As Told To

"Voices of their generation. Except for Greta Thunberg. And Malala. Amanda Gorman . . .you know what, I take it back." — Jimmy Fallon That's high praise for the comedy writing duo of Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, from their former boss at NBC's "The Tonight Show," where our podcast guests became the two youngest writers in that program's storied history and earned a shared spot on Variety's " P...

George McFly's A Match Made in Space , from "Back to the Future"… Hank Moody's God Hates Us All ," from "Californication " … Dr. Frederick Frankenstein's How I Did It , from "Young Frankenstein"… Some of our best-loved movies and television shows feature books written by one of the lead characters. In many cases, the publication of those "books" becomes a central plot point or a running gag. ( Thi...

"If I'm developing a recipe for a client, or for my own books, I'm all about people telling me what they think about it, what it invokes for them, what they would do differently," notes New York Times best-selling cookbook author Adeena Sussman about the collaborative nature of preparing recipes for readers. If there's anybody who knows what it means work in partnership in the kitchen, it's Adeena...

Rennie Dyball is an award-winning journalist, ghostwriter, middle-grade novelist and children's book author who's found a way to marry her lifelong interest in horses with her many and varied talents as a writer. Together with her co-author Piper Klemm, she created the popular Show Strides series of equestrian-themed novels for middle grade readers—originally published by The Plaid Horse and soon...

"I've been obsessed with the corrosive power of secrets since my first novel," reflects the best-selling novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro, a writer who has been mining her own secrets since she first put pen to paper. In a far-ranging, free-wheeling interview with host Daniel Paisner, pulled from a "Book & Author Luncheon" program sponsored by the Friends of the Port Washington (N.Y.) Library i...

Lindsey Jacobellis is the most dominant athlete in the history of women's snowboardcross—a thrilling head-to-head sport that made its Olympic debut at the 2006 games in Torino, when Lindsey also stepped to the Olympic stage for the first time. And yet the inaugural running of the event was nearly her undoing. At 20 years old, Lindsey had a commanding lead heading into the final stretch of the meda...

"Sometimes I'm asked if I'll ever write a book," notes actor, playwright and singer-songwriter Jeff Daniels, "and I always answer that I already have. It's in my songs." This is true. But now it's also true that the stuff of Jeff Daniels's life is on delightful display in the Audible Originals memoir " Alive and Well Enough "—a collection of stories, musings and songs that invites listeners into t...

Dina Kraft is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Tel Aviv, where she co-hosts the influential podcast "Groundwork," sharing stories about Palestinians and Israelis working to change the status quo. She began her overseas career in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press and has written and reported for a number of publications, including The New York Times , The Christian Science Monito...

Novelist, screenwriter, producer and publisher Lee Goldberg knows what it is to work in collaboration. He has helped to write and produce a number of television shows, including "seaQuest" and "Monk," and he also served as a supervising producer and executive producer of the long-running series "Diagnosis Murder," starring Dick Van Dyke.   While working on "Monk" and "Diagnosis Murder," he wrote s...

This episode originally aired on June 21, 2022. If there's anyone who knows what it's like to be invited into "the kingdom of knowing," to borrow a phrase from journalist Richard Ben Cramer, it's podcast guest Barbara Feinman Todd, who graduated from  The Washington Post Style desk to work as a researcher, book doctor, editor and spirit guide on books with Bob Woodward ( Veil ) and Carl Bernstein...

This episode originally aired February 1, 2022. Amy Ferris writes like a dream. About love. Also: strength, humanity, depression, aging, inspiration, resilience. But mostly about love. It's kind of her thing—a thing that led her to her first gig as a collaborator, a dual memoir from Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons and Justine Simmons called  Old School Love . Amy's worked primarily as an essayist, an edi...

This episode originally aired March 15, 2022. Eugene Pack knows a thing or two about what it takes to write a compelling celebrity memoir – and yet he's never actually written one. As the creator and co-producer of the hit theatrical revue " Celebrity Autobiography ," developed with Dayle Reyfel, he has pushed audiences to consider what it means to live a book-worthy life and how it is that reader...

"I love the process, and the craft of writing, and helping people who have a real deep yearning to put their own story on the page," reflects best-selling author and collaborator Debra Ollivier, who has helped to develop, ghostwrite, and edit more than 20 titles, with a broad and eclectic mix of authors.  Debra, who lived and worked in Paris at the front end of her writing career, is the author of...

"The more you try, the luckier you get…" Words to live by, from podcast guest Arthur Smith, the pioneering television producer behind some of the longest-running unscripted series in history, and author of the just-published motivational memoir Reach: Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from a Lifetime in Television . Arthur's long-running hit "Hell's Kitchen," with Gordon Ramsey, helped to forge the...

First-time author David Jacks, a veteran video editor and music supervisor, ran into legendary music producer Peter Asher at a Santa Monica taco joint in 2003 and asked if he could interview him. Jacks, a long-time admirer of the man said to be the inspiration for Mike Myers' "shagadelic" Austin Powers character, who first came to prominence as one-half of the hit-making British pop vocal duo Pete...

Literary agent Madeleine Morel has made a career out of representing ghostwriters and collaborators—and only ghostwriters and collaborators. Through her Manhattan-based agency 2M Communications , she has successfully paired her clients with top celebrities, thought leaders, health and fitness experts, business executives and change agents on hundreds of book projects, including more than 60 New Yo...

"Songwriting is kind of where my heart is," says former Second City music director Tara Trudel, a versatile songwriter and composer based in Los Angeles. Tara's unique talents popped on podcast host Daniel Paisner's admittedly limited radar during the launch of Post  in Fall 2022, when she created a mini-musical based on the early days and growing pains of the new social media site. Tara started h...

"The idea of 'chasing the panther' is that the panther serves as this metaphor for art, and so it's something that you chase after even thought it is in some ways very, very dangerous, and I think Carolyn would say that is one hundred percent the story of her life, chasing art." That's writer and filmmaker Gregory Collins explaining the title to his very first collaboration, Chasing the Panther: A...

"A strong argument can be made that Fernando Valenzuela brought more new fans to the game of baseball than anyone going back to probably Babe Ruth's era," notes baseball historian and New York Times bes t -selling collaborator Erik Sherman, author of Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers . Before tackling the (largely) untold story of the phenom haile...

"Writing is not what you start," writes podcast guest Nell Scovell in her scathingly funny memoir Just the Funny Parts . "It's not even what you finish. It's what you start, finish, and put out there for the world to see." Indeed, Nell offers this observation from a place of hard-won experience. A veteran television writer ("Newhart," "The Simpsons," "Late Night with David Letterman," "The Smother...

"When you're in that flow, it's the most magical feeling ever," reflects the noted fine artist and graphic designer Jay Alders. "It feels like the colors are shooting out of my palette, it's just right there, and all I have to do is scoop up a glob of light that's emerging from my palette. If I can have someone look at my paintings and feel some of that, to me that's success." Jay joins us on the...

"I'm always writing the book I most want to read in that particular moment." That's a line from novelist Ellen Meister, offered in an exchange with podcast host Daniel Paisner. The two recently shared a stage at the Port Washington Public Library – a couple of Long Island authors talking about craft and career in front of a local audience. The event went so well, we've decided to repurpose the dis...

"Kendrick Perkins doesn't just have one voice, he has many." That's a line from the book proposal for The Education of Kendrick Perkins , the thrillingly unconventional new memoir from the ESPN basketball analyst and former NBA star, co-written with podcast guest Seth Rogoff, who helps to give voice to his subject's "many voices" in astonishing ways. A cultural critic and professor of history and...

"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" turned out to be the book for the hit Broadway musi...

Veteran speechwriter and communications strategist Dan Gerstein has been a champion of ghostwriters and collaborators for the past decade. As founder and CEO of Gotham Ghostwriters , an industry-leading agency that matches writers with clients seeking help telling (and selling!) their stories, he brings unique insight into what it takes to write a successful book, screenplay, white paper or family...