The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

The Art and Craft of TV Drama with Aaron Tracy: Part Two

12.08.2023 - By Kelton ReidPlay

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Yale educator and TV writer/producer, Aaron Tracy, returns to chat with me about surviving the WGA writer’s strike, finally teaching the podcast at Yale, and his latest audio thriller on Audible, Nowhere Man, starring Lee Pace and Zosia Mamet.

Aaron Tracy also teaches “The Art and Craft of Television Drama” at Yale University, and his TV credits include Law & Order: SVU, Fairly Legal, The Tap, and Sequestered, a serialized thriller that ran two seasons, for which he was Creator and Executive Producer. 

He is also a Creator, Director,  and Exec. Producer of scripted audio dramas for iHeartRadio, Audible, and Spotify, with various production partners including: Supreme: The Battle For Roe, his 9-part audio drama starring Eva Longoria (feat. Maya Hawke and William H. Macy); Murder in Bermuda (feat. Mary-Louise Parker); and many others.

His most recent is Nowhere Man, a noir political thriller Executive Produced by and starring Lee Pace, with co-stars Zosia Mamet, and Chazz Palminteri. “Set in the mid-1980s, Nowhere Man is a dark, paranoid thriller about temptation and obsession through the prism of a profession most people don’t even know exists.”

Aaron’s debut audio drama, The Coldest Case, a detective thriller starring Aaron Paul, Krysten Ritter, and Alexis Bledel, premiered as the #1 download on Audible in 2021, and has since become the most downloaded show in Audible Plus history.

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In this file Aaron Tracy and I discussed:

Why he loves the ‘80s period pieces

How his directing experience has shaped his writing

Why he teaches the narrative podcast the same way he teaches Television Drama

The two greatest innovations of the modern TV art form 

What aspiring TV writers should be reading

And a lot more!

Show Notes:

How to Write a Bestselling Audio Drama with Writer/Producer Aaron Tracy: Part One

Yale University – Aaron Tracy

Aaron Tracy Audible Page

Amazon Author Page for William Goldman

Story by Robert McKee [Amazon]

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder [Amazon]

Aaron Tracy on IMdB

Aaron Tracy on Twitter

Kelton Reid on Twitter

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