Write About Now

Sam Hollander can make your hands clap. Over the past few decades. he's written over 20 Top 40 hit songs for artists such as One Direction, Katy Perry, Fitz and the Tantrums, Train, Carol King, and Weezer. His most recent record with Panic! At the Disco, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. On this episode of Write About Now, Hollander breaks down how pop songs are created in 2018, and what his role is as the lyricist/top liner.

Stephanie Storey's debut novel, Oil and Marble, is a Los Angeles Times bestseller. In our lively interview, we talk about her lifelong obsession with Michelangelo and the grueling five-year process of getting the idea from her brain onto the bookshelves. Needs some inspiration for getting your book done? This is a good place to start. For additional info about this podcast and my others, visit: writeaboutnowmedia.com

Paul Shirley played professional basketball for eight years for such teams as the Atlanta Hawks and the UNICS of Kazan, Russia. Paul is also the author of two memoirs, Can I Keep My Jersey? and Stories I Tell On Dates, the latter of which is now a hilarious new podcast. On this episode, Paul talks about what basketball taught him about writing. He also tells some classic stories about dodging bottle rockets on a Greek basketball court and enduring his mother's sex-ed classes at his middle school.

Michelle Kholos Brooks is an award-winning playwright. Her new play Hostage, based on a true story of a Midwestern mother who traveled to Tehran in 1979 to negotiate the release of her hostage son, was selected as a finalist for the 2016/17 Woodward/Newman Drama Award. Other plays include Hitler’s Tasters and Kalamazoo. On the episode, she talks candidly about why she writes, how she comes up with ideas, and what it was like meeting the real-life version of one of her characters.

Dave Itzkoff is a culture writer for The New York Times and the author of Robin, the new bestselling biography of comic icon Robin Willams. On the podcast, we talk about how Itzkoff landed the plum job, the process of researching and writing such a weighty book (it's 250,000 words), and the surprising things he learned about Williams along the way. If you're looking for a little inspiration, this podcast will do you a whole lot of good.

Dave Itzkoff is a culture writer for The New York Times and the author of Robin, the new bestselling biography of comic icon Robin Willams. On the podcast, we talk about how Itzkoff landed the plum job, the process of researching and writing such a weighty book (it's 250,000 words), and the surprising things he learned about Williams along the way. If you're looking for a little inspiration, this podcast will do you a whole lot of good.

Sarah Rhea Werner hosts a popular podcast with a similar name — Write Now with Sarah Rhea Werner. A writer by trade, Sarah recently found great success telling her fictional stories through podcasting. Her other podcast 'Girl in Space' is based on a novel she wrote. On the podcast, she talks about how she built an online writing community by simply being herself. She also explains how fictional podcasting brought a new dimension to her writing and career.

We lost a great writer last week: Jonathan Gold, a Pulitzer-Prize winning food critic for the LA Times. Before he died, I had the good fortune of interviewing Laura Gabbert who directed the beautiful film "City of Gold," which chronicles Gold's culinary journey into the ethnic cooking of his beloved city. Gabbert also talks about how she broke into documentary filmmaking and what goes into making a movie like City of Gold, which took her five years to complete.

Jarie Bolander is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He also happens to be a co-host on the "Story Grid Editors Roundtable" podcast and author of three books, including The Entrepreneur Ethos: How To Build a More Ethical, Inclusive, and Resilient Entrepreneur Community. On the pod, he offers a game plan for how to become a successful writer-preneur, how to overcome the stumbling blocks writers face on the business side, and why your "why" is so important.