This 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.

Amy has written for both television and film. Her screenplay, "Funny Valentines," was directed by Julie Dash and was nominated for a best screenplay (BET) award in 2000. She co-wrote the film "Mr. Wonderful," directed by Anthony Minghella.

Updates on Amy since episode aired:

Marrying George Clooney was adapted into a play and staged at the CAP21 Theater Company. Another run of performances is scheduled for September 2026 at Haddonfield Plays and Players in Haddonfield, N.J.

Her most recent memoir, Amy in Retrograde: Desperately Seeking Rewiring, was published earlier this year. A previous memoir, Mighty Gorgeous: A Little Book About Messy Love, was published in 2023.

In memory of her husband, the acclaimed cameraman and cinematographer Ken Ferris, she has established the Ken Ferris Scholarship for Women Writers through the Noom Miracle writing workshops.

Learn more about Amy Ferris:

• Website
• Twitter

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Jeff Daniels's audio memoir/podcast series is the darndest thing. He joined us on the podcast in October 2023 to promote the launch of "Alive and Well Enough," a collection of stories, songs, and scenes and monologues from some of the actor's plays. He followed that launch with a second collection, "Alive and Well Enough Continues," a year later, and now here we are a few years after that waiting on "Son of Alive and Well Enough" or "Alive and Well Enough Already."

Really, we can't get enough of this unique storytelling format, and you'll begin to hear why in this intro to the versatile performer's follow-up collection. Part podcast, part musical memoir, part bulletins from the floodlights, culled from a lifetime on stage.

Daniels, the two-time Emmy Award-winning actor and star of such iconic films as "Terms of Endearment," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "Dumb and Dumber," "Pleasantville," and "The Squid and the Whale," recalls being inspired in this effort by the story-laced songs of Steve Goodman and Arlo Guthrie, and, more recently, by Bruce Springsteen's "Springsteen on Broadway."

So come on by and set a spell—and, if you like what you hear, circle back and listen to our full conversation with the actor/songwriter/playwright/producer, as he reflects on what it means to channel the work of some of our finest playwrights and screenwriters – like Lanford Wilson ("Fourth of July"), Scott Frank ("Godless") and Aaron Sorkin ("The Newsroom" and the Broadway adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird").

Oh, and in the goes-without-saying-department, curl up these delightful Audible Originals releases… and thank us later.

More from Jeff Daniels:

• Jeff Daniels & Jonathan Hogan, "Together Again"
• Website
• Facebook

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This episode originally aired Oct 10, 2023.

"Sometimes I'm asked if I'll ever write a book," notes actor, playwright and singer-songwriter Jeff Daniels, "and I always answer that I already have. It's in my songs."

This is true. But now it's also true that the stuff of Jeff Daniels's life is on delightful display in the Audible Originals memoir "Alive and Well Enough"—a collection of stories, musings and songs that invites listeners into the heart and mindset of one of our most versatile performers, offered with grace and good cheer and midwestern soul.

Daniels, the two-time Emmy Award-winning actor and star of such iconic films as "Terms of Endearment," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "Dumb and Dumber," "Pleasantville," and "The Squid and the Whale," recalls being inspired in this effort by the story-laced songs of Steve Goodman and Arlo Guthrie, and, more recently, by Bruce Springsteen's "Springsteen on Broadway."

Part podcast, part musical memoir, part bulletins from the frontlines of contemporary storytelling, "Alive and Well Enough" is a wildly entertaining mash-up of Jeff Daniels's many gifts as a writer and performer, including scenes from some of the author's original plays, many of which have been staged at The Purple Rose Theatre Company in his hometown of Chelsea, Mich. "[It's] is the only place where I get to do everything I do," he says of his new audio project, which he calls "an adventure of an accidental artist who one day looked up and realized he had a sense of humor, a passion for writing, and stories to tell."

Join us for an insightful, engaging and surprisingly candid conversation on what it means to channel the work of some of our finest playwrights and screenwriters – like Lanford Wilson ("Fourth of July"), Scott Frank ("Godless") and Aaron Sorkin ("The Newsroom" and the Broadway adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird").

"When you're inside the writing, it rubs off," he says.

This is true as well.

Note: This episode of As Told To: The Ghostwriting Podcast features narrative and song excerpts from Jeff Daniels's audio memoir "Alive and Well Enough," presented courtesy of Audible Originals.

Jeff Daniels photo credit: Sam Jones

More from Jeff Daniels:

• Jeff Daniels & Jonathan Hogan, "Together Again"
• Website
• Facebook

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Join us as As Told To podcast guest Daniel Grace reads a passage from his first novel, In the Wake of Golgotha, just published by the indie press Koehler Books. Grace, a veteran ad agency executive and acclaimed winemaker, turns his creative talents to an entirely new form of expression with the publication of his first-novel, a modern-day retelling of "the greatest story ever told." If you're intrigued by Daniel's reading, we hope you'll double back and listen to our primary episode, in which our guest reflects on the very many ways his very many creative pursuits—as an ad man, vintner, and novelist—have become inextricably linked, each reflecting the heart and spirit of a natural storyteller. Oh, and we also hope you'll take the time to read his book and sample a few bottles of his wine.

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"There is no crime to fit this sentence; there is no sentence to fit this crime."

The words of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate echo across the centuries in Daniel Grace's first novel In the Wake of Golgotha, a daring retelling of "the greatest story ever told." As the specter of Pilate collides with a modern-day incarnation of Judas Iscariot in the shadows of a New York City basement, a profound religious mystery unfolds in a dark and dazzling literary thriller.

The book is a bit of a departure for Daniel Grace, the London-born, California-bred former owner of an internationally-acclaimed advertising agency, who now produces award-winning wines at his family's winery, Il Molino di Grace, in Panzano-in-Chianti, Italy, and who has come to believe that his creative pursuits—as a novelist, advertising executive, and vintner—are all of a piece.

He joins us on the podcast to discuss his love of wine and literature, and his determination to share the stories to be found in the bones of a well-crafted Super Bowl commercial, in the bottle of an old world Classico or Super-Tuscan wine, or between the lines of his long-awaited debut novel.

Learn more about Daniel Grace:

• Website
• Instagram
• Il Molino di Grace Instagram

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As Told To podcast guest Dave Jordan reads his favorite passage from the baseball memoir he helped to write with the late, great Dave Parker—a seven-time All-Star, a two-time batting champion, a three-time Gold Glove winner, a two-time World Series champion, and the 1978 National League MVP.

In Cobra: A Life of Baseball and Brotherhood, the writer and filmmaker lends his collaborative storytelling skills to one of the greatest ballplayers of his generation, known to fans and teammates as "Cobra."

Parker 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. Cobra was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2021 and was nominated for a Casey Award as one of the best baseball books of the year. Upon publication, it was hailed by Boston Globe sportswriter Chad Finn as "mesmerizing, powerful, and right on the money."

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"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 Cobra: A Life of Baseball and Brotherhood, 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, "The Paper Mache Chase," 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:

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Upon publication, acclaimed chef and restaurateur Beejhy Barhany's Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond was hailed by The New York Times as "a work of extraordinary scope and ambition."

In the hands of As Told To podcast guest Elisa Ung, the award-winning book collaborator and food writer, her story leaps off the page and invites readers to taste the full flavor of a life purposefully lived, as well as the full flavors on offer at Beejhy Barhany's Tsion Café in Harlem.

Join us as Elisa Ung shares an excerpt from her collaboration with the celebrated chef.

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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 Mango and Peppercorns, with noted American chef Tung Nguyen, winner of the 2022 IACP award for Literary or Historical Food Writing; and, Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond, 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, The Ambitious Kitchen Cookbook, 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:

• Website
• Instagram
• Threads
• Facebook

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"Sometimes my memories feel like a dream," writes Brandy, the Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and actress, in collaboration with New York Times best-selling author and As Told To podcast guest Gerrick Kennedy.

In this "Between the Lines" episode, we revisit a passage from Brandy's just-published memoir Phases, in which she reflects on the inspiration for her title.

As you listen, consider what it takes for an accomplished journalist to help give singular voice to such a singular voice, while working to stitch a lifetime of dream-like memories into a compelling narrative.

Please support the sponsors who support our show:

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• Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
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• Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order
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