Episode 65: Maria Burns Ortiz
As Told To
“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 memoir . The book is a follow-up to the sisters’ previous collaboration—the New York Times best-selling . Maria has taken her mother’s hard-won advice to heart, in an...
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Episode 64: Zibby Owens
As Told To
“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,” according to New York magazine. A frequent contributor to “Good Morning America” and other media outlets, she is the co-founder and CEO of Zibby Books, an independent book...
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Episode 63: Todd Strasser
As Told To
“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 , , and . He is also the author of the wildly popular series of books for young readers, as well as several other best-selling series and movie tie-in books and novelizations. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages, and several have been adapted for film and television. Many of his standalone books are pulled from today’s headlines,...
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Episode 62: Genevieve Field
As Told To
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. , Murphy’s unflinchingly honest account of intergenerational familial abuse, was honored this winter with an inaugural “Andy Award”—so named for the “and” credit often awarded to ghostwriters—at the first annual “Gathering of the Ghosts” conference in New York City, jointly sponsored by Gotham Ghostwriters and the American Society of...
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Episode 61: Seth Davis
As Told To
Seth Davis is a veteran sports journalist and broadcaster, and The New York Times best-selling author of and . He is the co-author of the just-published memoir , written with NBA veteran and University of Kentucky basketball legend Rex Chapman—a book that transcends (and upends!) the sports memoir genre and stands as a devasting and inspiring story about the human struggle for self-acceptance. Over the course of his career, Seth has written for The Athletic and Sports Illustrated and served as a college basketball studio analyst and reporter at CBS Sports. “You have to make...
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Episode 60: Mark Dagostino
As Told To
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 , with Chip & Joanna Gaines, co-stars of the hit HGTV show “Fixer Upper.” Mark began his career at The Boston Globe, as a general assignment news reporter, before moving on to a ten-year stint at People, where he turned his focus to popular culture as a correspondent, columnist, and senior writer. While at People, he conducted...
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Episode 59: Douglas Preston
As Told To
“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 . “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 Times —a shining example of what it means to write in collaboration. In all, Preston has published 39 books of fiction and non-fiction. In addition to books, Preston writes about archaeology and...
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Episode 58: Sarah Tomlinson
As Told To
“Sometimes the truth is just too much, and sometimes it’s not enough.” That’s a line from Sarah Tomlinson’s new novel, , 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 Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, Marie Claire, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, and Huffington Post. Her new novel puts an exclamation point on the maxim that says writers should write what they know:...
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Episode 57: Bethanne Patrick, Missing Pages 'Ghostwriting Non-Fiction The Literary Chameleon'
As Told To
“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 , the critically-acclaimed investigative podcast hosted by renowned literary critic Bethanne Patrick—known to readers across social media as “The Book Maven.” Bethanne and her production team at , a leading producer of original podcasts, pull back the curtain on the lucrative culture of non-fiction ghostwriting, and offer a compelling take on the art and...
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Episode 56: Kevin Anderson
As Told To
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 , 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 writers, and relies on the editorial and publishing expertise of more than a dozen former Big 5 acquisitions editors. “A client who hires a ghostwriter is still the author of their book,” Anderson once told The Washington...
info_outlineThis 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 editor, a screenwriter and playwright. She's even published a young adult novel called A Greater Goode. She made a whole bunch of noise with the publication of her 2009 breakout book, Marrying George Clooney: Confessions from a Midlife Crisis, a wildly funny and yet achingly wistful collection of middle-of-the-night musings on life and death and connectedness. (Don't just take our word for it: The New York Times called it "poignant, free-wheeling, cranky and funny.")
The book helped to establish Amy as a voice of her generation and a leading champion of women and women's issues. She is the co-editor of anthology Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small, and editor of Shades of Blue: Writers on Depression, Suicide and Feeling Blue, a collection of essays that looked to shine meaningful light on the shadow of depression.
She is a founding board member of the Scranton, PA-based Pages & Places Literary Festival, a co-director of the Story Summit Writer's School, and a frequent guest at writer's conferences and workshops all over the world.
Follow her on Facebook, where she posts almost daily on the stuff of her life and the human condition. Oh, and love...a whole lotta love.
Learn more about Amy Ferris:
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