As Told To

By: Daniel Paisner
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  • Summary

  • Everybody's got a story to tell. Sometimes they need a little bit of help. Veteran ghostwriter Daniel Paisner talks shop with his fellow collaborators and shines a light on what it means to pursue a writing life on the back of someone else’s story.
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Episodes
  • Episode 74: Jill Sobule

    Episode 74: Jill Sobule
    Oct 8 2024
    Over the course of her nearly forty-year career, singer-songwriter Jill Sobule has earned a singular spot in the American songbook. Best known for her breakout 1995 singles “Supermodel” (from the “Clueless” soundtrack) and “I Kissed a Girl” (which came out more than 10 years before the Katy Perry hit of the same name), her quirky, heartfelt, cheer-filled songs are difficult to categorize: she sings about the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, the French Resistance, LGBTQ issues and Mexican wrestling. In another decade, Jon Pareles, the chief pop music critic of The New York Times, wrote that she stands “among the stellar New York singer-songwriters of the last decade”—high praise that has surely applied in all subsequent decades. Jill’s songs are enchanting, disarmingly funny and achingly poignant, and many of them are featured in her Drama Desk-nominated autobiographical musical "F*ck 7th Grade," which premiered at the Wild Project in NYC in 2022 and returns for a limited engagement in November 2024. “We didn’t have to create a story around these songs,” she says of the show, which she really, really hopes isn’t dismissed as just another jukebox musical featuring songs from an artist’s back catalogue. “These songs are my story. I just wrote a few more to fill out the narrative.” Jill joins us on the podcast to discuss her rich and varied career as one of the music industry’s most uniquely collaborative artists. She’s performed with musicians such as Neil Young, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Cyndi Lauper, and Warren Zevon, and once released a concept album of original music with lyrics written by some of her favorite writers, including Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, Vendela Vida, and David Hajdu. She regularly tours with comedian/actress/author Julia Sweeney in their two-woman “Jill & Julia” show. Two highlights from the very many cool, pinch me-type moments that have stamped Jill Sobule’s remarkable career: she inducted Neil Diamond into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, and she appeared as herself on an episode of “The Simpsons.” So, you know, there’s that. Learn more about Jill Sobule: WebsitePatreonInstagramThreadsFacebookTwitter Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani JewelersChelsea Devantez's I Shouldn't Be Telling You ThisDaniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Episode 73: J. Michael Straczynski

    Episode 73: J. Michael Straczynski
    Sep 24 2024
    “The task of writing is to take a character and put him up a tree and start throwing rocks at him,” notes novelist, screenwriter, comic book writer, and television showrunner J. Michael Straczynski. The two-time Hugo Award-winning author is perhaps best known as the creator of the television series “Babylon 5”, and as the screenwriter for the 2008 Oscar-nominated Clint Eastwood film “Changeling.” He is also the author of the Superman: Earth One” trilogy of graphic novels, and for many years he was the writer for Marvel Comics’ “Thor,” “Fantastic Four,” and “The Amazing Spider-Man” series, as well as for DC’s “Superman,” “Wonder Woman,” and “Before Watchmen” titles. These days, Joe is spending most of his time throwing rocks on behalf of his late friend Harlan Ellison, the legendary writer of speculative fiction, who is having a bit of a moment more than six years after his death. As the executor of the Harlan Ellison estate, Joe has been the driving force behind the re-release of the first two installments of Ellison’s landmark story collections Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, which the author had always imagined as a trilogy. Now, thanks to Joe Straczynski’s dedication, the long-awaited third installment of “the most significant and controversial Science Fiction collections of our time,” will finally see the light of day with the publication of The Last Dangerous Visions, due from Blackstone Publishing in October 2024. “Harlan was my friend, and I have an obligation to him to get his work where it needs to be, in front of a mainstream audience,” Joe reflects on a year that has also seen the publication of a new collection of Ellison’s stories (Greatest Hits) as well as a novel of his own (The Glass Box). Join us as we talk with J. Michael Straczynski on his influences as a writer, on the art and craft of storytelling in all its many forms, and on what it has meant to him to be able to breathe new life into the work of an artist hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “a twentieth-century Lewis Carroll.” Learn more about J. Michael Straczynski: WebsiteFacebookInstagramTwitter Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani JewelersChelsea Devantez's I Shouldn't Be Telling You ThisDaniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Episode 72: Nancy French

    Episode 72: Nancy French
    Sep 10 2024
    Best-selling author, investigative journalist, political commentator and memoirist Nancy French is a storyteller at heart. She’s helped to write more than a dozen books, including five New York Times best-sellers, with a variety of collaborators from conservative politicians to Olympic athletes to reality television stars. Her latest memoir—Ghosted: An American Story—was published in Spring 2024 to wide critical acclaim. CNN’s Jake Tapper hailed the book prior to publication as “a great read for anyone trying to make sense of cultural whiplash over the last few years,” and went on to write that “Nancy French’s journey from poverty-stricken mountains to a presidential campaign plane is a joy.” Join us as we kick off Season 4 at the podcast factory with an insight-filled conversation on what it means to lend your voice to leaders who share your values, only to find yourself “ghosted” by a political establishment that seemed to want to punish you for your refusal to endorse the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee. Learn more about Nancy French: WebsiteFacebookTwitterInstagramThreads Please support the sponsors who support our show: Ritani JewelersChelsea Devantez's I Shouldn't Be Telling You ThisDaniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television PilotUnforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey JacobellisFilm Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountLibro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membershipFilm Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef SuttonEveryday Shakespeare podcastA Mighty Blaze podcastThe Writer's Bone Podcast NetworkMisfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discountWizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount
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    1 hr and 16 mins

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