Episodios

  • Episode 84: David Peisner
    Mar 11 2025
    David Peisner is a freelance journalist and ghostwriter/collaborator based in Atlanta. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York, Esquire, Playboy, and other publications. His first book collaboration—with “Steve-O,” the legendary co-star of the legendarily out there MTV reality series “Jackass”—grew out of a magazine assignment, taking Peisner on a sidelong career turn he hadn’t anticipated. “If you are only going to buy one book this year about an alcoholic, self-abusive, vegan, pyromaniac ex-circus clown with a talent for vomiting on command and stapling his scrotum to his leg, make sure this is the one,” he wrote upon the book’s publication. That book, Professional Idiot, became a New York Times best-seller, and led to a follow-up title, A Hard Kick in the Nuts, and a string of ghostwriting projects that helped to supplement Peisner’s income as a freelance newspaper and magazine writer. Curiously, those two Steve-O books made headlines in December 2024, when they surfaced on the Goodreads account of suspected “CEO Killer” Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson—a connection that put Peisner’s work in an unexpected sliver of spotlight. It also brought his collaborative work to the attention of the similarly-named host of this here podcast, resulting in this conversation. Join us for a reflection on what it takes to build a career as a freelance journalist, and how to walk the fine line between writing about a celebrity subject and writing for a celebrity subject. Learn more about David Peisner: WebsiteBlueSkyTwitterThreadsHomey Don’t Play That! – The Story of In Living Color and the Black Comedy Revolution“Devil With a Cause” (05/19/24 Rolling Stone profile of Kid Rock) Please support the sponsors who support our show: John Kasich’s Heaven Help Us (now available for pre-order)Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotHeaven Help Us by John KasichUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 7 m
  • Episode 83: Cynthia DiTiberio
    Feb 25 2025
    “We all have to figure out our own ways to carve out our own creativity,” says New York Times best-selling ghostwriter Cynthia DiTiberio about finding time to do her own writing alongside her collaborative work. “Not that our creativity doesn’t go into our ghostwritten books, but you can’t claim it in the same way.” Cynthia knows what it takes to create a successful book. She started her publishing career as a senior editor at HarperCollins, where she worked with a number of authors, including NIH director Francis Collins and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jeffrey Marx. From there she went on to co-author a number of best-selling books with a variety of well-known personalities, including Emmy-nominated actress and producer Roma Downey; author-turned-political activist Marianne Williamson; and business strategist and motivational speaker Tony Robbins. She currently writes the Substack newsletter “The Mother Lode,” and is the former publisher of Literary Mama, and her work has appeared in Scary Mommy, The Lily, Mutha Magazine and The Voices Project. Learn more about Cynthia DiTiberio: WebsiteInstagramLinkedInBox of ButterfliesNapkin Notes Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotHeaven Help Us by John KasichUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 4 m
  • Episode 82: Hannah Bos & Paul Thureen
    Feb 11 2025
    We’re taking a bit of a pivot here at the podcast factory with this one, pinching from the season-opening episode of Writer’s Bone, our flagship podcast at the Writer’s Bone Podcast Network. “As Told To” producer and Writer’s Bone host and founder Daniel Ford featured a conversation with the writing team of Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, co-creators of the enchantingly poignant HBO series “Somebody Somewhere,” starring actress/comedian Bridget Everett—a conversation that brushed up against so many relatable aspects of collaborative writing that we decided to rebroadcast it (to re-podcast it?) here. “Somebody Somewhere” ended its three-season run in December, shortly after the creators sat with Daniel Ford to discuss the series—hailed by The Los Angeles Times as “epic television”—and we were charmed by their conversation, inviting listeners behind the scenes to reflect on how the show came about, and the singular place it now holds in the annals of bittersweet television. Paul Thureen is a founder and co-Artistic Director of The Debate Society, a Brooklyn-based theater company. He received an OBIE Award for his performance in the company's Blood Play. Hannah Bos, also a founder and co-founder of the company, received a Drama Desk Award for her performance in the Signature Theater Company’s production of Will Eno’s The Open House. Together, they have written for “Mozart in the Jungle” and “High Maintenance,” and developed pilots for HBO, FOX, Amazon and Paramount. “This has been a dream come true,” Hannah reflected on the duo’s “Somebody Somewhere” run as the series came to a close. “It was a dream that they made the pilot. It was a dream that they made the first season, the second season, the third season. And it was a dream that we made it with really fun, good people. So I hope we can do it again.” Paul’s reflections were a little less…well, reflective, as he shared what it was like to write for a group of midwestern-ish characters who weren’t used to talking about their feelings. “If it gets a little too real,” he said, of the pain and heartache that could often be found at the show’s core, “then you have to make a fart joke.” Indeed. Learn more about Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen: “Somebody, Somewhere” Season Three TrailerHannah Bos WebsitePaul Thureen InstagramThe Debate Society Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    33 m
  • Episode 81: Laura Morton
    Jan 28 2025
    “The work that we do is actually very difficult to detach from when you’re writing in somebody’s voice,” notes veteran collaborator Laura Morton on the emotional connection she often feels when channeling her clients’ stories. Laura comes by this observation honestly, after spending more than thirty years helping to tell other people’s stories. In that time, she has written more than 60 books, including 22 New York Times bestsellers. Her most recent bestseller Fire in the Hole: The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success, written with GoDaddy and PXG Golf founder Bob Parsons—was a publication of Lasega Books, her own imprint at Forefront Books, an innovative independent publisher. Over the years, Laura has worked with a wide range of celebrities, entrepreneurs and innovators, including Joan Lunden, Al Roker, Jennifer Hudson, Susan Lucci, Melissa Etheridge, Justin Bieber, Danica Patrick, John Maxwell, Glenn Stearns, and the Jonas Brothers. Laura is also the writer, co-director, and producer of the award-winning 2022 documentary “Anxious Nation,” exploring the age of anxiety and depression, and a leading mental health advocate and workshop facilitator. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation on the changing face of publishing, as Laura reflects on her long career as one of the industry’s leading storytellers, and on her recent shift from ghostwriter to “mission-driven” publisher, helping to build a platform for her collaborative clients and other authors looking to land their stories on America’s bookshelf. Learn more about Laura Morton: WebsiteLasega BooksForefront BooksFacebookInstagram Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 34 m
  • Episode 80: Benjamin Dreyer
    Jan 14 2025
    “You’d be amazed at how far you can get in life having no idea what the subjunctive mood is,” writes Benjamin Dreyer, retired managing editor and copy chief of the Random House division of Penguin Random House. “As if it’s not bad enough that English has rules, it also has moods.” Yes, it does. Happily, the mood of the room for writers in Benjamin’s good hands as a copyeditor was cheerful and patient and winning… and, for the most part, grammatically correct. Over the course of his 30+ years in publishing, he helped to shepherd the work of writers such as Michael Chabon, Edmund Morris, Suzan-Lori Parks, E.L. Doctorow, Elizabeth Strout, and Shirley Jackson into print. Somewhere in there, he also found time to write a book of his own: The New York Times best-selling stylebook Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style—a “brilliant, pithy, incandescently intelligent book [that] is to contemporary writing what Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry was to medieval English,” according to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham, another Random House author who benefited from our guest’s unseen hand. Join us as Benjamin reflects on the collaborative role of the copyeditor in the publishing process, on the joys of creative footnoting, on the particularly lovely frustration of working with Isabella Rossellini, on a writer’s lifetime allotment of exclamation points, and the excesses to be pruned from phrases like “assless chaps,” “slightly ajar,” and “passing fad.” (Note the ever-popular serial comma in the previous sentence, and the expenditure of one of those allotted exclamation points in this parenthetical aside!) Learn more about Benjamin Dreyer: WebsiteBlue SkyFacebookInstagramSubstack Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 14 m
  • Second Printing: Peter Asher and David Jacks
    Dec 31 2024
    This episode originally aired June 20, 2023 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 Peter and Gordon and would go on to produce generation-defining albums for artists such as James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, and Diana Ross, immediately asked Asher if he would sit for an interview. The aspiring journalist thought he might use the interview as the basis for an article in a music magazine, but the two-time Grammy-winning Producer of the Year didn’t think anyone would want to read it. Nevertheless, that first interview led to another… and another… and on and on. Over the next two decades, the two continued to talk, while Jacks lined up interviews with hundreds of musicians and record industry professionals who had worked with Asher over the years, eventually leading to the publication of Peter Asher: A Life in Music, the first book-length account of the producer’s life and career. Join us for a two-part conversation with author and subject, as Asher reflects on a book he never thought anyone would be interested in reading, and Jacks shares what it was like to tease out the story of a shape-shifting pioneer—“a fascinating music business anomaly,” according to The New York Times, who could never quite understand what all the fuss was about. Learn more about our guests: Read The New York Times profile of Peter Asher, timed to coincide with the publication of the David Jacks book.Read Peter Asher: A Life in MusicRead Peter Asher’s The Beatles from A to Zed, based on the author’s popular Sirius XM radio show on The Beatles Channel.Peter Asher on InstagramDavid Jacks website Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters/ASJA “Andy Awards” GuidelinesRitani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 22 m
  • Episode 79: Seth Rogoff Returns
    Dec 17 2024
    Here at the podcast factory, we’re thrilled to welcome back novelist, translator, collaborator and cultural critic Seth Rogoff to talk about his new novel—a thrilling and unsettling coda to Franz Kafka’s unfinished masterwork The Castle. Seth joined us in Season 2 (Ep. #35) to talk about the also thrilling and decidedly unconventional memoir he helped to write with ESPN basketball analyst and former NBA star Kendrick Perkins, The Education of Kendrick Perkins, which took a critical look at racism in America, and in professional sports, and sounded a call for justice and social change—a book hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “a well-balanced blend of activism and memoir.” In that first interview, we talked a little bit about Seth’s work as a noted Kafka translator, and we’re picking up that conversation here, as Seth celebrates the publication of The Castle—“a palimpsestic fever dream” of a novel, according to another noted Kafka translator, Ross Benjamin. (Go ahead and look up palimpsestic—we’ll wait.) In this follow-up conversation, we talk with Seth about the collaborative nature of translation, the state of contemporary memoir, and the never-ending search to find meaningful stories in the life and work of others. Learn more about Seth Rogoff: WebsiteBlueSkyThreadsTwitter Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters/ASJA “Andy Awards” GuidelinesRitani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 14 m
  • Episode 78: Mike Thomas
    Dec 3 2024
    “In general, magazine profiles are to biographies as inland lakes are to oceans,” writes the late entertainment journalist and ghostwriter Bill Zehme in The New York Times best-selling Carson the Magnificent. “Far less sprawling and easier to navigate.” This is true—and readers need look no further than Zehme’s latest (and last) book, completed posthumously, for confirmation. Zehme, who collaborated on memoirs with Jay Leno and Regis Philbin and was a frequent contributor to Esquire, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Vanity Fair, worked on his Carson biography for over a decade, before a cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatments halted his progress. When he died in 2023, The New York Times cited “Carson the Magnificent” in his obit as one of the entertainment world’s “great unfinished biographies.” Enter podcast guest Mike Thomas, Bill Zehme’s former research assistant and longtime friend, who was tapped to complete the project, which was an immediate New York Times best-seller upon its publication last month. “Everything I needed (and so much more) was there, somewhere, stashed in long-unopened binders and torn envelopes and dusty bins,” Mike Thomas writes of this collaboration. “It was mostly a matter of sifting through the stockpile, extracting and sorting the relevant material and reaching out to a handful of Bill’s sources, all of whom were eager to help, for further illumination. But I’ve never lost sight of the fact that, despite my contributions, this is Bill’s book.” The book, Mike says, has been a blessing, gifting him the chance to keep connected to a close pal with whom he can no longer communicate directly—a mentor who cheered him on during his own career as arts and entertainment features writer at the Chicago Sun-Times, as a regular contributor to Chicago magazine, and as the author of two critically-acclaimed books of his own—The Second City Unscripted and You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman. Learn more about Mike Thomas: InstagramThreadsGrantland profile of Jan Hooks Mentioned on the show: The Bob Book, by Bill Zehme and ATT guest David Rensin Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters/ASJA “Andy Awards” GuidelinesRitani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon DogDaniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 h y 9 m