As Told To

"The more you try, the luckier you get…"

Words to live by, from podcast guest Arthur Smith, the pioneering television producer behind some of the longest-running unscripted series in history, and author of the just-published motivational memoir Reach: Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from a Lifetime in Television. Arthur's long-running hit "Hell's Kitchen," with Gordon Ramsey, helped to forge the modern food competition reality genre, while his Emmy-nominated "American Ninja Warrior" has spawned a cultural movement and inspired millions to push themselves to next-level successes in their own lives and careers.

As the founder and chairman of A. Smith & Co. Productions, Arthur has produced over 200 shows, for virtually every network and streaming platform, including "The Titan Games," "Mental Samurai," "Kitchen Nightmares," "The Swan" and "Paradise Hotel." Prior to launching his own production company, he served as the youngest Head of Sports in the history of the Canada's CBC television network, and as Executive Vice President of Programming, Production and News for FOX Sports. He also served for four years as Senior Vice President of Dick Clark Productions, producing a wide variety of award shows, special events and non-fiction programming.

In Reach, written in collaboration with podcast host Daniel Paisner, Arthur reflects on his remarkable career and shares some of the lessons he's learned while pushing himself beyond what he ever thought possible.

"In the nonfiction genre people get tired of the same thing," he recently told a reporter from the Jewish Journal. "The biggest hits in reality/nonfiction television come from originality. So we have to keep reinventing. We have to keep freshening up ideas. We have to keep reaching."

To learn more about Arthur Smith:

• A. Smith & Co. website
• A. Smith & Co. Facebook
• A. Smith & Co Twitter
• Reach: Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from A Lifetime in Television

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• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
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• Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
• A Mighty Blaze podcast
• The Writer's Bone Podcast Network

First-time author David Jacks, a veteran video editor and music supervisor, ran into legendary music producer Peter Asher at a Santa Monica taco joint in 2003 and asked if he could interview him. Jacks, a long-time admirer of the man said to be the inspiration for Mike Myers' "shagadelic" Austin Powers character, who first came to prominence as one-half of the hit-making British pop vocal duo Peter and Gordon and would go on to produce generation-defining albums for artists such as James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, and Diana Ross, immediately asked Asher if he would sit for an interview.

The aspiring journalist thought he might use the interview as the basis for an article in a music magazine, but the two-time Grammy-winning Producer of the Year didn't think anyone would want to read it. Nevertheless, that first interview led to another… and another… and on and on. Over the next two decades, the two continued to talk, while Jacks lined up interviews with hundreds of musicians and record industry professionals who had worked with Asher over the years, eventually leading to the publication of Peter Asher: A Life in Music, the first book-length account of the producer's life and career.

Join us for a two-part conversation with author and subject, as Asher reflects on a book he never thought anyone would be interested in reading, and Jacks shares what it was like to tease out the story of a shape-shifting pioneer—"a fascinating music business anomaly," according to The New York Times, who could never quite understand what all the fuss was about.

Learn more about our guests:

• Read The New York Times profile of Peter Asher, timed to coincide with the publication of the David Jacks book.
• Read Peter Asher: A Life in Music
• Read Peter Asher's The Beatles from A to Zed, based on the author's popular Sirius XM radio show on The Beatles Channel.
• Peter Asher on Instagram
• David Jacks website

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• 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

Literary agent Madeleine Morel has made a career out of representing ghostwriters and collaborators—and only ghostwriters and collaborators. Through her Manhattan-based agency 2M Communications, she has successfully paired her clients with top celebrities, thought leaders, health and fitness experts, business executives and change agents on hundreds of book projects, including more than 60 New York Times bestsellers. She sees herself as a kind of "literary matchmaker," and publishers are inclined to agree. They regularly seek her out when they're looking for the "right" writer to capture a celebrity author's voice or vision.

"It's the best of times and the worst of times," Madeleine says of the current climate for her clients. "It's the best because there's more collaborative work out there than ever, and it's the worst because there are more collaborators out there than ever." Join us for a fun, freewheeling conversation on what it takes to write in service of someone else, and how publishers go about putting the famous and infamous together with talented storytellers in pursuit of the next bestseller.

Learn more about Madeleine Morel:

• 2M Communications website
• LinkedIn

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• 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

"Songwriting is kind of where my heart is," says former Second City music director Tara Trudel, a versatile songwriter and composer based in Los Angeles. Tara's unique talents popped on podcast host Daniel Paisner's admittedly limited radar during the launch of Post in Fall 2022, when she created a mini-musical based on the early days and growing pains of the new social media site. Tara started her career teaching early childhood and elementary school music for Chicago's The Merit School of Music and the city's public school system, before pivoting to comedy and theater—a natural extension of her work with children, she says.

These days, Tara makes her principal living writing music for comedy shorts and theme songs for children's books—a collaborative niche she seems to have all to herself. Her work has been featured at SXSW, on Amazon Prime, Sony's Voces Nuevas, and Vulture's "Best Comedy Shorts of the Year." Tara's score for Chelsea Devantez's short film "Basic" was named "Best Score" at the LA Film Awards and the Festigious International Film Festival. Her debut album, "Fractured: Fairy Tales Remixed," offers listener's Tara's modern take on the classic stories we think we know, featuring guest appearances by her collaborating partners from the Chicago improv scene, including Ashley Nicole Black, Eddie Mujica, and Mary Sohn.

Learn more about Tara Trudel:

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Post
• Spoutible
• Instagram
• "Fractured: Fairy Tales Remixed"

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• 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 idea of 'chasing the panther' is that the panther serves as this metaphor for art, and so it's something that you chase after even thought it is in some ways very, very dangerous, and I think Carolyn would say that is one hundred percent the story of her life, chasing art."

That's writer and filmmaker Gregory Collins explaining the title to his very first collaboration, Chasing the Panther: Adventures & Misadventures of a Cinematic Life, written with the noted independent film producer Carolyn Pfeiffer, who as a young woman found herself swept up in the roiling waters of the French New Wave and Italian film scenes of the '60s and '70s. Together, Gregory and Carolyn have written a vibrant coming-of-age memoir telling the origin story of one of the film industry's first female executives—a woman once dubbed a Hollywood "mini-mogul" by The Wall Street Journal.

As the head of Alive Films and Island Alive, Carolyn produced a number of influential films, including "Stop Making Sense," "Koyaanisqatsi", "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "Trouble in Mind," "Far North," and "The Whales of August."

An accomplished screenwriter and producer in his own right, Gregory's films have premiered at the Malawi International Film Festival, and at the Sarasota and Seattle film festivals. He has taught producing and screenwriting at Penn State University and has served as the director of development of Burnt Orange Productions, at the University of Texas at Austin.

Join us at the front end of this episode, as Carolyn and Gregory discuss how they worked together, and share some wild stories about Carolyn's experience on the frontlines of French New Wave cinema, Fellini's Rome, and Swinging London—and then stay with us after the break, as we visit with Gregory and examine the ways he has shifted his focus as a writer from the screen to the page.

Learn more about our guests:

• Carolyn Pfeiffer, LinkedIn
• Carolyn Pfeiffer, Twitter
• Gregory Collins, website
• Gregory Collins, Twitter

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• 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

"A strong argument can be made that Fernando Valenzuela brought more new fans to the game of baseball than anyone going back to probably Babe Ruth's era," notes baseball historian and New York Times best-selling collaborator Erik Sherman, author of Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Before tackling the (largely) untold story of the phenom hailed by sportswriters as "the Mexican Sandy Koufax," and assessing Valenzuela's impact on the game, Erik made a name for himself as one of publishing's leading chroniclers of our national pastime. As a ghostwriter, he helped to write Out at Home with Glenn Burke, baseball's first openly gay player; Steve Blass: A Pirate for Life; Mookie: Life, Baseball, and the '86 Mets with Mookie Wilson; Davey Johnson: My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond; and After the Miracle: The Lasting Brotherhood of the '69 Mets, with Art Shamsky. On his own, he has also written the companion volumes Kings of Queens and Two Sides of Glory, featuring chapter-length profiles of the Mets and Red Sox players on both sides of the storied 1986 World Series.

A 2023 inductee to the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame for his baseball writing, Erik lectures annually at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. He is the host of the popular podcast "The Erik Sherman Show," featuring interviews with sportswriters, broadcasters, baseball executives and former players.

Learn more about Erik Sherman:

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter

(Note: the Gay Talese/Frank Sinatra and Laurence Shames/John Lennon profiles mentioned in this conversation are both hidden behind an Esquire paywall. For more insights into the Talese piece, visit Vulture and for more on the Shames piece, read this open article on Esquire.)

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• 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

"Writing is not what you start," writes podcast guest Nell Scovell in her scathingly funny memoir Just the Funny Parts. "It's not even what you finish. It's what you start, finish, and put out there for the world to see."

Indeed, Nell offers this observation from a place of hard-won experience. A veteran television writer ("Newhart," "The Simpsons," "Late Night with David Letterman," "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," "Murphy Brown," "Coach," and on and on), Nell understands what it means to get an idea on its feet and out in front of an audience. As Sheryl Sandberg's collaborator on the #1 New York Times best-seller Lean In, she helped to create a guidepost for a generation of women looking for a shared compass point in their lives and careers—a book Nell says she wishes she'd read at twenty-five, as a woman working in the male-dominated field of television comedy, instead of helping to write at fifty-two.

Join us as Nell reflects on a lifetime working in collaboration with some of the brightest (and least accommodating!) minds in television, on what it was like to write jokes for President Obama at the White House Correspondent's Dinner ("Obama, out!"), and on what it was like to be Spy magazine's first staff writer, and a contributor to Vanity Fair, Vogue, and The New York Times.

Learn more about Nell Scovell:

• Website
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• PostNews

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• 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

"When you're in that flow, it's the most magical feeling ever," reflects the noted fine artist and graphic designer Jay Alders. "It feels like the colors are shooting out of my palette, it's just right there, and all I have to do is scoop up a glob of light that's emerging from my palette. If I can have someone look at my paintings and feel some of that, to me that's success."

Jay joins us on the podcast to discuss the collaborative nature of his work, which in addition to his own disarmingly original paintings also includes concert posters and album covers designed for artists such as Slightly Stoopid, 311, Donavon Frankenreiter, Citizen Cope, the Dirty Heads and Echo Movement. He has become well-known throughout the surfing community for his original surf art paintings, as well as for his "live art" performance displays at concerts and music festivals. His work—a blend of "surrealism, cartoon art and surrealism," according to Forbes—has been presented in galleries across the United States and in Europe and featured at surf exhibitions from the North Shore of Oahu to the Jersey Shore, and he has lately emerged as a pioneer in the digital art space, with a series of dynamic, ocean-inspired NFTs.

We're trading in our pens for our paintbrushes with this episode, but Jay's insights into the creative process, and the story of how he's turned his singular gifts into a successful freelance career, offer important takeaways for artists and writers alike.

Learn more about Jay Alders:

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Shifting Perceptions podcast

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
• Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
• The Thoughtful Bro podcast, hosted by Mark Cecil
• Pop Literacy, hosted by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and Kimberly Potts
• Writer's Bone, hosted by Daniel Ford

"I'm always writing the book I most want to read in that particular moment."

That's a line from novelist Ellen Meister, offered in an exchange with podcast host Daniel Paisner. The two recently shared a stage at the Port Washington Public Library – a couple of Long Island authors talking about craft and career in front of a local audience. The event went so well, we've decided to repurpose the discussion here. Join us as we hear from both panelists on what it means to pursue a writing life, where to look for inspiration, and how to keep at it even when you might be falling short of your own expectations.

Ellen Meister is the author of several novels, including The Rooftop Party, Love Sold Separately, Dorothy Parker Drank Here, and Farewell, Dorothy Parker. Her most recent novel, Take My Husband, was published in August 2022 to wide critical acclaim and is the focus of much of this conversation.

Ellen is also an editor, book coach, ghostwriter, and frequent contributor to Long Island Woman Magazine. She teaches creative writing at Long Island University Hutton House Lectures and previously at Hofstra University.

The joint appearance, sponsored by the Friends of the Library and moderated by the library's programming coordinator Jeff Zeh, was meant to also highlight Daniel Paisner's new novel, Balloon Dog, which was published in June, 2022 to a somewhat narrower swath of critical acclaim and is also the focus of much of this conversation.

Listen. Support your local libraries. Read. Share.

A video version of this interview is available on the PWPL YouTube channel.

Learn more about Ellen Meister:

• Website
• Twitter
• Facebook

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
• Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
• The Thoughtful Bro podcast, hosted by Mark Cecil
• Pop Literacy, hosted by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and Kimberly Potts
• Writer's Bone, hosted by Daniel Ford

"Kendrick Perkins doesn't just have one voice, he has many." That's a line from the book proposal for The Education of Kendrick Perkins, the thrillingly unconventional new memoir from the ESPN basketball analyst and former NBA star, co-written with podcast guest Seth Rogoff, who helps to give voice to his subject's "many voices" in astonishing ways.

A cultural critic and professor of history and English based in Prague, Rogoff might seem an unlikely match for a traditional sports memoir, but the novelist and Kafka translator brings a fresh perspective to the genre and offers a compelling assist, as one the game's most colorful and outspoken commentators reflects on his time on the court in a voice that is uniquely and compellingly his own.

Together, Perkins and Rogoff shine meaningful light on the state of racism in America, and in the NBA, and sound a call for justice and social change, in a book hailed by Kirkus Reviews as "a well-balanced blend of activism and memoir…" Join us for a conversation on the making of what will surely be one of the most talked-about sports memoirs of the season.

Learn more about Seth Rogoff:

• Website
• Twitter
• Seth's novels First, The Raven: A Preface, Thin Rising Vapors, and the forthcoming The Kirschbaum Lectures are all available from The Sagging Meniscus Press.

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

• Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
• Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
• Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
• The Thoughtful Bro podcast, hosted by Mark Cecil
• Pop Literacy, hosted by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and Kimberly Potts
• Writer's Bone, hosted by Daniel Ford