Beautiful Writers Podcast

Hello, beautiful writer! This is my favorite time of year—when I get to dive back into past episodes of the #BeautifulWritersPodcast and release our annual “Best-Of” show. (We’re on #3, in case you’ve been keeping track.) I’ve had a blast curating a wide variety of my favorite clips from summer 2018-19, and hope you enjoy revisiting excerpts you’ve already heard but may have forgotten, or meeting...

Guilty on all counts! For a mom fighting to take down a terrifying cult and free her daughter, India, there are no sweeter words. Just last week, mother, actress, royal, and first-time author Catherine Oxenberg saw the fulfillment of her years-long campaign to stop Keith Raniere and his organization, NXIVM (pronounced nexium). A New York jury took less than five hours to render Keith guilty of cha...

Acclaimed bestseller Meg Wolitzer joins me today on the Beautiful Writers Podcast! Her TWELFTH novel, The Female Persuasion , is now out in paperback—a story perhaps even more relevant today than when it was released in hardback. When Meg started writing the manuscript, she, like many of us, believed we were about to swear in our first female president. We all know how that turned out. But did you...

You know Abby Wambach as a soccer legend—a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist. But do you know how she makes all those countless travel hours on the road and in the air, less grueling and more grounded? You know Abby as a two-time New York Times bestseller. But do you know how she and her wife, bestselling author Glennon Doyle, hit the pause button and re-energize and reconnect after especially busy m...

Oscar-nominated and 5-time Emmy-winning star of Murphy Brown turned New York Times bestselling memoirist (twice!), Candice Bergen is in the house! And she is every bit as irreverent and funny and whip-smart as you’d hope. Joining us in today's guest co-host chair is someone we both adore, the legendary book editor Betsy Rapoport, who edited Candy’s second memoir, A Fine Romance, and who I’ve...

Bestselling thriller author of ten novels, including The Progeny, Firstborn, The Legend of Sheba, Iscariot, and the Books of Mortals trilogy (with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker), Tosca Lee is in the house! She’s representing this genre proud with The Line Between, a dystopian page-turner already optioned for television by Edward Burns and his Marlboro Road Gang Productions, in partnership w...

75 million albums sold. 18 top ten hits recorded. Named in 2018 by Billboard as one of the top 60 female artists of all time (#35)! I’m guessing you are or have been, a Taylor Dayne fan (soundtrack of your life stuff, right here). I feel blessed to call Taylor a dear friend and can attest that she’s everything you’d hope a superstar to be—which you’ll soon experience as she opens up her heart and...

Jack Reacher’s back at #1! But that’s no surprise to the millions of “Reacher’s Creatures” who anxiously await each installment of this thriller series—23 at present count. With PAST TENSE (Delacorte Press), author Lee Child once again puts us on the edge of our seats and leaves us there, ensuring that our journey with this ex-military policeman turned drifter continues to live up to the Forbes ma...

After 18 international bestsellers, Seth Godin has released perhaps his most important book. His new title: This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See (Portfolio) just hit #1 on The Wall Street Journal list and was an immediate New York Times bestseller. But Seth could care less. What this master teacher knows (and wants us to know) is the joy of serving the smallest viable audien...

This award-winning, bestselling American (and Nashvillian!) treasure is laying it down with straight talk about her charmed writing and publishing career. Instead of learning from our authors' struggles, as we often do on this show, today’s episode is about ABUNDANCE. Ann’s story is a unique one—published at twenty in The Paris Review, followed by one extraordinary success after another—where...

There is an enemy. You are the enemy. Resistance will kill you. If you’re a Steven Pressfield or "The War of Art" fan (who isn’t?!), you already know that. You also know that you are not alone, and resistance can be beaten. But, good God, doesn’t it feel a little harder these days with the world seemingly going off the rails? I wasn’t sure Steven could ever write something as masterful a...

On this annual birthday episode of the Beautiful Writers Podcast, my wish is to give the gift of conversations you haven’t heard before. Fresh and (hopefully) profoundly helpful content to uplevel your writing experience. Today’s show makes my heart happy. It’s a collection of excerpts from industry superstars conducted over several years for the Beautiful Writers Group (my membership community, w...

Auctions. Bidding wars. Squealing agents and champagne toasts. To some, this is the stuff writerly dreams are made of. Novelist Rosie Walsh is here from her home in Britain to humbly share details of her magic carpet ride as the author of one of the most anticipated global publications this year. GHOSTED, Rosie’s debut book in America, celebrated its birthday the day we taped this episode. Pub day...

Memoirist and racial justice leader, Austin Channing Brown, is here to chat about her celebrated debut: I’M STILL HERE: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. From the book’s first line—“White people can be exhausting,” she had my undivided attention as I—like countless white women—am exasperated by white privilege and feel a great urgency to cease being exhausting. But where do we start? Th...

A veteran comedy writer for TV, film, and books, Nell Scovell (who also produces and directs!), is here to chat about her new memoir, JUST THE FUNNY PARTS… And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys’ Club. Who is Nell Scovell? You may not know the name, but if you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, NCIS, Murphy Brown, The Muppets, Newhart, Charmed, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Late Night wit...

Welcome to Part 2 of our “Best Of” episode! Notice the “quotes” here; it’s not remotely possible to pick favorites amongst favorites. "Best Of" is just easier than typing, “a-sampling-of-some-of-my-beloved-booky-conversations-of-many-such-favorite-convos” on an album cover. (Did that even make sense?) Back in August of last year, when I put together Part 1 of this show, I couldn’t forese...

Martha Beck guest co-hosts in this radical conversation with legendary author Geneen Roth, which aired on Easter Sunday, 2018. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, imagine this. Chocolate eggs. Jelly Beans. Ham. A little Hawaiian bread with your butter. Or, a LOT of Hawaiian bread with your butter… plus gravy. I mean you’ve tried that, right? Gravybutter? Good God. My point: do you ever wish...

You’ve watched Maria Shriver on TV for decades. Read her many bestsellers. Cheered as she and her family founded and championed some of humanity's greatest causes. Now’s your chance to get to know her more intimately than perhaps ever before. Maria’s here, on for the first day of her new book tour! In this playful, deep interview for I’VE BEEN THINKING: Reflections, Prayers, and Meditations f...

The late Debbie Ford is here today, via her sister, Arielle Ford! In a kind of tribute to sisters, joining us as my guest co-host is my sister, Carol Allen. The four of us—Debbie, Arielle, Carol, and I—have a long friendship, so I’ve been looking forward to this sweet, informal convo. We cover so much beyond the book, including Debbie as a spiritual leader and bossy little sister; writing and the...

I LOVE this soul sister. Gabby Bernstein makes me laugh. Her honesty is refreshing. Sometimes I look at her and think I’m witnessing an honest-to-goodness, real-life angel. But when this #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE UNIVERSE HAS YOUR BACK, and five other bestsellers sent me her latest book, JUDGEMENT DETOX (dropping Jan. 2nd from North Star Way), I didn’t think I could do it. I figu...

500 million books sold. 38 languages. 14 #1 New York Times bestsellers. How is that possible? My guest co-host, Robert McKee, and I couldn’t wait to get the inside scoop on a bestselling career that has spanned fifty years and been compared to the Beatles. Welcome to the epic world of Dean Koontz, who is totally delightful and slightly worrisome, in a crawl inside your brain and lays eggs kind of...

The one and only Mr. Tom Hanks is here, and he’s caffeinated and ready to rock this podcast—with melodic typing accompaniment, no less. I couldn’t have chosen a better guest host than Danielle LaPorte to join me in perhaps our most enjoyable conversation yet.  From the first seconds of Tom's hilarious/unorthodox entrance, we do our best to keep up with one of the world’s most creative minds....

CNN political correspondent and New York Times bestselling author Van Jones (THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY, REBUILD THE DREAM) is in the house! Just in time, too, to get our stinking thinking turned around before next month's Thanksgiving feasts (because didn’t we have enough food fights post-election last year to give us indigestion 'til 2050?). Van’s new book, BEYOND THE MESSY TRUTH: How We...

Want to be a writer? A career author? In case you haven’t heard, the blank page can be a real A-hole, and the book industry no less intimidating. If you’ve ever wished you could sit down and ask your favorite authors how they do it—how they REALLY pull it off day after day, year after year, book after book—you're going to love this show. Today’s a Celebration Day here at the Beautiful Writers...

Oprah's agent, THE biggest literary agent in the world, is on today’s episode of the Beautiful Writers Podcast with one of her star clients! Jennifer Rudolph Walsh is the head of the Worldwide Literary Department at WME (William Morris Endeavor). Along with repping authors like Sheryl Sandberg, Arianna Huffington, and Brené Brown, she’s sold the books you’ve heard about here multiple times—HO...