As Told To

Everybody's got a story to tell. Sometimes they need a little bit of help. Veteran ghostwriter Daniel Paisner talks shop with his fellow collaborators and shines a light on what it means to pursue a writing life on the back of someone else’s story.

Episode 117: Daniel Grace 07/21/2026

Between the Lines: Cobra 07/14/2026

Episode 116: Dave Jordan 07/07/2026

Episode 116: Dave Jordan “We ain’t doin’ none of this Tuesdays with Morrie shit,” baseball great Dave Parker once told his collaborator Dave Jordan, as they worked together on the soon-to-be-Hall-of-Famer’s memoir. “We goin’ out poetic and wild.” As Told To podcast guest Dave Jordan is a writer and filmmaker and founder of Instream Sports, a pioneering athlete-author writing platform. He is the co-author of the acclaimed memoir , with the late Dave Parker, who was inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame just weeks after his death in June 2025, following a decade-long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease. Upon publication, Cobra was hailed by Tyler Kepner of The New York Times as “one of the most gripping and revealing baseball memoirs I’ve ever read.” The book was nominated for a prestigious Casey Award, as one of the best books of the year, and stands as one of the wildest, most poetic memoirs on the baseball bookshelf. Prior to his work with Parker, Dave Jordan was a regular contributor to the Sporting News, SB Nation, and the Hardball Times, and the co-author of Fastball John, written with former San Francisco Giants pitcher John D’Acquisto. Dave Jordan’s short film, “,” starring Jim Gaffigan, Cynthia Nixon, and Spalding Gray, was featured at South by Southwest, the Brooklyn Film Festival, and several major film festivals. The film focuses on the crazy, stressful, and wildly competitive admissions process facing parents of New York City pre-schoolers. At the time of Parker’s death, author and subject were completing work on a follow-up collaboration to Cobra—King’s Island, a look back at the Hall of Famer’s rookie season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the racial and political climate that surrounded the game in the summer of 1974. Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/41948450

Between the Lines: Gursha 06/30/2026

Episode 115: Elisa Ung 06/23/2026

Episode 115: Elisa Ung Best-selling ghostwriter Elisa Ung credits her lifelong love of musicals with gifting her the tools she relies on in her collaborative work. “They’ve taught me to listen for rhythms and cadences in authors’ voices,” she writes. “They help me understand how to respect readers by telling the most powerful story in the least amount of time.” Elisa’s path to this type of storytelling might seem familiar to As Told To listeners, but she has walked it with a song in her heart… and an appetite for the stories we share at the family table, and in our family kitchens. A former news reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she covered the city’s Oxycontin epidemic in the early 2000s and reported from New York City in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, she traded her nose for hard news for a decade-long gig as a restaurant critic for the Bergen Record. From there, she discovered a passion for writing about food—and about people who live their lives surrounded by food. She is the co-author of the memoir-driven cookbook , with noted American chef Tung Nguyen, winner of the 2022 IACP award for Literary or Historical Food Writing; and, , a 2025 New York Times “Best Cookbook of 2025” selection, with Beejhy Barhany, chef and owner of Harlem’s celebrated Tsion Café. Her 2024 collaboration with food and wellness blogger Monique Volz, , was a New York Times best-seller. Join us for a delicious reflection on what it takes for a journalist to empower her subjects, from diverse backgrounds, to sit down to table and share their own stories. Learn more about Elisa Ung: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/41719705

Between the Lines: Phases 06/16/2026

Episode 114: Gerrick Kennedy 06/09/2026

Episode 114: Gerrick Kennedy “You're a co-pilot, you are a therapist, you are an archivist,” reflects journalist and cultural critic Gerrick Kennedy of his role as a ghostwriter. Kennedy is the co-author of the just-published memoir , from singer, songwriter and actress Brandy—an immediate #1 New York Times best-seller. He is the author of two previous books, and his work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ, Men’s Health, Spin, and Playboy. A former staff writer for The Los Angeles Times, where he covered pop music and culture, Kennedy was honored in 2012 with an Emerging Journalist of the Year award by the National Association of Black Journalists. Regarding his current collaboration with Brandy, he had known the multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning artist for several years before they decided to work together on her memoir—and after his first few ghostwriting assignments, he’s still getting used to his emerging role as the caretaker of someone else’s story. “You wear so many hats when you are doing a collaborative project,” he says. “There are so many conversations that you have with a person, and so much of it is going to be, ‘This is me releasing it, and I don't want to hold this myself anymore… and now you can carry it with you, but it's not for the book.’ It gives you context. It gives you ideas. It gives you understanding. But it ultimately just ends up becoming another secret.” Join us as we consider what it takes to honor your subject’s privacy while finding a way to attach those “secrets” to a public-facing narrative. Learn more about Gerrick Kennedy: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/41575985

Between the Lines: When the Garden Was Eden 06/02/2026

Episode 113: Harvey Araton 05/26/2026

Episode 113: Harvey Araton is not quite ready to set down his pen. After covering sports for more than 40 years for the Staten Island Advance, the New York Post, the New York Daily News and The New York Times, where he served as a “Sports of the Times” columnist for more than 15 years, he continues to write. His latest book, , a soccer novel for young adults about a seventh-grader who discovers the power of the beautiful game to hurt and to heal, was just published by Koehler Books. The book takes its place on Harvey’s ever-expanding bookshelf alongside one of his best-known books, , which was later adapted for an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary, and now appears especially relevant as the Knicks are once again captivating Madison Square Garden crowds in pursuit of another championship. Throughout his career, Harvey has written mostly about basketball, but he’s also written about baseball—never more compellingly than in his New York Times best-selling book, , about the unlikely friendship between Yankee legend Yogi Berra and then Yankee ace Ron Guidry. He’s also covered 10 Olympic games, the Super Bowl, and virtually every major tennis tournament, and contributed regularly to every section of the newspaper, including the obituary section, where he continues to write advance obits for many of the athletes he used to cover. Join us for a conversation on what it takes to report on the athletes who roam our fields of play, and to be on the constant lookout for ways to write about sports that transcend the game and speak into the human condition. Learn more about Harvey Araton: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/41407405

Between the Lines: The Maple Crew 05/19/2026

Episode 112: E. Danielle Butler 05/12/2026

Between the Lines: We the Women 05/05/2026

Between the Lines: Arsenio 05/01/2026

Episode 111: Kate Andersen Brower 04/28/2026

Episode 111: Kate Andersen Brower What happens when a ghostwriter/collaborator looks on as the subject of her latest book becomes the lede of a story neither one of them set out to tell? That’s the question at the heart of this conversation with journalist , co-author of the New York Times best-seller , written with “60 Minutes” correspondent and former “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell. presents a vivid portrait of the unsung women throughout American history who have changed the ways we work and live—a book Melinda French Gates calls “a vital reminder of the importance of women’s contributions to our history, and a call to action for anyone committed to carrying forward the work that they began.” About that call to action: in the aftermath of the shooting at the , O’Donnell sat with President Trump for a lengthy “, during which the president berated her for having the temerity to ask him to respond to the gunman’s manifesto. The president called her “horrible” and “a disgrace.” O’Donnell pushed back, and by the Monday morning of our podcast interview, the heated exchange was making headlines and filling social media feeds all over the world. “It was tremendous to watch,” observes Brower, “and I hope that it inspired some younger women watching to want to become journalists, and to want to ask these tough questions.” Kate Andersen Brower knows what it means to work the political beat. A former White House reporter for Bloomberg News during the Obama administration, she has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, and The Washington Post. She is the author of the #1 New York Times best-seller , which was adapted into the hit Netflix series of the same name by producer Shonda Rhimes, as well as numerous other books, including , , and . Join us for a candid conversation on what it takes to speak truth to power—and then, to find a way to write about it. Learn more about Kate Andersen Brower: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/41042040

Episode 110: Alan Eisenstock 04/21/2026

Between the Lines: The Girl in the Green Sweater 04/14/2026

Episode 109 Doron Keren 04/07/2026

Episode 109 Doron Keren “Memory without responsibility is just nostalgia,” reflects podcast guest Doron Keren, the keeper of his family’s harrowing Holocaust survival story. “Someone has to make sure that stories like this live and are experienced by future generations.” Keren, a retired dentist, has determined to do just that, working tirelessly to help shepherd first his mother’s story (, by Krystyna Chiger, co-written with podcast host Daniel Paisner), and now his grandfather’s memoir, (, by Ignacy Chiger), to bookstore shelves. His grandfather’s gripping, historically significant account, just published by Amsterdam Publishers, revisits Ignacy Chiger’s desperate struggle to evade Nazi persecution in wartime Lvov, Poland, where he hid with his family for 14 months in the city’s underground sewers, with the help of an unlikely hero. The book stands as a compelling companion piece to Krystyna Chiger’s 2008 international best-seller, the inspiration behind the 2011 film “,” from acclaimed Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Time magazine film critic Richard Corliss called the movie “a thrilling adventure picture—as if Anne Frank had found an Inglourious Basterd to help her make ‘The Great Escape.’” In his foreword to Beneath the Lightless Sky, Keren calls his grandfather “a real-life superhero”—a description that is well-earned. “[He] outwitted interrogators,” Keren writes, “evaded deportation, engineered the survival of a small underground community, and kept alive the faintest flicker of hope in a place where even light could not enter.” Join us as Keren shares what it was like to grow up beneath the shadow of the Holocaust, and what it means to keep sharing the stories that give our lives shape and meaning. Learn more about Beneath the Lightless Sky: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/40747655

Episode 108: John Rosengren 03/24/2026

Episode 107: Holly Gleason 03/10/2026

Episode 106: Jenna Glatzer 02/24/2026

Episode 105: Bizzy Coy & Lia Strasser 02/10/2026

Episode 105: Bizzy Coy & Lia Strasser What makes a good New Yorker cartoon? More to the point, who makes a good New Yorker cartoon? In our latest episode of As Told To: The Ghostwriting Podcast, we visit with the magazine’s self-described “toonsome twosome,” the cartooning team of Bizzy Coy and Lia Strasser, and discover what it takes to tap the talents of a like-minded soul to help you discover your best creative self. “It was out of frustration that I reached out to Bizzy,” reflects Lia, the illustrator of this dynamic duo. “I was struggling in the sense that I’d had these ideas that I thought were great and these drawings that I’d thought were great and I’d been submitting to the New Yorker for about a year and nothing was hitting, and a friend of mine suggested I find a writing partner, and of course my ego felt a little dented by that.” “I think it took us maybe even a year to even establish, ‘What is our creative dynamic?’” recalls Bizzy Coy, the humor writer of the pair. “And it’s constantly changing.” Lia is a cartoonist, graphic designer, and visual essayist whose work explores narrative illustration at the intersection of politics, culture, and personal history. She is also a kick-ass barista in Sullivan County, N.Y., where her latte foam art is much in demand. Bizzy is an advertising and marketing copywriter who has contributed humor writing to the New Yorker and McSweeney’s. Her short humor collection, , is a compilation of her favorite pieces, which originally appeared in the above-mentioned publications, and in Splitsider, Points in Case, The Belladonna, and The Establishment. Join us as these two friends and collaborators talk toons, reflect on how they’ve come together as artists, and share their thoughts on what New Yorker readers find funny. (Oh, and you just might come away with a tip or two on how to game the magazine’s popular “Cartoon Caption” contest.) Learn more about our guests: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/40036120

Episode 104: Paul Rappaport 01/27/2026

Episode 104: Paul Rappaport “This is the best book about how it used to be,” writes the influential music critic and record industry analysts Bob Lefsetz, in praise of Paul Rappaport’s wild ride of a memoir, . “[It’s] the only book I can remember that truly details what it was like inside the star factory.” After a career spanning more than three decades in rock promotion at Columbia Records, “Rap” knows as much as anyone what it takes to launch a new act, pump up a new record, or beat the drums on behalf of a world tour. Before capping his career at the label as a senior vice president, he had played a pivotal role in shaping and re-shaping the careers of some of the biggest stars in the business, including artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Elvis Costello, and the Boomtown Rats. “I’m a storyteller,” he explains, of the many ways he tried to frame the stories of the musicians on his roster. “We were making it up as we went along, and the characters were everywhere—not just the artists, but the behind-the-scenes people, the managers. No one had captured anything… I started thinking if I don’t write this down now, I don’t know how long I’ll have these memories. But I have them now, so that’s why a book, and why now.” Upon leaving Columbia, Rap formed his own production company, Tres Hombres, and for many years wrote the “Backstage Access” block for Classics du Jour. He was the lead guitarist in the pioneering Los Angeles punk band Mogan David & His Winos. Join us for a frenzied and free-wheeling look back at the glory days of rock ‘n roll, as Rap reflects on the writing of his first book, and a culture-stamping career that gifted him the chance to eat latkes with Lou Reed, receive a backstage guitar lesson from Keith Richards, talk Bob Dylan down from writer’s block, and trade licks onstage with David Gilmour in a once-in-a-lifetime turn as a featured guest of Pink Floyd. Learn more about Paul Rappaport: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/39871935

Episode 103: Joanne Gordon 01/13/2026

Second Printing: Bruce Vilanch 12/30/2025

Second Printing: Bruce Vilanch This episode originally aired on June 7, 2022. 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-the-scenes at the Oscars, supplying one-liners to hosts and presenters. (Oscar-watchers are still talking about the year Jack Palance did push-ups on the stage, and the time Rob Lowe went rolling down the river with Snow White – two moments that left Bruce and his fellow writers scrambling backstage to help viewers make sense of it all.) Over the years, Bruce became a familiar face to television audiences, when he stepped from behind the curtain for a long-running stint as a celebrity panelist on “Hollywood Squares,” where he also served as head writer. As such, he is uniquely positioned to offer note and comment on what it takes to craft topical material for some of our leading personalities – honing his own voice as a comedian and performer while honoring the voices of his famous clients. Bruce was the subject of the 1999 documentary “”, and he has played himself in the movies and on television, including a memorable turn in an episode of “The Simpsons.” Join us for an outrageous discussion on Bruce’s adventures (and, misadventures) in Hollywood, including the inside story behind one of the most notorious flops in the history of prime-time network television (1978’s “‘Star Wars’ Holiday Special”), the infamous Friars Club roast that featured Ted Danson in blackface, and a cameo turn from Ira Gershwin who was brought in to rewrite the lyrics to a song called “Treat Me Rough” for Marie Osmond, in hopes of slipping the number past the Morman elders who handled censorship duties on the “Donny & Marie” variety show. Learn more about Bruce Vilanch: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/39556360

Episode 102: Gathering of the Ghosts 2025 12/16/2025

Episode 101: Samantha Rose 12/02/2025

Episode 100: Alex DeMille 11/18/2025

Episode 99: Matthew Winkler 11/04/2025

Episode 99: Matthew Winkler Student journalist and first-time documentary filmmaker Matthew Winkler joins us to discuss his work on a film chronicling the life and career of Joya Sherrill, an unsung American jazz vocalist who wrote the lyrics to the Billy Strayhorn standard, “Take the A Train,” made famous by the Duke Ellington orchestra. Matthew came across Sherrill’s name during his freshman year at Tufts University, while doing research for Boston Globe journalist and noted biographer Larry Tye, who was writing a book about jazz. Matthew, a music and history major, was astonished to discover the small footprint Sherrill had left behind, despite being the first female jazz singer to visit the Soviet Union, accompanying bandleader Benny Goodman, and earning the distinction of being one of Duke Ellington’s favorite singers. “Public-facing history is very important to me,” Matthew told a reporter for Tufts Now, the university’s alumni magazine, in an article detailing how the Tufts undergraduate grew a student research project into a feature-length documentary, with the help of his professors and mentors. “I hope this film will make people know who Joya Sherrill is and why we should care about her. On a broader level, I think a documentary like this will make people realize how easy it is for remarkable figures to fall through the cracks of history.” With this conversation, it is hoped, he might also signal to aspiring storytellers how easy it is to keep their eyes and ears open for stories that might move us, inspire us, and enlighten us. Learn more about Matthew Winkler: Please support the sponsors who support our show: Daniel Paisner's Daniel Paisner's (PODCAST) | 30% discount (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton podcast podcast (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order (PODCAST) | 30% discount (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount /episode/index/show/astoldto/id/38883255

Episode 98: Michael E. Long 10/21/2025

Episode 97: Emma Heming Willis and Michele Bender 10/07/2025

As Told To

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