As Told To

This episode was first aired on Dec. 14, 2021. Veteran journalist and author Robert Sabbag joins the podcast to share the story behind the story of one of the greatest books ever written about drug smuggling— Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade , a classic example of collaborative memoir that helped to establish him as one of the most esteemed chroniclers of his generation. No less an a...

This episode originally aired Nov. 30, 2021. "William Novak had the career I hadn't even known I wanted," host Daniel Paisner says of this episode's guest, who for a time seemed to have his have his hand in every major celebrity autobiography on bookstore shelves. Starting with the publication of the genre-defining best-seller Iacocca , by Lee Iacocca—the best-selling book of 1984 and 1985—Novak e...

This episode originally aired October 19, 2021. Laura Zigman is one of our leading voices in contemporary fiction. She's the author of five novels, including her genre-defining debut, Animal Husbandry , which enjoyed a second life on the screen as the Hugh Jackman/Ashley Judd starrer " Someone Like You ," as well as her most recent novel, Separation Anxiety , which is currently being developed as...

"It's a weird job, isn't it?" So says veteran ghostwriter Stephanie Krikorian, who started in on her ghostwriting career after a long run as a television news producer. In fact, she sees a through-line from the work she used to do as a producer to the work she's doing now as a writer, especially in her many collaborations with some of our leading health and wellness experts. For her very first boo...

Peter Golenbock has written more books about baseball than just about anybody. He's also written about basketball, football, stock car racing and popular culture. His account of the New York Yankees' 1978 World Championship season, The Bronx Zoo , written with Sparky Lyle, was a runaway best-seller. Coming on the heels of his own history of the Yankees, Dynasty , that book helped to establish Pete...

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 ( Loyalties ), and Ben Bradlee ( A Good Life ), l...

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 perhaps best-known to audiences for his work behind-t...

"I look in the mirror and I see a storyteller trying to make a living," says Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, founder and editor-in-chief of StoryMade, a boutique storytelling studio, when asked if she sees herself as a journalist, an editor, a ghostwriter, or a content strategist. As the author of In Her Own Sweet Time: Egg Freezing and the New Frontiers of Family , Rachel established herself as a leading v...

George Vecsey has been writing about sports for the past 60 years—mostly about baseball, and soccer, and tennis, but also about hockey, and basketball, and football, and boxing. (Have we missed anything?) He wrote the Sports of the Times column for The New York Times for nearly 30 years, until his "retirement" in 2011, although he continues to contribute to the newspaper on a regular basis. Like m...

"Nobody should ever take a band for granted," writes the justly-celebrated rocker, songwriter, actor, producer, activist and music impresario Steven Van Zandt in his wild ride of a memoir, Unrequited Infatuations: Odyssey of a Rock and Roll Consigliere (A Cautionary Tale) . "Bands are miracles. They're rarely perfect, but if a band has that magical chemistry, it should not be fucked with… Every gr...

"Basically, if there is a book in you that just has to come out, I'm your surgeon? Mid-wife? Sorcerer? Shrink?" notes prolific ghostwriter Valerie Frankel. "Whichever metaphor works for you, that's the best one ever." Val knows what it takes to discover the story in a life well-lived—and, how to reach for just the right metaphor to ensure that the story lands in just the right way. As the author o...

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 readers have come to accept the wit and wisdom and w...

Andrew Neiderman is perhaps the world's most prolific ghostwriter, and, the most widely-read. Since 1987, he's been writing under the pen name of V.C. Andrews, helping to sustain one of publishing's most successful franchises, following the death of Cleo Virginia Andrews in 1986. Andrews is best-known to millions of readers as the author of Flowers in the Attic , a surprisingly dark family saga th...

Bruce Weber has led a rich and varied writing life. He has been a fiction editor, a magazine editor, a national arts correspondent and theater critic, and a metro reporter…oh, and for good measure, a ghostwriter. For many years, he wrote obituaries, weighing in with the final word on more than 1,000 notable deaths, which in his hands sprang from the page like notable lives, well and purposefully l...

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 editor, a screenwriter and playwright. She's even pu...

"No one is born a celebrity," notes collaborator Hilary Liftin. As the author or co-author of more than 20 books, including 13 New York Times best-sellers, she knows this as well as anyone. In addition to her work behind-the-scenes helping to pen best-selling memoirs from stars such as Miley Cyrus , Tori Spelling , Mackenzie Phillips and Tatum O'Neil , she's also written three books of her own: De...

Michael Jan Friedman is one of the most successful sci-fi and fantasy writers on the planet—although in Mike's case we should probably specify the planet. Most of Mike's early work centered in and around the Star Trek universe, as the writer of novelizations based on the show and its many spin-offs. He's the author of the first "Star Trek: The Next Generation" hardcover, Reunion , which became a N...

Veteran journalist and author Robert Sabbag joins the podcast to share the story behind the story of one of the greatest books ever written about drug smuggling— Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade , a classic example of collaborative memoir that helped to establish him as one of the most esteemed chroniclers of his generation. No less an authority on these matters than Hunter S. Thomps...

"William Novak had the career I hadn't even known I wanted," host Daniel Paisner says of this episode's guest, who for a time seemed to have his have his hand in every major celebrity autobiography on bookstore shelves. Starting with the publication of the genre-defining best-seller Iacocca , by Lee Iacocca—the best-selling book of 1984 and 1985—Novak embarked on a string of collaborations on some...

Joni Rodgers is known to readers and publishers as a novelist, ghostwriter and essayist with an eye for detail, an ear for language and a heart to match her subjects. She's collaborated on best-selling books with Don Lemon ( This is the Fire ), Kristin Chenoweth ( A Little Bit Wicked ), Swoosie Kurtz ( Part Swan, Part Goose ), Elizabeth Smart ( Where There's Hope ), Justin Bieber ( First Step 2 Fo...

"Don't make it out, make it better." That's a line from podcast guest D. Watkins, offered in the book trailer for his book of essays We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black Americ a , in which he gives voice to the voiceless and shines meaningful light on what it means to come of age in East Baltimore, in one of America's poorest black neighborhoods.  It's a line you might hear as well...

Laura Zigman is one of our leading voices in contemporary fiction. She's the author of five novels, including her genre-defining debut, Animal Husbandry , which enjoyed a second life on the screen as the Hugh Jackman/Ashley Judd starrer " Someone Like You ," as well as her most recent novel, Separation Anxiety , which is currently being developed as a limited television series featuring the actres...

"Each author is different, and each book a puzzle we figure out together," Lisa Dickey writes, of her work as a collaborator. In the course of her career as one of publishing's most sought-after ghostwriters, Lisa has put together over 20 such puzzles, alongside a rich and varied list of high-profile clients, including first lady Jill Biden ( Where the Light Enters ); Illinois senator and Iraqi wa...

Sportswriter, collaborator, editor, publisher…Steve Kettmann has just about covered the publishing waterfront. Perhaps his biggest success on the ghostwriting front was his 2005 collaboration with outsized baseball slugger Jose Canseco, Juiced , which made headlines immediately upon publication for its revelations on the widespread use of anabolic steroids in our national pastime and became a #1 N...

Veteran journalist and collaborator David Rensin is the author or co-author of dozens of books, and a longtime contributor to Playboy , where he conducted hundreds of celebrity interviews for the magazine. As a ghostwriter, he has written numerous books in collaboration with leading show business personalities like noted film and television producer Bernie Brillstein ( Where Did I Go Right? ), as...