability to help his clients share their most intimate, most harrowing, most traumatic experiences in the pages of their memoirs.  As the author or co-author of more than eighty books, including a dozen Sunday Times best-sellers, Andrew is well-known in...