Every so often, I'll re-publish some of my favorite How I Write interviews. This classic episode is with Ward Farnsworth, a law professor and former dean at the University of Texas School of Law who has written popular books about clear thinking, language, and philosophy. His books include Classical English Style and works on rhetoric and legal writing.

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Check out Ward's website: http://wardfarnsworth.com/

00:05:09 Example 1 (King James Bible)

00:07:25 Example 2 (Winston Churchill)

00:12:01 Example 3 (Winston Churchill)

00:15:35 Example 4 (King James Bible)

00:18:34 Example 5 (Abraham Lincoln)

00:23:13 Example 6 (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)

00:26:56 Classical English Rhetoric

00:27:56 Example 7 (Abraham Lincoln)

00:30:15 Example 8 (Abraham Lincoln)

00:32:04 The only app I use to read articles [Readwise Reader]

00:33:31 Example 9 (Winston Churchill)

00:36:09 Example 10 (Lloyd Bentsen)

00:38:50 Example 11 (JFK)

00:42:16 Example 12 (Abraham Lincoln)

00:43:56 Example 13 (Henry Fielding, Tom Jones)

00:45:48 Example 14 (King James Bible)

00:47:58 The 3 Techniques, explained

00:52:40 Practical advice for everyone

00:56:24 The ideal writing curriculum

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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This episode brings together the moments from How I Write in 2025 that have stayed with me the longest. These are the clips I revisit when I need to be reminded why writing matters.

Robert Macfarlane talks about wonder as something you have to actively protect. Jayne Anne Phillips explains why the memories we keep from childhood reveal who we are. Paul Harding makes the case for aiming higher than feels comfortable and learning from the writers who shaped you.Henrik Karlsson shows what it means to really look at the world instead of getting trapped in your own words. Alain de Botton reveals how the news narrows our thinking. Lulu Cheng Meservey talks about writing that feels alive rather than polished to death and Mitch Albom tells a story that shows why storytelling is a craft of emotion as much as technique.

And then there is poetry. Dana Gioia and David Whyte both treat poems as part of a life, something to memorize, perform, and return to when everything feels confusing or heavy.

This episode is a reminder that writing is not just about words. It is about attention, courage, honesty, and the way we make sense of being alive.

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Jonathan Franzen is one of the most influential novelists alive today. He sees fiction as the most fundamental human art, and in this conversation he explains how he actually makes it: the discipline, the daily grind, and the psychological spelunking required to write characters who feel startlingly alive.

Franzen has always had an outsider’s eye. He questioned the hype of the Internet long before it was fashionable, and he’s been ruthless in diagnosing the spiritual emptiness of modern consumer life. Practically, more than anything else, this episode is about how he develops rich characters. For Franzen, the people are the story. When they’re real and true, fiction has a way of getting to the core of the human experience in a way that gives people a visceral experience, as if they’ve lived the story firsthand.

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

Follow me

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv

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Atul Gawande has written four books and countless articles for The New Yorker. When you think about doctors who write well, he's going to be the first person who comes to mind.

What's unique about him is that this isn't something that came naturally. The work of research, writing, editing, shaping sentences, telling stories: those are all things that he taught himself.

He's a surgeon, and he's still been able to write as much as he has. How has he done it? What has the discipline of writing for him been? That's what this episode is all about.

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

Follow me

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel

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X: https://x.com/david_perell

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Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York, came on the show to talk about how he wrote his way to five published books and 13 million Instagram followers. Along the way, the man basically invented his own genre of biography. There are short stories, there are long stories.

What he would do every single day is he'd walk out onto the streets of New York, photograph people, and interview them. He would say, "How do I tell this person's story?"

What he discovered is that these people's stories were stories about the human condition itself. It went completely viral.

So if you're interested in thinking about how to tell better stories about people, how to find your voice as a writer, then you're going to like this conversation.

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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So what is it that he does to find stories, to research them, to turn them into writing that just makes people flip from page to page? Lush, vivid prose, great descriptions. How does he do it?

That's what this conversation's all about.

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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Susan Orlean writes nonfiction books that read like fiction, sort of working in the style of Joan Didion or Tom Wolfe. But what makes her different is how intentional she is about her writing process.

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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Stefan Sagmeister is the author of six books and one of the most influential designers in the world. He's won multiple Grammy Awards for his designs, and he's designed album covers for people like Jay-Z and David Byrne, the Rolling Stones.

But he's a writer. What does he write about? Well, design, beauty, how to find good ideas.

You'll notice when you pick up one of his books that the form, the style, the vibe, the typography is every bit as important as the content. This is really about design, beauty, and why our world looks the way it does. Enjoy!

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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Morgan Housel is one of the top non-fiction writers in the world. He is most famous for his book “The Psychology of Money”, which has now sold more than 8 million copies.

Before he wrote the book, he wrote more than 4,000 blog posts for publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Motley Fool, and that’s how he honed his craft. This is my second time having Morgan on the show. The first time, I just wanted to talk about Morgan, how he goes about his work. But this time I said: “Tell me about stories.”

“How do you find stories? How do you tell stories? How do you think about the rhythm of stories?” That’s why he’s been able to sell millions of books in the world of psychology, investing, and business: because of his ability to tell a really good story. Enjoy!

00:00:50 Collecting Good Stories
00:04:12 Storytelling Beats Facts
00:05:16 How to Hook Readers
00:08:39 How Morgan Uses ChatGPT
00:15:53 Teaching vs Preaching in Writing
00:18:01 The #1 Worst Writing Advice
00:25:18 Wide Funnel, Tight Filter Framework
00:27:08 How to Find Your Writing Style
00:31:45 Why Write Books in an Online World
00:36:20 How Morgan Wrote ‘The Art of Spending Money’
00:47:16 Morgan’s Admiration for Beautiful Writing
00:53:28 How to Start a Chapter
00:57:18 Becoming More Observant
01:01:01 You Don’t Need New Ideas
01:08:16 How Morgan Deals With Rejection

About the host

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

Follow me

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You can’t walk through an airport without seeing a Mitch Albom book on one of the shelves. He’s most famous for writing Tuesdays with Morrie, which may very well be the best-selling memoir of all time. He’s now written 14 books, which combined have sold more than 40 million copies.

In 45 years of hitting the keyboard, this is the deepest conversation he’s ever had about the craft of writing. I asked him to approach this like a college writing seminar. Give me the rigor. Give me the examples, baby. Show me how you go about your craft.

And that’s what he did. He taught me the ins-and-outs of character building, writing novels, and our conversation started with how to tell great stories.

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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