Plotting About

How do you take true history — defection, the Cold War, Tiananmen Square, Vladimir Putin — and make it funny?

In this episode of Plotting About, Andrew Rubin sits down with Ken Pisani: novelist, screenwriter, playwright, comic book author, and Thurber Prize for American Humor finalist. His debut novel AMP’D was an LA Times bestseller — and now he’s back with his wildly ambitious follow-up, The Defection and Subsequent Resurrection of Nikolai Pushkin, the story of a Soviet hockey player who defects in 1989 dreaming of New York City and the Stanley Cup… and ends up in Buffalo.

It’s a conversation about the craft of comedy from a writer who’s found the funny in cancer wards, genocide survivors, and Cold War defectors — always, as he puts it, by staying truthful.

Short stories are having a moment. Hollywood is mining them for adaptations, anthologies are everywhere, and everyone suddenly wants to write short. So who better to break down the craft than someone who's placed over forty of them?

In this episode of Plotting About, Andrew sits down with Stacy Woodson, a US Army combat veteran, three-time Derringer Award winner, and one of the most decorated short crime fiction writers working today. Stacy started as a novelist whose book didn't sell, turned to short fiction as an "apprenticeship," and fell in love with the form as a playground where she could reinvent herself with every story.

They go deep into the machinery of short fiction: what compression really means (it's not just "less"), how to build a character in a single page through micro-detail instead of exposition, why every scene has to both reveal character and move the plot, and how to hit structural beats without letting the reader see the marks. Stacy shares the "tell me more moment" that starts every story, her approach to writing toward a feeling and emotional resonance, why she has to know the twist before she begins, and what actually makes a short story break out and stick with readers for years.

What happens when a television writer becomes a professional matchmaker — and then writes a book about it?

In this episode of Plotting About, Andrew Rubin sits down with Jaydi Samuels Kuba: TV writer (Family Guy, Salem), certified date and relationship coach, one half of the "Love Agents of Hollywood," and author of the memoir Your Last First Date: Secrets from a Hollywood Matchmaker. She's set up dozens of couples — and accidentally found her own husband in the process.

It's a conversation about the craft of writing love, from two people who approach it from opposite directions: one who builds romance on the page, and one who engineers it in real life.

Whether you write romance, watch it, or are just trying to survive modern dating, this one's for you.

🎙️ Plotting About — writers talking to writers, going wherever the alcohol, the algorithm, or the action takes them. Hosted by Andrew Rubin, author of Hell or High Winter.
www.hellorhighwinter.com

📚 Find Jaydi: Your Last First Date: Secrets from a Hollywood Matchmaker | LJmatchmaking.com | Match Made in Hollywood podcast

Episode 3 — Janell Rhiannon: From Homer to Epic Fantasy — Retelling the Trojan War Through a Human Lens

It started with a footnote. While researching Alexander the Great in graduate school, Janell Rhiannon came across a detail in Plutarch — that Alexander slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow. Curious about what could compel someone like Alexander to do that, she picked up Homer. More than twenty years later, she hasn't put him down.

In this episode, Janell joins Andrew to talk about the Homeric Chronicles — her six-book epic fantasy saga that rebuilds the entire Trojan War chronologically, weaving together Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, ancient Greek plays, archaeology, and dozens of myths into one sweeping human story. As a historian trained under Victor Davis Hanson, Janell brings a scholar's rigor and a storyteller's heart to characters we thought we already knew — Paris, Achilles, Hector, Helen, Clytemnestra, and the women whose voices have waited three thousand years to be fully heard.

They dig into the craft of retelling myth at epic scale, the psychological cost of war that Homer understood better than most modern writers, why these stories refuse to stop being relevant, and what Christopher Nolan is up against bringing the Odyssey to the screen.

A rich, wide-ranging conversation about history, storytelling, and what it means to be human — which, it turns out, is exactly what the Greeks were always writing about.

Find out more about Janell: https://www.janellrhiannon.com

Find out more about Andrew: www.hellorhighwinter.com

What does it really take to make a location feel alive on the page, and why does it matter more than you think?

In this episode of Plotting About, Andrew Rubin, author of Hell or High Winter, sits down with Stefanie Leder, author and TV writer-producer whose credits include Netflix's Boo Bitch, MTV's Faking It, TBS's Men at Work, and ABC Family's Melissa and Joey. Her debut novel "Love, Coffee and Revolution" is set in the lush, transformative landscape of Costa Rica. Today, we're going deep on setting: how writers find, build, and inhabit the worlds of their stories.

Real Car Chases… To Writing Them | From DEA Agent to Hollywood on Lawman: Bass Reeves & Dutton Ranch

In this first episode of Plotting About, I sit down with J. Todd Scott, former federal agent with a 30-year career who transitioned into a bestselling crime novelist and TV writer. From undercover operations and high-speed pursuits to writing for the Yellowstone universe (Dutton Ranch), JT brings a rare perspective on storytelling grounded in real experience.

We talk about:
*The truth about real car chases vs Hollywood versions
*How JT went from DEA agent to Hollywood writer
*What most crime shows get wrong about law enforcement
*Writing novels vs writing for TV and film
*Behind-the-scenes insights from the Yellowstone universe
*How real investigations shape compelling stories
*Finding your writing process and breaking through creative blocks
*JT shares stories from decades in federal law enforcement, including undercover work, surveillance, and high-risk operations, and how those experiences influence his writing today.
*If you’re into crime stories, thrillers, screenwriting, or Yellowstone, this conversation is packed with insight.

⏱️ Timestamps
0:00 From DEA Agent to Novelist: How It All Started
1:31 Inside a 30-Year DEA Career (What the Job Is Really Like)
4:05 The Mullet, Undercover Work & Blending In
6:10 Real Surveillance Stories from the Field
7:25 What Real High-Speed Car Chases Are Actually Like
11:42 Hollywood vs Reality: What Crime Stories Get Wrong
17:33 The Transition: From DEA Agent to Writer
22:53 How He Writes Crime Stories That Feel Real
37:44 Breaking Into Hollywood & Writing for TV (Yellowstone Universe)
62:44 Writing Process, Creativity & Finding Your Voice
79:46 What’s Next: Future Projects & Final Thoughts