As Told To

Rennie Dyball is an award-winning journalist, ghostwriter, middle-grade novelist and children's book author who's found a way to marry her lifelong interest in horses with her many and varied talents as a writer. Together with her co-author Piper Klemm, she created the popular Show Strides series of equestrian-themed novels for middle grade readers—originally published by The Plaid Horse and soon to be reissued by Andrews McMeel Universal. Rennie's standalone novel for children, Good Boy, Eddie, was published by The Plaid Horse earlier this year.

As a ghostwriter, Rennie has helped to give voice to a number of celebrity-driven autobiographies and memoirs, including the Audible Original memoir, Stronger Together, with Terry Crews and Rebecca King Crews; Full Circle, with Andrea Barber (Kimmy Gibler from "Full House"); A Famous Dog's Life, with Hollywood animal trainer Sue Chipperton; and, Fierce Style, with fashion designer Christian Siriano. An accomplished equestrian, Rennie has also drawn on her love of horses to collaborate on With Purpose: The Balmoral Standard, with top trainers Carleton and Traci Brooks.

Her most recent book, B Is For Bellies, a picture book celebration of body positivity, with illustrations by Mia Saine, was published by Clarion Books in July.

Rennie was a reporter and writer at People for over 15 years, before retiring from the magazine in 2017, and she continues to write for People.com as a freelance book critic.

"People was the best training ground I could imagine," she says of her development as a writer. "More than anything, I took away the importance of making every word count."

Join us for a winning conversation on what it takes to build a life and career out of two abiding passions—in Rennie's case, riding and writing.

Learn more about Rennie Dyball:

• Website
• Instagram
• Threads

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"I've been obsessed with the corrosive power of secrets since my first novel," reflects the best-selling novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro, a writer who has been mining her own secrets since she first put pen to paper.

In a far-ranging, free-wheeling interview with host Daniel Paisner, pulled from a "Book & Author Luncheon" program sponsored by the Friends of the Port Washington (N.Y.) Library in May, 2023, she reflects on her inspirations for her most recent novel Signal Fires, New York Times best-seller and National Jewish Book Award-winner now out in paperback, and for her gripping 2019 memoir Inheritance, also a New York Times best-seller and National Jewish Book Award-winner.

Her fascination with secrets is at the heart of Dani's wildly popular podcast Family Secrets, now in its ninth season, which invites guests to examine the secrets they choose to carry and the ones they choose to share, and it is at the heart of this conversation. "We all live in aftermath, all the time," she tells Paisner. "Aftermath is the story of our lives, really. And the question is, What do we do in that aftermath? And how does an incident or a secret that is kept impact us over a long lifetime?"

Join us as Dani Shapiro looks to answer her own question—and in the process, sheds meaningful light on the stuff of all fiction and memoir.

Learn more about Dani Shapiro:

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

More resources mentioned in the episode:

• Port Washington Library Website
• Daniel Ford's short story collection Black Coffee

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Lindsey Jacobellis is the most dominant athlete in the history of women's snowboardcross—a thrilling head-to-head sport that made its Olympic debut at the 2006 games in Torino, when Lindsey also stepped to the Olympic stage for the first time. And yet the inaugural running of the event was nearly her undoing. At 20 years old, Lindsey had a commanding lead heading into the final stretch of the medal round when she grabbed her board on the penultimate jump and was unable to land cleanly, spilling off the course and looking on in despair as her rival, Tanja Frieden of Switzerland, sped past to claim the gold. The world looked on as well, in judgement and disbelief, and Lindsey's fall would go down as one of the biggest unforced errors in sports—a misstep that allowed her to ultimately write one of the greatest comeback stories in Olympic history.

It also cost her many of her sponsors, and shook her confidence, and in many ways stamped her career before it had really begun, and in her just-published memoir Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall, co-written with podcast host Daniel Paisner, she revisits the anguish and heartbreak that found her on the back of that fall— and followed her around like a black cloud through the next four Olympic cycles, finally leading to her two gold medal runs at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

"I'm calling this book Unforgiving because that word has taken on so many meanings for me," she writes. "It speaks to the single-minded, relentless pursuit that has helped to shape my snowboarding career…but it also reflects the punishing, intolerant treatment I received in the press, and in and around the Olympic and snowboarding communities. And it reminds me that for the longest time I wasn't able to forgive myself for this one stupid, rash, thoughtless mistake—a mistake that cost me a whole lot more than a simple medal or the chance (for the moment!) to call myself a champion."

One of the ways Lindsey was finally able to put the fall behind her and reclaim her own narrative was to lean into her many other interests away from the mountain. She moved to California and took up surfing. She became a certified personal trainer and wrote a children's book, Sochi: A True Story, based on the life-affirming bond she developed with the stray dog she met in the athletes' village at the Sochi games. And she helped to launch Super Girl Snow Pro, an event series working to showcase the world's top female pros and provide an inspirational platform for young female athletes.

Join us as we visit with the GOAT of women's snowboardcross to talk about what it was like to rewrite her story on the snow—and, now, to share that story on the page.

Learn more about Lindsey Jacobellis:

• Website
• Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Super Girl Snow Pro

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"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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Dina Kraft is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Tel Aviv, where she co-hosts the influential podcast "Groundwork," sharing stories about Palestinians and Israelis working to change the status quo.

She began her overseas career in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press and has written and reported for a number of publications, including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Los Angeles Times. She currently works as the opinion editor for the English-language edition of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

A 2012 Neiman Fellow at Harvard University, and a 2015 Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University, Dina has taught journalism at Harvard University, Boston University and Northeastern University, where she was the director of media innovation at the university's School of Journalism.

Dina's first collaboration, My Friend Anne Frank: The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds, written with the late Hannah Pick-Goslar, recounts a brief but enduring friendship that somehow flourished during one of the darkest periods in history. "Lies," Anne Frank wrote in her diary, referring to Goslar by her childhood nickname, "you are a reminder of what my fate might have been."

Join us as Dina reflects on the story behind Goslar's best-selling memoir, and on what it means to bring a journalist's eye (and ear!) to the task of shining meaningful new light on one of the most familiar chapters in the literature of the Holocaust.

Learn more about Dina Kraft:

• Website
• Facebook
• X/Twitter
• Groundwork: The Podcast
• Watch "My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar" on YouTube

More post-show reading material:

• The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow by Daniel Paisner

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Novelist, screenwriter, producer and publisher Lee Goldberg knows what it is to work in collaboration. He has helped to write and produce a number of television shows, including "seaQuest" and "Monk," and he also served as a supervising producer and executive producer of the long-running series "Diagnosis Murder," starring Dick Van Dyke.

While working on "Monk" and "Diagnosis Murder," he wrote several original tie-in novels based on those series. Lee is also an accomplished storyteller in his own right—the author of nearly 40 novels, including Lost Hills, True Fiction, and the first five books in the Fox & O'Hare series, written with best-selling mystery novelist Janet Evanovich. His latest book, Malibu Burning, tells the story of an elaborate heist staged in the middle of a raging California wildfire, and he's got two additional books coming out in the weeks ahead—Calico and Dream Town.

Join us for a fun and informative conversation on what it means to work in and around television, and how it is that one writer has been able to capture the imagination of audiences in a variety of mediums.

Learn more about Lee Goldberg:

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter/X
• Instagram
• Threads
• BlueSky

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This episode originally aired on June 21, 2022.

If there's anyone who knows what it's like to be invited into "the kingdom of knowing," to borrow a phrase from journalist Richard Ben Cramer, it's podcast guest Barbara Feinman Todd, who graduated from The Washington Post Style desk to work as a researcher, book doctor, editor and spirit guide on books with Bob Woodward (Veil) and Carl Bernstein (Loyalties), and Ben Bradlee (A Good Life), leaving her uniquely positioned to reflect on the mind and mindsets of the three journalists who were perhaps most responsible for uncovering the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Indeed, as Barbara writes in her compelling memoir Pretend I'm Not Here, there are a hundred different ways to know and to be known, as she would go on to discover for herself in her work as a ghostwriter for such leading Washington personalities as Bob Kerry, then a U.S. senator from Nebraska (When I Was a Young Man); Marjorie Margolies-Mazvinsky, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania (A Woman's Place); and, ultimately, Hillary Clinton. In what she had thought might be her most attention-getting assignment, Barbara signed on to collaborate with the First Lady on It Takes a Village, coming up with the title and structure of the book, and helping to shape the narrative into a coherent hole. Trouble was, Barbara was "disappeared" from the book's "Acknowledgements" page, and her contributions whitewashed by the Clinton White House, and so the attention-getting was not at all as she had imagined.

Barbara would go on to teach journalism at Georgetown University for 25 years, and as she leaned away from ghostwriting she reflected on her work as a ghostwriter, and on her years-long relationships with her clients and subjects, with a shifting perspective. Her conclusion? "Writing other people's lives is a bit silly," she writes in her memoir, "like playing dress-up, clomping around in your mother's pumps that don't quite fit, but it also lets you have a momentary sense of what it's like to be someone else." That momentary sense is at the heart of our conversation.

Follow Barbara Feinman Todd:

• Twitter
• Instagram

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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.

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:

• Website
• Twitter

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This episode originally aired March 15, 2022.

Eugene Pack knows a thing or two about what it takes to write a compelling celebrity memoir – and yet he's never actually written one. As the creator and co-producer of the hit theatrical revue "Celebrity Autobiography," developed with Dayle Reyfel, he has pushed audiences to consider what it means to live a book-worthy life and how it is that readers have come to accept the wit and wisdom and worldviews of our most celebrated personalities when they are presented on the page.

The show has been staged in theaters all over the country, including runs on Broadway, on London's West End, and at the Sydney Opera House, with guest performers such as Kristen Wiig, Lily Tomlin, Mandy Patinkin, Paul Rudd, Billy Crystal, Maya Rudoph, Whoopi Goldberg and Martin Short helping to give hilarious voice to the so-called insights and dubious reflections of the famous and infamous. "Celebrity Autobiography" was awarded a Drama Desk Award for "Unique Theatrical Experience" when it debuted in New York to rave reviews, and it continues to delight audiences all over the world, drawing on an ever-changing slush pile of source material and an ever-evolving cast.

An accomplished playwright, Pack's short original comedies are featured on his uniquely-imagined and endlessly-entertaining podcast, "The Pack Podcast," performed by an assortment of talented actors, with proceeds going to the Actor's Fund, an organization that provides a safety net for performing artists and entertainment professionals. His full-length plays include "Columbus and Amsterdam," "Sharpies" and "The Poets of Amityville," as well as the autobiographical musical "To Be Loved," written in collaboration with Motown founder Berry Gordy. Pack is also an Emmy-nominated writer and producer, and the creator and executive producer of CMT's longest-running series, "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team."

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"I love the process, and the craft of writing, and helping people who have a real deep yearning to put their own story on the page," reflects best-selling author and collaborator Debra Ollivier, who has helped to develop, ghostwrite, and edit more than 20 titles, with a broad and eclectic mix of authors.

Debra, who lived and worked in Paris at the front end of her writing career, is the author of two enlightening and engaging guides on what it means to be a French woman and why it matters—What French Women Know and Entre Nous—as well as books on wellness, mindfulness, yoga, parenting, cooking and performance training. Her work is featured in the best-selling anthologies Mothers Who Think and Because I Said So. She has served as a contributing editor for Salon and a managing editor for The Huffington Post, and has also written for Harper's, Playboy, The New York Times, Parents, Le Monde, and other publications.

"I think for me I kind of have to be all in," she says about the factors she considers when taking on a new project. "I do like working with people who are very purpose driven… I find that I work better when I have an intrinsic level of enthusiasm, and when I feel like I'm not only helping this author-slash-client, but I'm also making a contribution to the world, as cliché as that might sound."

Learn more about Debra Ollivier:

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis
• Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
• Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
• Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
• A Mighty Blaze podcast
• The Writer's Bone Podcast Network