Podcast appearances and mentions of Angelina Jolie

What makes a character so compelling that readers will forgive almost anything about the plot? How do you move beyond vague flaws and generic descriptions to create people who feel pulled from real life? In this solo episode, I share 15 actionable tips for writing deep characters, curated from past interviews on the podcast. In the intro, thoughts from London Book Fair [Instagram reel @jfpennauthor; Publishing Perspectives; Audible; Spotify]; Insights from a 7-figure author business [BookBub]. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community and get articles, discounts, and extra audio and video tutorials on writing craft, author business, and AI tools, at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn This episode has been created from previous episodes of The Creative Penn Podcast, curated by Joanna Penn, as well as chapters from How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book. Links to the individual episodes are included in the transcript below. In this episode: Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' trifecta, how to hook readers on the very first page Define the Dramatic Question: Who is your character when the chips are down? Absolute specificity. Why “she's controlling” isn't good enough Understand the Heroine's Journey, strength through connection, not solo action Use ‘Metaphor Families' to anchor dialogue and give every character a distinctive voice Find the Diagnostic Detail, the moments that prove a character is real Writing pain onto the page without writing memoir Write diverse characters as real people, not stereotypes or plot devices Give your protagonist a morally neutral ‘hero' status. Compelling beats likeable. Build vibrant side characters for series longevity and spin-off potential Use voice as a rhythmic tool Link character and plot until they're inseparable Why discovery writers can write out of order and still build deep character Find the sensory details that make characters live and breathe More help with how to write fiction here, or in my book, How to Write a Novel. Writing Characters: 15 Tips for Writing Deep Character in Your Fiction In today's episode, I'm sharing fifteen tips for writing deep characters, synthesised from some of the most insightful interviews on The Creative Penn Podcast over the past few years, combined with what I've learned across more than forty books of my own. I'll be referencing episodes with Matt Bird, Will Storr, Gail Carriger, Barbara Nickless, and Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. I'll also draw on my own book, How to Write a Novel, which covers these fundamentals in detail. Whether you're writing your first novel or your fiftieth, whether you're a plotter or a discovery writer like me, these tips will help you create characters that readers believe in, care about, and invest in—and keep coming back for more. Let's get into it. 1. Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' Trifecta When I spoke with Matt Bird on episode 624, he laid out the three things you need to achieve on the very first page of your book or in the first ten minutes of a film. He calls it “Believe, Care, and Invest.” First, the reader must believe the character is a real person, somehow proving they are not a cardboard imitation of a human being, not just a generic type walking through a generic plot. Second, the reader must care about the character's circumstances. And third, the reader must invest in the character's ability to solve the story's central problem. Matt used The Hunger Games as his primary example, and it's brilliant. On the very first page, we believe Katniss's voice. Suzanne Collins writes in first person with a staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short declarative sentences—that immediately grounds us in a survivalist mentality. We care because Katniss is starving. She's protecting her little sister. And we invest because she is out there bow hunting, which Matt pointed out is one of the most badass things a character can do. She even kills a lynx two pages in and sells the pelt. We invest in her resourcefulness and grit before the plot has even begun. Matt was very clear that this has nothing to do with the character being “likable.” He said his subtitle, Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love, doesn't mean the character has to be a good person. He described “hero” as both gender-neutral and morally neutral. A hero can be totally evil or totally good. What matters is that we believe, care, and invest. He demonstrated this beautifully by breaking down the first ten minutes of WeCrashed, where the characters of Adam and Rebekah Neumann are absolutely not likable, but we are completely hooked. Adam steals his neighbour's Chinese food through a carefully orchestrated con involving an imaginary beer. It's not admirable behaviour, but the tradecraft involved, as Matt put it—using a term from spy movies—makes us invest in him. We see a character trying to solve the big problem of his life, which is that he's poor and wants to be rich, and we want to see if he can pull it off. Actionable step: Go to the first page of your current work in progress. Does it achieve all three? Does the reader believe this is a real person with a distinctive voice? Do they care about the character's circumstances? And do they invest in the character's ability to handle what's coming? If even one of those three is missing, that's your revision priority. 2. Define the Dramatic Question: Who Are They Really? Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling, came on episode 490 and gave one of the most powerful frameworks I've ever heard for character-driven fiction. He explained that the human brain evolved language primarily to swap social information—in other words, to gossip. We are wired to monitor other people, to ask the question: who is this person when the chips are down? That's what Will calls the Dramatic Question, and it's what he believes lies at the heart of all compelling storytelling. It's not a question about plot. It's a question about the character's soul. And every scene in your novel should force the character to answer it. His example of Lawrence of Arabia is unforgettable. The Dramatic Question for the entire film is: who are you, Lawrence? Are you ordinary or are you extraordinary? At the beginning, Lawrence is a cocky, rebellious young soldier who believes his rebelliousness makes him superior. Every iconic scene in that three-hour film tests that belief. Sometimes Lawrence acts as though he truly is extraordinary—leading the Arabs into battle, being hailed as a god—and sometimes the world strips him bare and he sees himself as ordinary. Because it's a tragedy, he never overcomes his flaw. He doubles down on his belief that he's extraordinary until he becomes monstrous, culminating in that iconic scene where he lifts a bloody dagger and sees his own reflection with horror. Will also used Jaws to demonstrate how this works in a pure action thriller. Brody's dramatic question is simple: are you going to be old Brody who is terrified of the water, or new Brody who can overcome that fear? Every scene where the shark appears is really asking that question. And the last moment of the film isn't the shark blowing up. It's Brody swimming back through the water, saying he used to be scared of the water and he can't imagine why. Actionable step: Write down the Dramatic Question for your protagonist in a single sentence. Is it “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you brave enough to love again?” or “Will you sacrifice your principles for survival?” If you can't answer this with specificity, your character might still be a sketch rather than a person. 3. Get rid of Vague Flaws, and use Absolute Specificity This was one of Will Storr's most important points. He said that vague thinking about characters is really the enemy. When he teaches workshops and asks writers to describe their character's flaw, most of them say something like “they're very controlling.” And Will's response is: that's not good enough. Everyone is controlling. How are they controlling? What's the specific mechanism? He gave the example of a profile he read of Theresa May during the UK's Brexit chaos. Someone who knew her said that Theresa May's problem was that she always thinks she's the only adult in every room she goes into. Will said that stopped him in his tracks because it's so precise. If you define a character with that level of specificity, you can take them and put them in any genre, any situation—a spaceship, a Victorian drawing room, a school playground—and you will know exactly how they're going to behave. The same applies to Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as Will described it: a man who believes absolutely in capitalistic success and the idea that when you die, you're going to be weighed on a scale, just as God weighs you for sin, but now you're weighed for success. That's not a vague flaw. That's a worldview you can drop into any story and watch it combust. Will made another counterintuitive point that I found really valuable: writers often think that piling on multiple traits will create a complex character, but the opposite is true. Starting with one highly specific flaw and running it through the demands of a relentless plot is what generates complexity. You end up with a far more nuanced, original character than if you'd started with a laundry list of vague attributes. Actionable step: Take your protagonist's flaw and pressure-test it. Is it specific enough that you could place this character in any situation and predict their behaviour? If you're stuck at “she's stubborn” or “he's insecure,” keep pushing. What kind of stubborn? What kind of insecure? Find the diagnostic sentence—the Theresa May level of precision. 4. Understand the Heroine's Journey: Strength Through Connection Gail Carriger came on episode 550 to discuss her nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey, and it completely reframed how I think about some of my own fiction. Gail explained that the core difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey comes down to how strength and victory are defined. The Hero's Journey is about strength through solo action. The hero must be continually isolated to get stronger. He goes out of civilisation, faces strife alone, and achieves victory through physical prowess and self-actualisation. The Heroine's Journey is the opposite. The heroine achieves her goals by activating a network. She's a delegator, a general. She identifies where she can't do something alone, finds the people who can help, and portions out the work for mutual gain. Gail put it simply: the heroine is very good at asking for help, which our culture tends to devalue but which is actually a powerful form of strength. Crucially, Gail stressed that gender is irrelevant to which journey you're writing. Her go-to examples are striking: the recent Wonder Woman film is practically a beat-for-beat hero's journey—Gilgamesh on screen, as Gail described it. Meanwhile, Harry Potter, both the first book and the series as a whole, is a classic heroine's journey. Harry's power comes from his network—Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, his friendships with Ron and Hermione. He doesn't defeat Voldemort alone. He defeats Voldemort because of love and connection. This distinction has real practical consequences for writers. If you're writing a hero's journey and you hit writer's block, Gail said, the solution is usually to isolate your hero further and pile on more strife. But if you're writing a heroine's journey, the solution is probably to throw a new character into the scene—someone who has advice to offer or a skill the heroine lacks. The actual solutions to writer's block are different depending on which narrative you're writing. As I reflected on my own work, I realised that my ARKANE thriller protagonist, Morgan Sierra, follows a hero's journey—she's a solo operative, a lone wolf like Jack Reacher or James Bond. But my Mapwalker fantasy series follows a heroine's journey, with Sienna and her group of friends working together. I hadn't consciously chosen those paths; the stories led me there. But understanding the framework helps me write more intentionally now. Actionable step: Identify which journey your protagonist is on. Does your character gain strength by being alone (hero) or by building connections (heroine)? This will inform every plot decision you make, from how they face obstacles to how your story ends. 5. Use ‘Metaphor Families' to Anchor Dialogue and Voice One of the most practical techniques Matt Bird shared on episode 624 is the idea of assigning each character a “metaphor family”—a specific well of language that they draw from. This gives each character a distinctive voice that goes beyond accent or dialect. Matt explained how in The Wire, one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, every character has a different metaphor family. What struck him was that Omar, this iconic character, never utters a single curse word in the entire series. His metaphor family is pirate. He talks about parlays, uses language that feels like it belongs in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it creates this incredible ironic counterpoint against his urban setting. It tells us immediately that this is a character who sees himself in a tradition of people that doesn't match his immediate surroundings. Matt also referenced the UK version of The Office, where Gareth works at a paper company but aspires to the military. So all of his language is drawn from a military metaphor family. He doesn't talk about filing and photocopying; he talks about tactics and discipline and being on the front line. This tells us that the character has a life and dreams beyond the immediate scene—and it's the gap between aspiration and reality that makes him both funny and believable. He pointed out that a metaphor family sometimes comes from a character's background, but it's often more interesting when it comes from their aspirations. What does your character want to be? What world do they fantasise about inhabiting? That's where their language should come from. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spiritual hermit, but his metaphor family is military. He uses the language of generals and commanders, and that ironic counterpoint is part of what makes him feel so rich. Actionable step: Assign each of your main characters a metaphor family. It could be based on their job, their background, or—more interestingly—their secret aspirations. Then go through your dialogue and make sure each character is consistently drawing from that well of language. If two characters sound the same when you strip away the dialogue tags, this is the fix. 6. Find the Diagnostic Detail: The Diagonal Toast Avoid clichéd character tags—the random scar, the eye patch, the mysterious limp—unless they serve a deep narrative purpose. Matt Bird on episode 624 was very funny about this: he pointed out that Nick Fury, Odin, and eventually Thor all have eye patches in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eye patches are done, he said. You cannot do eye patches anymore. Instead, look for what I'm calling the “diagonal toast” detail, after a scene Matt described from Captain Marvel. In the film, Captain Marvel is trying to determine whether Nick Fury is who he says he is. She asks him to prove he isn't a shapeshifting alien. Fury shares biographical details—his history, his mother—but then she pushes further and says, name one more thing you couldn't possibly have made up about yourself. And Fury says: if toast is cut diagonally, I can't eat it. Matt said that detail is gold for a writer because it feels pulled from a real life. You can pull it from your own life and gift it to your characters, and the reader can tell it's not manufactured. He gave another example from The Sopranos: Tony Soprano's mother won't answer the phone after dark. The show's creator, David Chase, confirmed on the DVD commentary that this came from his own mother, who genuinely would not answer the phone after dark and couldn't explain why. Matt's practical advice was to keep a journal. Write down the strange, specific things that people do or say. Mine your own life for those hyper-specific details. You just need one per book. In my own writing, I've used this approach. In my ARKANE thrillers, my character Morgan Sierra has always been Angelina Jolie in my mind—specifically Jolie in Lara Croft or Mr and Mrs Smith. And Blake Daniel in my crime thriller series was based on Jesse Williams from Grey's Anatomy. I paste pictures of actors into my Scrivener projects. It helps with visuals, but also with the sense of the character, their energy and physicality. But visual details only take you so far. It's the behavioural quirks—the diagonal toast moments—that make a character feel genuinely alive. That said, physical character tags can work brilliantly when they serve the story. As I discuss in How to Write a Novel, Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike is an amputee, and his pain and the physical challenges of his prosthesis are a key part of every story—it's not a cosmetic detail, it's woven into the action and the character's psychology. My character Blake Daniel always wears gloves to cover the scars on his hands, which provides an angle into his wounded past as well as a visual cue for the reader. And of course, Harry Potter's lightning-shaped scar isn't just a mark—it's a direct connection to his nemesis and the mythology of the entire series. The rule of thumb is: if the tag tells us something about the character's interior life or connects to the plot, it's earning its place. If it's just there to make the character visually distinctive, it's probably a crutch. Game of Thrones takes character tags further with the family houses, each with their own mottos and sigils. The Starks say “Winter is coming” and their sigil is a dire wolf. Those aren't just labels—they're worldview made visible. Actionable step: Start a “diagonal toast” notebook. Every time you notice something strange and specific about someone's behaviour—something that feels too real to be made up—write it down. Then gift it to a character who needs more texture. 7. Displace Your Own Trauma into the Work Barbara Nickless shared something deeply personal on episode 732 that fundamentally changed how I think about putting pain onto the page. While starting At First Light, the first book in her Dr. Evan Wilding series, she lost her son to epilepsy—something called SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. Barbara said that writing helped her cope with the trauma, that doing a deep dive into Old English literature and the Viking Age for the book's research became a lifeline. But here's what's important: she didn't give Dr. Evan Wilding her exact trauma. Evan Wilding is four feet five inches, and Barbara described how he has to walk through a world that won't adjust to him. That's its own form of learning to cope when circumstances are beyond your control. She displaced her genuine grief into the character's different but parallel struggle. When I asked her about the difference between writing for therapy and writing for an audience, she drew on her experience teaching creative writing to veterans through a collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Arts. She said she's found that she can pour her heartache into her characters and process it through them, even when writing professionally, and that the genuine emotion is what touches readers. We've all been through our own losses and griefs, so seeing how a character copes can be deeply meaningful. I've always found that putting my own pain onto the page is the most direct way to connect with a reader's soul. My character Morgan Sierra's musings on religion and the supernatural are often my own. Her restlessness, her fascination with the darker edges of faith—those come from me. But her Krav Maga fighting skills and her ability to kill the bad guys are definitely her own. That gap between what's mine and what's hers is where the fiction lives. Barbara also said something on that episode that I wrote down and stuck on my wall. She said the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul. I've been thinking about that ever since. On my own wall, I have “Measure your life by what you create.” Different words, same truth. Actionable step: If you're carrying something heavy—grief, anger, fear, regret—consider how you might displace it into a character's different but emotionally parallel struggle. Don't copy your exact situation; transform it. The emotion will be genuine, and the reader will feel it. 8. Write Diverse Characters as Real People When I spoke with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673—Sarah is Choctaw and a historical fiction author honoured by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian—she offered a perspective that every fiction writer needs to hear. The key message was to move away from stereotypes. Don't write your American Indian character as the “Wise Guide” who exists solely to dispense mystic wisdom to the white protagonist. Don't limit diverse characters to historical settings, as though they only exist in the past. Place them in normal, contemporary roles. Your spaceship captain, your forensic scientist, your small-town baker—any of them can be American Indian, or Nigerian, or Japanese, and their heritage should be a lived-in part of their identity, not the sole reason they exist in the story. I write international thrillers and dark fantasy, and my fiction is populated with characters from all over the world. I have a multi-cultural family and I've lived in many places and travelled widely, so I've met, worked with, and had relationships with people from different cultures. I find story ideas through travel, and if I set my books in a certain place, then the story is naturally populated with the people who live there. As I discuss in my book, How to Write a Novel, the world is a diverse place, so your fiction needs to be populated with all kinds of people. If I only populated my fiction with characters like me, they would be boring novels. There are many dimensions of difference—race, nationality, sex, age, body type, ability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, class, culture, education level—and even then, don't assume that similar types of people think the same way. Some authors worry they will make mistakes. We live in a time of outrage, and some authors have been criticised for writing outside their own experience. So is it too dangerous to try? Of course not. The media amplifies outliers, and most authors include diverse characters in every book without causing offence because they work hard to get it right. It's about awareness, research, and intent. Actionable step: Audit the cast of your current work in progress. Have you written a mono-cultural perspective for all of them? If so, consider who could bring a different background, perspective, or set of cultural specifics to the story. Not as a token addition, but as a real person with a real life. 9. Respect Tribal and Cultural Specificity Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673 was emphatic about one thing: never treat diverse groups as monolithic. If you're writing a Native American character, you must research the specific nation. Choctaw is not Navajo, just as British is not French. Sarah described the distinct cultural markers of the Choctaw people—the diamond pattern you'll see on traditional shirts and dresses, which represents the diamondback rattlesnake. They have distinct dances and songs. She said that if she saw someone in traditional dress at a distance, she would know whether they were Choctaw based on what they were wearing. She encouraged writers who want to write specifically about a nation to get to know those people. Go to events, go to a powwow, learn about the individual culture. She noted that a big misconception is that American Indians exist only in the past—she stressed that they are still here, still living their cultures, and fiction should reflect that present reality. I took a similar approach when writing Destroyer of Worlds, which is set mostly in India. I read books about Hindu myth, watched documentaries about the sadhus, and had one of my Indian readers from Mumbai check my cultural references. For Risen Gods, set in New Zealand with a young Maori protagonist, I studied books about Maori mythology and fiction by Maori authors, and had a male Maori reader check for cultural issues. Research is simply an act of empathy. The practical takeaway is this: if you're going to include a character from a specific cultural background, do the work. Use specific cultural details rather than generic signifiers. Sarah talked about how even she fell into stereotypes when she was first writing, until her mother pointed them out. If someone from within a culture can fall into those traps, the rest of us certainly can. Do the research, try your best, ask for help, and apologise if you need to. Actionable step: If you're writing a character from a specific culture, identify three to five sensory or behavioural details that are particular to that culture—not the generic version, but the real, researched, lived-in version. Consider hiring a sensitivity reader from that community to check your work. 10. Give Your Protagonist a Morally Neutral ‘Hero' Status Matt Bird was clear about this on episode 624: the word “hero” simply means the protagonist, the person we follow through the story. It's a functional role, not a moral label. We don't have to like them. We don't even have to root for their goals in a moral sense. We just have to find them compelling enough to invest our attention in their problem-solving. Think of Succession, where every member of the Roy family is varying degrees of awful, and yet the show was utterly compelling. Or WeCrashed, where Adam Neumann is a narcissistic con artist, but we can't look away because he's trying to solve the enormous problem of building an empire from nothing, and the tradecraft he employs is fascinating. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, readers must want to spend time with your characters. They don't have to be lovable or even likable—that will depend on your genre and story choices—but they have to be captivating enough that we want to spend time with them. A character who is trying to solve a massive problem will naturally draw investment from the audience, even if we wouldn't want to have tea with them. Will Storr extended this idea by pointing out that the audience will actually root for a character to solve their problem even if the audience doesn't actually want the character's goal to be achieved in the real world. We don't really want more billionaires, but we invested in Adam Neumann's rise because that was the problem the story posed, and our brains are wired to invest in problem-solving. This connects to something deeper: what does your character want, and why? As I explore in How to Write a Novel, desire operates on multiple levels. Take a character like Phil, who joins the military during wartime. On the surface, she wants to serve her country. But she also wants to escape her dead-end town and learn new skills. Deeper still, her father and grandfather served, and by joining up, she hopes to finally earn their respect. And perhaps deepest of all, her father died on a mission under mysterious circumstances, and she wants to find out what happened from the inside. That layering of motivation is what turns a flat character into a three-dimensional one. The audience doesn't need to be told all of this explicitly. It can emerge through action, dialogue, and the choices the character makes under pressure. But you, the writer, need to know it. You need to know what your character really wants deep down, because that desire—more than any external plot device—is what drives the story forward. And your antagonist needs the same depth. They also want something, often diametrically opposed to your protagonist, and they need a reason that makes sense to them. In my ARKANE thriller Tree of Life, my antagonist is the heiress of a Brazilian mining empire who wants to restore the Earth to its original state to atone for the destruction caused by her father's company. She's part of a radical ecological group who believe the only way to restore Nature is to end all human life. It's extreme, but in an era of climate change, it's a motivation readers can understand—even if they disagree with the solution. Actionable step: If you're struggling to make a morally grey character work, make sure their problem is big enough and their methods are specific and interesting enough that we invest in the how, even if we're ambivalent about the what. 11. Build Vibrant Side Characters Gail Carriger made a point on episode 550 that was equal parts craft advice and business strategy. In a Heroine's Journey model, side characters aren't just fodder to be killed off to motivate the hero. They form a network. And because you don't have to kill them—unlike in a hero's journey, where allies are often betrayed or removed so the hero can be further isolated—you can pick up those side characters and give them their own books. Gail said this creates a really voracious reader base. You write one series with vivid side characters, and then readers fall in love with those side characters and want their stories. So you write spin-offs. The romance genre does this brilliantly—think of the Bridgerton books, where each sibling gets their own novel. The side character in one book becomes the protagonist in the next. Barbara Nickless experienced this firsthand with her Dr. Evan Wilding series. She has River Wilding, Evan's adventurous brother, and Diana, the axe-throwing research assistant, and her editor has already expressed interest in a spin-off series with those characters. Barbara described creating characters she wants to spend time with, or characters who give her nightmares but also intrigue her. That's the dual test: are they interesting enough for you to write, and interesting enough for readers to demand more? As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, characters that span series can deepen the reader's relationship with them as you expand their backstory into new plots. Readers will remember the character more than the plot or the book title, and look forward to the next instalment because they want more time with those people. British crime author Angela Marsons described it as readers feeling like returning to her characters is like putting on a pair of old slippers. Actionable step: Look at your supporting cast. Is there a side character who is vivid enough to carry their own story? If not, what could you add—a specific hobby, a distinct voice, a compelling backstory—that would make readers want more of them? 12. Use Voice as a Rhythmic Tool Voice is one of the most important elements of novel writing, and Matt Bird helped me think about it in a technical, mechanical way that I found really useful. He pointed out that the ratio of periods to commas defines a character's internal reality. A staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short sentences—suggests a character who is certain, grounded, or perhaps survivalist and traumatised. Katniss in The Hunger Games has a period-heavy voice. She's in survival mode. She doesn't have time for complexity or qualification. A flowing, comma-heavy style suggests someone more academic, more nuanced, or possibly more scattered and manipulative. The character who qualifies everything, who adds sub-clauses and digressions, is a different kind of person from the character who speaks in declarations. This is something you can actually measure. Pull up a passage of your character's dialogue or internal monologue and count the periods versus the commas. If the rhythm doesn't match who the character is supposed to be, you've found a mismatch you can fix. Sentence length is the heartbeat of your character's persona. And voice extends beyond rhythm to the words themselves. As I discussed in the metaphor families tip, each character should draw from a distinctive well of language. But voice also encompasses their relationship to silence. Some characters talk around the thing they mean; others say it straight. Some are self-deprecating; others are blunt to the point of rudeness. All of these choices are character choices, not just style choices. I find it useful to read my dialogue aloud—and not just to check for naturalness, but to hear whether each character sounds distinct. If you could swap dialogue lines between two characters and nobody would notice, you have a voice problem. One practical test: cover the dialogue tags and see if you can tell who's speaking from the words alone. Actionable step: Choose a key passage from your protagonist's point of view and read it aloud. Does the rhythm match the character? A soldier under fire should not sound like a philosophy professor at a wine tasting. Adjust the ratio of periods to commas until the voice feels right. 13. Link Character and Plot Until They're Inseparable Will Storr made the case on episode 490 that the number one problem he sees in the writing he encounters—in workshops, in submissions, even in published books—is that the characters and the plots are unconnected. There's a story happening, and there are people in it, but the story isn't a product of who those people are. He said a story should be like life. In our lives, the plots are intimately connected to who we are as characters. The goals we pursue, the obstacles we face, the same problems that keep recurring—these are products of our personalities, our flaws, our specific ways of being in the world. His framework is that your plot should be designed specifically to plot against your character. You've got a character with a particular flaw; the plot exists to test that flaw over and over until the character either transforms or doubles down and explodes. Jaws is the perfect example. Brody is afraid of water. A shark shows up in the coastal town he's responsible for protecting. The entire plot is engineered to force him to confront the one thing he cannot face. Will pointed out that the whole plot of Jaws is structured around Brody's flaw. It begins with the shark arriving, the midpoint is when Brody finally gets the courage to go into the water, and the very final scene isn't the shark blowing up—it's Brody swimming back through the water. Even a film that's ninety-eight percent action is, at its core, structured around a character with a character flaw. This is the standard I aspire to in my own work, even in my action-heavy thrillers. The external plot should be a mirror of the internal struggle. When those two are aligned, the story becomes irresistible. Will also made an important point about series fiction, which is where most commercial authors live. I asked him how this works when your character can't be transformed at the end of every book because there has to be a next book. His answer was elegant: you don't cure them. Episodic TV characters like Fleabag or David Brent or Basil Fawlty never truly change—and the fact that they don't change is actually the source of the comedy. But every episode throws a new story event at them that tests and exposes their flaw. You just keep throwing story events at them again and again. That's a soap opera, a sitcom, and a book series. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, character flaws are aspects of personality that affect the person so much that facing and overcoming them becomes central to the plot. In Jaws, the protagonist Brody is afraid of the water, but he has to overcome that flaw to destroy the killer shark and save the town. But remember, your characters should feel like real people, so never define them purely by their flaws. The character addicted to painkillers might also be a brilliant and successful female lawyer who gets up at four in the morning to work out at the gym, likes eighties music, and volunteers at the local dog shelter at weekends. Character wounds are different from flaws. They're formed from life experience and are part of your character's backstory—traumatic events that happened before the events of your novel but shape the character's reactions in the present. In my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra's husband Elian died in her arms during a military operation. This happened before the series begins, but her memories of it recur when she faces a firefight, and she struggles to find happiness again for fear of losing someone she loves once more. And then there's the perennial advice: show, don't tell. Most writers have heard this so many times that it's easy to nod and then promptly write scenes that tell rather than show. Basically, you need to reveal your character through action and dialogue, rather than explanation. In my thriller Day of the Vikings, Morgan Sierra fights a Neo-Viking in the halls of the British Museum and brings him down with Krav Maga. That fight scene isn't just about showing action. It opens up questions about her backstory, demonstrates character, and moves the plot forward. Telling would be something like: “Morgan was an expert in Krav Maga.” Showing is the reader discovering it through the scene itself. Actionable step: Look at the main plot events of your novel. For each major turning point, ask: does this scene specifically test my protagonist's flaw? If not, can you redesign the scene so that it does? The tighter the connection between character and plot, the more powerful the story. 14. The ‘Maestra' Approach: Write Out of Order If you're a discovery writer like me, you may feel like the deep character work I've been describing sounds more suited to plotters. But Barbara Nickless gave me a beautiful metaphor on episode 732 that reframes it entirely. Barbara described her evolving writing process as being like a maestra standing in front of an orchestra. Sometimes you bring in the horns—a certain theme—and sometimes you bring in the strings—a certain character—and sometimes you turn to the soloist. It's a more organic and jumping-around process than linear writing, and Barbara said she's only recently given herself permission to work this way. When I told her that I use Scrivener to write in scenes out of order and then drag and drop them into a structure later, she was genuinely intrigued. And this is how I've always worked. I'll see the story in my mind like a movie trailer—flashes of the big emotional scenes, the pivotal confrontations, the moments of revelation—and I write those first. I don't know how they hang together until quite late in the process. Then I'll move scenes around, print the whole thing out, and figure out the connective tissue. The point is that discovery writers can absolutely build deep characters. Sometimes writing the big emotional scenes first is how you discover who the character is before you fill in the rest. You don't need a twenty-page character worksheet or a 200-page outline like Jeffery Deaver. You need to be willing to follow the character into the unknown and trust that the structure will emerge. As Barbara said, she writes to know what she's thinking. That's the discovery writer's credo. And I would add: I write to know who my characters are. Actionable step: If you're stuck on your current chapter, skip it. Write the scene that's burning in your imagination, even if it's from the middle or the end. That scene might be the key to unlocking who your character really is. 15. Use Research to Help with Empathy Research shouldn't just be about factual accuracy—it's a tool for finding the sensory details that create empathy. Barbara Nickless described research as almost an excuse to explore things that fascinate her, and I feel exactly the same way. I would go so far as to say that writing is an excuse for me to explore the things that interest me. Barbara and I both travel for our stories. For her Dr. Evan Wilding books, she did deep research into Old English literature and the Viking Age. For my thriller End of Days, I transcribed hours of video from Appalachian snake-handling churches on YouTube to understand the worldview of the worshippers, because my antagonist was brought up in that tradition. I couldn't just make that up. I had to hear their language, feel their conviction, understand why they would hold venomous serpents as an act of faith. Barbara also mentioned getting to Israel and the West Bank for research, and I've been to both places too. Finding that one specific sensory detail—the smell of a particular location, the specific way an expert handles a tool, the sound of a particular kind of music—makes the character's life feel lived-in. It's the difference between a character who is described as living in a place and a character who inhabits it. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn about. I love research. It's part of why I'm an author in the first place. I take any excuse to dive into a world different from my own. Research using books, films, podcasts, and travel, and focus particularly on sources produced by people from the worldview you want to understand. Actionable step: For your next piece of character research, go beyond reading. Watch a documentary, visit a location, talk to someone who lives the experience. Find one sensory detail—a smell, a sound, a texture—that you couldn't have invented. That detail will make your character feel real. Bonus: Measure Your Life by What You Create In an age of AI and a tsunami of content, your ultimate brand protection is the quality of your human creation. Barbara Nickless said that the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. Don't be afraid to take that step back, like I did with my deadlifting. Take the time to master these deeper craft skills. It might feel like you're slowing down or going backwards by not chasing the latest marketing trend, but it's the only way to step forward into a sustainable, high-quality career. Your characters are your signature. No AI can replicate the specificity of your lived experience, the emotional truth of your displaced trauma, or the sensory details you've gathered from a life of curiosity and travel. Those are yours. Pour them into your characters, and they will resonate for years to come. Actionable Takeaway: Identify the Dramatic Question for your current protagonist. Can you state it in a single sentence with the kind of specificity Will Storr described? Is it as clear as “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you the only adult in the room?” If you can't answer it with that kind of precision, your character might still be a sketch. Give them a diagonal toast moment today. Find the one hyper-specific detail that proves they are not an imitation of life. And then ask yourself: does your plot test your character's flaw in every major scene? If you can align those two things—a precisely defined character and a plot that exists to test them—you will have a story that readers cannot put down. References and Deep Dives The episodes I've referenced today are all available with full transcripts at TheCreativePenn.com: Episode 732 — Facing Fears, and Writing Unique Characters with Barbara Nickless Episode 673 — Writing Choctaw Characters and Diversity in Fiction with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer Episode 624 — Writing Characters with Matt Bird Episode 550 — The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger Episode 490 — How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr Books mentioned: The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love by Matt Bird The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book by Joanna Penn You can find all my books for authors at CreativePennBooks.com and my fiction and memoir at JFPennBooks.com Happy writing! How was this episode created? This episode was initiated created by NotebookLM based on YouTube videos of the episodes linked above from YouTube/TheCreativePenn, plus my text chapters on character from How to Write a Novel. NotebookLM created a blog post from the material and then I expanded it and fact checked it with Claude.ai 4.6 Opus, and then I used my voice clone at ElevenLabs to narrate it. The post Writing Characters: 15 Actionable Tips For Writing Deep Character first appeared on The Creative Penn.

The marathon that is Awards Season (at least for those of us with jobs in media) finally came to its close last night. As has become tradition, the Run-Through podcast hosts, along with colleagues Taylor Antrim and Christian Allaire, gathered early on this foggy morning to discuss their takes on the 98th Academy Awards. The conversation started off with everyone's best dressed picks. For Chioma, this included Wunmi Mosaku who dazzled in her sparkling emerald green Louis Vuitton dress. The list of best dressed also included Renate Reinsve, another star in Louis Vuitton, and Gwenyth Paltrow in Armani Privé who both sported dramatic slits. Slits were just one of the fashion trends making a splash on last night's red carpet, reminding editors of Angelina Jolie's internet-breaking dress slit at the 2012 ceremony. Feathers were another item in vogue on the carpet and were worn by Teyana Taylor, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, and Best Supporting Actress winner Amy Madigan. A conversation around the many jewels and rare diamonds being worn last night spawned a curiosity about the guards who work the Oscars. Perhaps a 2027 diamond guard get ready with me story is forthcoming?As for two of the biggest categories of the night—best actor and best actress—everyone was in agreement that Michael B Jordan and recent guest of the podcast Jessie Buckley, were chic and deserving winners. Up next, Met gala season!The Run-Through with Vogue is your go-to podcast where fashion meets culture. Hosted by Chloe Malle, Head of Editorial Content, Vogue U.S.; Chioma Nnadi, Head of British Vogue; and Nicole Phelps, Director of Vogue Runway, each episode features the latest fashion news and exclusive designer and celebrity interviews. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Remember when computer hackers weren't all incels? Travel with us to a bygone era as we talk about the 1995 movie Hackers, starring Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie. Tune in next week when our movie will be... Godzilla: All Monsters Attack. ----- On March 17th Emily will be on the podcast Scam Goddess. Make sure to tune in! Pre-order Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-versity co-written by Jordan Morris. Get yourself a signed copy of all 5 issues by clicking this link!  bit.ly/spideyschool

Listen to JCO OP's Art of Oncology Practice article, "When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections from the Clinic" by Dr. Carlos Stecca. The article is followed by an interview with Stecca and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Dr Stecca reflects on the impact of the public illness and death of Brazilian singer and actress Preta Gil on his patients with colorectal cancer and on his own practice as a medical oncologist. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections from the Clinic, by Carlos Stecca, MD Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Welcome back to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. This ASCO podcast features intimate narratives and perspectives from authors exploring their experiences in oncology. I'm your host, Mikkael Sekeres. I'm Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. What a pleasure it is today to have Dr. Carlos Stecca, a medical oncologist at Evangelical Mackenzie University Hospital, to discuss his JCO Oncology Practice article, "When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections From the Clinic". Dr. Stecca and I have agreed to call each other by first names. Carlos, thank you for contributing to JCO Oncology Practice and for joining us today to discuss your article. Dr. Carlos Stecca: So great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I wonder if we could start off by asking you to tell us about yourself. Where are you from and what led you to this point in your career? Dr. Carlos Stecca: So I am Brazilian. I was born in Brazil in a small town in the south of Brazil, and I did my medical training all in Brazil. So I did medical school here, internal medicine, and medical oncology. My residency period ended in early 2018. I did my residency at the AC Camargo Cancer Center, which is in Sao Paulo. And then right after that, I moved closer to my parents to start my journey as a medical oncologist. And I stayed here in the south for two more years. And then I was lucky enough to be accepted for a clinical research fellowship in genitourinary malignancies at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center. And I had the pleasure to work with Dr. Kala Sridhar for two years. So this was during the pandemic, so 2020, 2021. And then right after that, I moved back to Brazil. And I've been here for the past four years working as a medical oncologist specialized in genitourinary malignancies. But also, well, unfortunately here in Brazil most of us cannot do only one site, so we have to do a little bit more, so I'm doing gynae and GI as well. And in a few days, I'm moving back to Canada. I was lucky enough again to be accepted for a position at the University of British Columbia, so I'm moving in a few days. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Oh, my word. We caught you just in time then. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah, yeah. I'm moving in four days now. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I can't imagine what it's like to be going between those extremes of weather from Canada down to Brazil. Did your teeth crack when you did that? Dr. Carlos Stecca: Something like that. Yeah, it was like, I moved in December. So in December we have summer here in Brazil, and it was like 35, 40 degrees Celsius when I left Brazil at the airport. And when I arrived, it was close to minus 20 when I went to Toronto. Yeah. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Oh, my word. Dr. Carlos Stecca: It was rough. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, those of us who live at or near the Southern Hemisphere, I will tell you, I've started to wear puffy jackets and snow caps when it drops into the 60s. Good luck with reacclimating to Canada. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the story that sparked this terrific essay. It was so interesting. The Brazilian singer and actress Preta Gil died of rectal cancer in July of 2025 at the age of 50. And she went public with her diagnosis. What is it that she communicated to the public about colorectal cancer? Dr. Carlos Stecca: So she was very open about her diagnosis since the beginning. So this was very interesting. She is very famous here. She had tons of followers on Instagram and social media, and she was very outspoken about her diagnosis since the first beginning. So she was diagnosed with an early stage disease, and she did a great job raising awareness for this condition, for colorectal cancer. She had a beautiful journey discussing the specifics of her case. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: So she talked both about her diagnosis and some of the treatments she was undergoing, but also about symptoms of cancer, right? Dr. Carlos Stecca: She really engaged in this discussion about her diagnosis and how she found out about her cancer. So rectal bleeding, this was disclosed in her stories on Instagram, and so she was very open about this. And it really helped people understand the condition, and it really increased the number of screening tests that Brazilians were doing. And of course, we saw this increasing uptake of the screening tests, which was amazing. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: In a way, I think she did a real public service, I think, both for early detection of colorectal cancer with symptoms, also for screening, so asymptomatic people who would undergo colonoscopies, and also demystified a little bit the treatment of colorectal cancer. In the US, we saw a similar phenomenon when the actor Chad Boseman of Black Panther movie franchise fame died of colorectal cancer in 2020 at the age of 43. These deaths have also sparked an international conversation about cancer in younger adults. Are you seeing that in your clinic? Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yes, definitely. We're seeing many more cases of cancer diagnosed in the younger population, right? So yeah, this discussion was very important to have, not only because the screening tests increased in patients after the age of 50 years old without any symptoms, but also raised awareness for those symptoms that should trigger the proper investigation. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I wonder if you could speculate a little bit about why it is that we're seeing more cancer in younger adults. Do you think it has anything to do, for example, with diet and people eating more ultra-processed foods? Is it a phenomenon? I've even heard people talk about microplastics and whether that could be contributing. Also, recently, there was an article that came out that speculated that while we're seeing more cancers in younger adults, we're not seeing more deaths in younger adults, so we may just be picking these up earlier as more people are going to be screened or for additional testing at a younger age. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah, I think so. I think this is definitely the case. I think younger adults are eating more processed foods, and we know that this is an obvious risk factor for colorectal cancer and other cancers as well. And maybe obesity as well, we are seeing this as a pandemic now in the world, right? So we are seeing this especially in developing countries. And here in Brazil, of course, we are seeing this as a phenomenon. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: It's so fascinating. I feel like we won't really know the answer about the uptick in cancers in younger adults for years until some of the data settle out, including the data about people during the COVID pandemic not going for screening and testing as often and whether we're now starting to see the downstream effects of that. Dr. Carlos Stecca: For sure, I think this is- well, during the pandemic I was in Canada, but shortly after the pandemic was coming to an end, I came back to Brazil, and I saw that. I saw that a lot of patients came to the clinic with more advanced cancers because they missed those opportunities of being seen by a physician during the pandemic, because of course, for obvious reasons, people were not coming to the clinic. And we saw that, a huge number of patients being diagnosed with late-stage disease because of that. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: It's fascinating. There's a named phenomenon called the Angelina Jolie effect. I don't know if you remember following the actress's 2013 opinion piece about genetic testing for hereditary cancers such as BRCA1 and following her prophylactic mastectomy. She is a carrier of a mutation. There was a wave of testing that occurred thereafter. So some good can come from celebrities going public with their cancer diagnosis. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Oh, definitely, definitely. I think that more good can come from their diagnosis and them being verbal about this than the downsides. Of course, the positive side of it is definitely outweighing the negative effect. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: You write a really thoughtful essay. You mention downsides, and there can be some downsides. One of the things you wrote in your essay was, "Yet for others already living with colorectal cancer, the same story had the opposite effect. Instead of empowerment, it fueled anxiety, guilt, and resignation. Some patients grew silent, fearing their treatment was futile as they compared themselves to a celebrity who had access to the best hospitals, specialists, and resources, and still passed away. Others questioned why they had not caught their cancer earlier, internalizing blame." Can you talk a little bit more about some of the unintended consequences of a celebrity who goes public with his or her cancer diagnosis? Dr. Carlos Stecca: That was exactly it, right? I was witnessing this in my clinic. I work in a public hospital here, and I would see those patients coming to me and voicing their concerns about their diagnosis, colorectal cancer, that was now in the spotlight because of that famous person that battled with colorectal cancer and unfortunately passed away after two years of starting her journey. And that was something quite difficult for the patients because, as you mentioned, and as I wrote in the text, some of those patients were in the public system and they were comparing themselves, comparing their diagnosis with the diagnosis of someone who had endless resources. And in fact, she even went to the United States and took part in a clinical trial. She participated in a clinical trial. And yet she was not able to overcome this diagnosis, and sadly she passed away. So, most of our patients were coming to the clinic and voicing their fears, like, "If even she couldn't get through this, how can I? I'm a simple person and I'm here in this world of limited resources." And here in Brazil, we do have the public system and the private system, and there is a huge gap between what we can do in one system and another. That was a concern that they voiced. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I'm sorry she passed away. How did you deal with that? So how did you respond to patients who said, "Gee, if this famous actress with unlimited resources dies from her cancer, what hope do I have?" Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah, so I think this is very difficult, right? And this is something that I was learning to understand now. Because as you mentioned, Chadwick Boseman and Angelina Jolie, we heard of those stories, but I never felt that this would be impactful in my clinic, that there would be patients voicing their concerns about their diagnosis being in the spotlight. And this is something that happened to me now. I would often see those patients, and I started to think about the downsides of a cancer being on a headline for those already living with cancer, and already living with that cancer and having their cancer in the spotlight. And so that was something that I needed to hear and address their concerns more actively than before, right? So this is something that is really important. And sometimes it is as important as discussing toxicity related to chemotherapy or other things related to the treatment itself. But addressing their concerns, it would be a way to alleviate the burden that the patients are experiencing from that. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: So what would you say to them? If somebody said to you, "How can I do well when this famous actress didn't do well?", what would you say? Dr. Carlos Stecca: The first thing is to talk to the patient that every diagnosis is different. So we do have differences in staging, we do have differences in biology of the tumor. And as we study more those diseases and every type of cancer, but here, especially colorectal cancer, we are seeing that those differences are very important in the treatment and they will be part of the prognosis as well. So no disease is the same as other disease. So your experience is unique. So your diagnosis is in a certain way unique. Your treatment might be different, right? Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I like how you personalized that for each patient. I really love how you end this essay. You write, "In those quiet moments after a headline, when fear enters the exam room, my responsibility is clear. I must not only prescribe treatment, but also restore perspective, dignity, and courage. Sometimes that is the most difficult, yet most essential part of being an oncologist." I remember, Carlos, one of my patients once described what we do as being almost pastoral. He himself was a minister and said this. And an important part of our job is to provide that context, but also a space where people can feel forgiveness for what they perceive as their fault. I wonder if you could reflect on that a little bit. How is it that, it almost sounds like it's too extreme, but we provide a sanctuary where patients can forgive themselves for the guilt they've been carrying around. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah. No, I think this is very important. As medical oncologists, we are more than just physicians. We become friends with the patients, right? So most of the time I do create this relationship, this strong bond with the patient, because I worked as a family doctor before, so I treated patients very intimately as well. But nothing compares to being an oncologist now, because I think that the emotional burden associated with the profession is extremely high. And it's very difficult for the patient, for the family. And so we become part of their families and part of their story and their journey throughout their whole journey with the cancer. So it can be very emotional. I think that it's much more than being a physician and treating patients and prescribing treatments and discussing the biology of the tumor. And it's much more than that. And I think that being an oncologist entails all that, entails being part of their story and engaging in an emotional journey that they are having with the cancer. Especially here in Brazil, I think that the diagnosis of cancer has always been challenging. And I think that a patient's experience is unique and addressing the emotional part of it is very important. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, what a beautiful way to sum up what we do. We become part of our patients' stories and journey, and they become part of ours, and I think that's why we write about it. It has been such a pleasure to have Dr. Carlos Stecca to discuss his essay, "When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections From the Clinic". Carlos, thank you so much for submitting your article and for joining us today. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague or leave us a review. Your feedback and support helps us continue to have these important conversations. If you are looking for more episodes and context, follow our show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen and explore more from ASCO at asco.org/podcasts. Until next time, this has been Mikkael Sekeres for JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Show notes:Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review. Guest Bio: Dr Carlos Stecca is a medical oncologist at Evangelical Mackenzie University Hospital.

Send a textStudio by Miraval Rosé 2025Yeah, this is the Rosé that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie owned!Brad owns or controls 60% now.The Studio is named after a recording studio on the estate where Pink Floyd recorded The Wall.In 2022, the studio was rebuilt.This is an IGP Mediterranean wine instead of an AOC Provence wine.Check out the Podcast to explain the details!Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.comor email us at podcast@cheapwinefinder.com

Outlouders, enjoy this free taster of Mia Freedman on today's subscriber episode. Listen to the full conversation — Mia Enters The 'Working Mums' Chat— at 5 pm TODAY. What do you mean, you're not a subscriber yet? Solve that problem HERE. When an Outlouder named Vanessa sent in a dilemma asking if she should quit her job, she did something risky: she name-checked Mia Freedman. Vanessa has been a listener for seven years and has Mia’s voice on a loop in her head — the one that says women should always keep working to protect their super and their sanity. But with a second kid, a husband who has "signed a deal with the devil" for his career, and a workload that feels like a full-body squirm, Vanessa's wondering if it’s time to 'Nup' out of the workforce entirely. On today’s subscriber episode, Mia is joined by Amelia Lester to unpack the 'breastfeeding brain trap', the 'childcare cheat code', Amelia's trailing wife era, the big career myth — and the cold, hard reality of the working-mother math. Remember, this is your free sample of today's subs episode. The full debrief drops for subscribers at 5pm. What To Listen To Next: Listen to our latest episode: Inside The Fight That Ended Kyle & Jackie O Listen: Love Story Part 2: Jackie O, The Kennedys & That Fight Scene Listen: Uninvited Princesses & The Dating Story We're Yearning For Listen: The Next Top Model Reckoning & Jessie's Very Honest Handover Listen: Oh Sh*t. We Let Creeps Decide Our Beauty Standards Listen: "I'm A Working Mum & I Just Want To Quit" Listen: Prince William Has Entered The Chat Listen: The New Dating Rule That Blew Up A Comments Section Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts Discover more Mamamia Podcasts here including the very latest episode of Parenting Out Loud, the parenting podcast for people who don't listen to... parenting podcasts. SUBSCRIBE here: Support independent women's media Watch Australia's #1 podcast, Mamamia Out Loud: Mamamia Out Loud on YouTube What to read: 'I was finding being a working mum impossible. One decision changed it.' 'When they raced out at 4:30pm, I felt annoyed.' The misconceptions I had about working parents. VIRGINIA TAPSCOTT: What I really hear when you say 'I could never be a stay-at-home mum.' 'I'm a stay-at-home mum, and I'm scared my husband is losing respect for me.' THE END BITS: Check out our merch at MamamiaOutLoud.com GET IN TOUCH: Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message. Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show. Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud and on Tiktok @mamamiaoutloudBecome a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In episode 155, astrologers Kristina Martin and Tara Redfield continue their Venus series with an in-depth exploration of Venus in Cancer, the planet of love and relationships in the nurturing sign of the Crab.   The episode begins with a foundational look at what Venus represents in the birth chart before diving into the protective, intuitive, and deeply emotional qualities of Cancer. From there, we examine the lived experience of this placement, highlighting its core need for safety, emotional reciprocity, and a profound sense of belonging.   For Venus in Cancer, being emotionally understood is the ultimate priority. Listeners will learn how this Venus sign attracts love—if they're cooking for you, you're in!—and how they express affection outwardly, with cuddling playing a central role.   The episode also covers compatibility, the shadow side of this placement (including moodiness, passivity, and overdependence), and how Venus in Cancer approaches money and personal style. Celebrity examples like Angelina Jolie and Ben Affleck help illustrate the nuances of this emotional and devoted Venus placement. Tune in to discover the key ways to support, cherish, and truly love a Venus in Cancer.   Book a Reading with us! Connect with Kristina Martin Book a Reading www.klmastrology.com astrologyklm@gmail.com www.instagram.com/klmastrology   Connect with Tara Redfield Book a Reading www.anotherdaygreener.com anotherdaygreener@gmail.com www.instagram.com/anotherdaygreener/ www.tiktok.com/@anotherdaygreener

Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle go wild on the air in this unforgettable segment of the Carton Show! From Knicks betting advice (“stay away tonight!”) to a jaw-dropping prank call claiming to be Angelina Jolie's love child, you won't believe what happens next. Plus, music history, Michael Jackson vs. Beatles catalog drama, and unbelievable fan stories. This is one WFAN segment you can't miss!

Nevena and John talk to Cat Woods, about what’s hot on TV and Film. Cat Woods, is an Australian freelance journalist and editor based in Melbourne, with over 20 years of experience. She specializes in music, arts, culture, fitness and women’s wellbeing. The post Sat, 28th Feb, 2026: Cat Woods – Freelance Journalist, What’s Hot, what’s not on TV and Films, Nicole Kidman’s Scarpetta, Angelina Jolie in Couture appeared first on Saturday Magazine.

El gerente del centro de investigaciones oncológicas renuncia por acusación de acoso sexual, mientras el Ministerio de Ciencia solicita su cese. Se destacan avances científicos españoles como una vacuna para el VIH y terapias para enfermedades raras, coincidiendo con su día internacional. Bill Clinton declara ante el comité de la Cámara de Representantes por el caso Epstein en EE. UU., reconociendo viajes y fotos con jóvenes, pero negando delitos. En deportes, Griezmann podría ir al Orlando City, generando especulaciones en el Atlético, inmerso en Copa y Champions. Asensio es baja en el Real Madrid y se anuncian los horarios de Europa League. Un hombre lleva tres semanas atrincherado en un hospital de Lugo, negándose al alta y forzando la intervención judicial. María Estévez publica "Esto es Hollywood", revelando un Tom Cruise protector, George Clooney divertido y Angelina Jolie reacia a Hollywood. Describe a Julia Roberts como "antipática" y a Penélope Cruz reservada, mientras ...

Lisa Rinna reveals alarming details of being drugged at 'Traitors' premiere party, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt's Son Maddox Drops Pitt from Name in Movie Credits, and Jennifer Garner says she gets bangs instead of Botox, but refuses to promise her kids she won't get a facelift.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Scottish ferryman refused to take travelers across the water after dark — and the ones who stayed the night were never seen again. | #WDRadio WEEK OF FEBRUARY 22, 2026==========HOUR ONE: A 178-year-old mystery comes to the surface in a Philadelphia suburb. (Grandfather's Ghost Story Leads to Mass Grave) *** Recently a wrecking crew began tearing down and old building in Rhode Island. But the big burly men on the crew got so frightened they refused to continue the work. Does reconstruction of a home or building anger the souls who once lived there? (Does Remodeling Your Home Disturb The Spirits Who Died There?) *** The way life has grown on our planet requires that all living things feed off each other and must kill others in order to survive.  That's the way of the world if you want to live for any more than a few days. But some people are now claiming they can live without food at all… indefinitely. (Life Without Food) *** Three men were in a shed selling gardening supplies when some strange powder suddenly hit the ceiling. Before they had time to react, a small jug on a shelf abruptly flew across the room. One man picked up the jug and placed it a covered box. Instantly, the jug was...somehow...back on the floor. And that was just the beginning of the strange haunting of a community's garden shed. (The Poltergeist In The Allotment Shed) *** In the movie Salt, Angelina Jolie plays a double-agent who is mind-controlled by scary remnants of the USSR secret service. And in real life, the 1940s bombshell Candy Jones was apparently brainwashed with drugs and used as a CIA covert operative.  (The Supermodel Who Was Brainwashed Into Becoming a Spy) *** No one knows exactly when she was born. Some think, maybe, she was a gypsy. Others say she was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. The life of Elizabeth Barnes is a mysterious one, filled with many loves, losses, and prognostications. (The Witch of Plum Hollow) *** Some travelers, arriving late at night to board Oliver's Ferry the next day, stayed at Oliver's house. But they were never seen making the ferry crossing the next morning. Is it possible that the rumors are true – that they never left the house alive? (The Frights of Oliver's Ferry)==========HOUR TWO: An eerie tombstone stands watch over one of Portland Oregon's oldest cemeteries. And the story behind that tombstone is a strange one. (The Guardians of Lone Fir Cemetery) *** Don't take a gift from Little Gracie's grave... or her life-like statue might cry tears of blood. (The Ghost of Gracie Watson) *** When it came to her daughter's Elsa doll, one mom was eager and ready to “Let It Go”. But the doll supernaturally refused to be let go! (Haunted Elsa Doll) *** An ancient stone cross is said by locals to be cursed, and the curse infects anyone who dares to disrespect it. (Curse of the Saxon Stone Cross) *** Christopher Slaughterford was seemingly a completely ordinary young Englishman – but he has earned an unenviable place in the legal books. (T
he Trials of Christopher Slaughterford) *** Two authors reported a very strange encounter with a mysterious entity they believed was not of this world. What did they see and why were they under the impression this being was not of this world? (An Author's Encounter With A Not-Of-This-World Entity)==========SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME: For Allen Taylor, January 15, 1919 was just another day on his farm near Prescott, Iowa. That is, until his 15-year-old neighbor Irene Hoskins came stumbling down the lane with a gash in the side of her head.  (The Hoskins Family Murders) *** How did someone get the job of an executioner in medieval times? We'll find out! (To Become An Executioner) ==========SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM TONIGHT'S SHOW:“Schoolhouse Demon Attack” from Paranormality Magazine“Grandfather's Ghost Story Leads to Mass Grave” by Meghan Rafferty for CNN: https://tinyurl.com/ravfceh“Does Remodeling Your Home Disturb The Spirits Who Died There?” by Kelly Roncace for NJ.com: https://tinyurl.com/sn7vpsg“Life Without Food” by Michael Grosso for Consciousness Abound: https://tinyurl.com/r38yxh6“The Poltergeist In The Allotment Shed” from Strange Company: https://tinyurl.com/vzlgcj9“The Supermodel Who Was Brainwashed Into Becoming a Spy” by Annalee Newitz for Gizmodo: https://tinyurl.com/sgh73da“The Witch of Plum Hollow” by James Morgan for North Country Public Radio: https://tinyurl.com/u3x3sxu“The Frights of Oliver's Ferry” by Ken Watson for Rideau-Info: https://tinyurl.com/vj96awj==========(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for material I use whenever possible. If I have overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it immediately. Some links may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)=========="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46==========WeirdDarkness®, WeirdDarkness© 2026==========To become a Weird Darkness Radio Show affiliate, contact Radio America at affiliates@radioamerica.com, or call 800-807-4703 (press 2 or dial ext 250).

How can trauma become a catalyst for creative transformation? What lessons can indie authors learn from the music industry's turbulent journey through technological disruption? With Jack Williamson. In the intro, Why recipes for publishing success don't work and what to do instead [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; Why your book isn't selling: metadata [Novel Marketing Podcast]; Creating a successful author business [Fantasy Writers Toolshed Podcast]; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and bestselling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music & You, his latest nonfiction book is Maybe You're The Problem, and he also writes romance under A.B. Jackson. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Finding post-traumatic growth and meaning after bereavement, and using tragedy as a catalyst for creative transformation Why your superpower can also be your Achilles heel, and how indie authors can overcome shiny object syndrome Three key lessons from the music industry: embracing change, thinking creatively about marketing, and managing pressure for better creativity The A, B, C technique for PR interviews and why marketing is storytelling through different mediums How to deal with judgment and shame around AI in the author community by understanding where people sit on the opinion-belief-conviction continuum Three AI developments coming from music to publishing: training clauses in contracts, one-click genre adaptation, and licensed AI-generated video adaptations You can find Jack at JackWilliamson.co.uk and his fiction work at ABJackson.com. Transcript of the interview with Jack Williamson Jo: Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and bestselling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music & You, his latest nonfiction book is Maybe You're The Problem, and he also writes romance under A.B. Jackson. Welcome to the show. Jack: Thank you so much for having me, Jo. It's a real honour to be on your podcast after listening all of these years. Jo: I'm excited to talk to you. We have a lot to get into, but first up— Tell us a bit more about you and why get into writing books after years of working in music. Jack: I began my career at the turn of the millennium, basically, and I worked for George Michael and Mariah Carey's publicist, which I'm sure you can imagine was quite the introduction to the corporate world. From there I went on to do domestic and international marketing for a load of massive artists at Universal, so the equivalent of the top five publishers in the publishing world that we all work in. Then from there I had a bit of a challenge. In December 2015, I lost my brother, unfortunately to suicide. For any listener or any person that's gone through a traumatic event, it can really make you reassess everything, make you question life, make you question your purpose. When I went through that, I was thinking, well, what do I want to do? What do I want out of life? So I went on this journey for practically the next ten years. I retrained to be a psychotherapist. I created a bucket list—a list of all the things that I thought maybe my brother would've wanted to do but didn't do. One of the things was scatter his ashes at the Seven Wonders of the world. Then one of the items on my bucket list was to write a book. The pandemic hit. It was a challenge for all of us, as you've spoken about so much on this wonderful podcast. I thought, well, why not? Why not write this book that I've wanted to write? I didn't know when I was going to do it because I was always so busy, and then the pandemic happened and so I wrote a book. From there, listening to your wonderful podcast, I've learned so much and been to so many conferences and learned along the way. So now I've written five books and released three. Jo: That's fantastic. I mean, regular listeners to the show know that I talk about death and grief and all of this kind of thing, and it's interesting that you took your brother's ashes to the Seven Wonders of the world. Death can obviously be a very bad, negative thing for those left behind, but it seems like you were able to reframe your brother's experience and turn that into something more positive for your life rather than spiralling into something bad. So if people listening are feeling like something happens, whether it's that or other things— How can we reframe these seemingly life-ending situations in a more positive way? Jack: It is very hard and there's no one way to do it. I think as you always say, I never want to tell people what to do or what to think. I want to show them how to think and how they can approach things differently or from a different perspective. I can only speak from my journey, but we call it in therapeutic language, post-traumatic growth. It is, how do you define it so it doesn't define you? Because often when you have a bereavement of a loved one, a family member, it can be very traumatic, but how can you take meaning and find meaning in it? There's a beautiful book called Man's Search for Meaning, and the name of the author escapes me right now, but he says— Jo: Viktor Frankl. Jack: Yes. Everyone quotes it as one of their favourite books, and one of my favourite lines is, “Man can take everything away from you, apart from the ability to choose one thought over the other.” I think it's so true because we can make that choice to choose what to think. So in those moments when we are feeling bad, when we're feeling down, we want to honour our feelings, but we don't necessarily want to become them. We want to process that, work through, get the support system that we need. But again, try to find meaning, try to find purpose, try to understand what is going on, and then pay it forward. Irrespective of your belief system, we all yearn for purpose. We all yearn for being connected to something bigger than ourselves. If we can find that through bereavement maybe, or through a traumatic incident, then hopefully we can come through the other side and have that post-traumatic growth. Jo: I love that phrase, post-traumatic growth. That's so good. Obviously people think about post-traumatic anything as like PTSD—people immediately think a sort of stress disorder, like it's something that makes things even worse. I like that you reframed it in that way. Obviously I think the other thing is you took specific action. You didn't just think about it. You travelled, you retrained, you wrote books. So I think also it's not just thinking. In fact, thinking about things can sometimes make it worse if you think for too long, whereas taking an action I think can be very strong as well. Jack: Ultimately we are human beings as opposed to human doings, but actually being a human doing from time to time can be really helpful. Actually taking steps forward, doing things differently, using it as a platform to move forward and to do things that maybe you didn't before. When you are confronted with death, it can actually make you question your own mortality and actually question, am I just coasting along? Am I stuck in a rut? Could I be doing something differently? One of the things that bereavement, does is it holds a mirror up to ourselves and it makes us question, well, what do we want from our life? Are we here to procreate? Are we here to make a difference? Some of us can't procreate, or some of us choose not to procreate, but we can all make a difference. And it's, how do we do that? Where do we do that? When do we do that? Jo: That's interesting. I was thinking today about service and gratitude. I'm doing this Master's and I was reading some theology stuff today, and service and gratitude, I think if you are within a religious tradition, are a normal part of that kind of religious life. Whether it's service to God and gratitude to God, or service and gratitude to others. I was thinking that these two things, service and gratitude, can actually really help reframe things as well. Who can we serve? As authors, we're serving our readers and our community. What can we be grateful about? That's often our readers and our community as well. So I don't know, that helped me today—thinking about how we can reframe things, especially in the world we're in now where there's a lot of anger and grief and all kinds of things. Jack: That's what we've got to look at. We are here to serve. Again, that can take different shapes, different forms. Some of us work in the service industry. I provide a service as a psychotherapist, you serve your listeners with knowledge and information that you gather and dispense through the research you do or the guests you have on. We serve readers of the different genres that we write in. It's what ways can we serve, how can we serve? Again, I think we all, if we can and when we can, should pay it forward. Someone said this to me once in the music industry: be careful who you meet on the way up and how you treat them on the way up, because invariably you'll meet them on the way down. So if you can pay forward that kindness, if you can be kind, considerate, and treat people how you want to be treated, that is going to pay dividends in the long run. It may not come off straight away, but invariably it will come back to you in some way, shape, or form in a different way. Jo: I've often talked about social karma and karma in the Hindu sense—the things that you do come back to you in some other form. Possibly in another life, which I don't believe. In terms of, I guess, you didn't know what was going to happen to your brother, and so you make the most of the life that we have at the moment because things change and you just don't know how things are going to change. You talk about this in your book, Maybe You're The Problem, which is quite a confronting title. So just talk about your book, Maybe You're The Problem, and why you wrote that. Put it into context with the author community and why that might be useful. Jack: Thank you for flagging my book. I intentionally crossed out “maybe” on the merchandise I did as well, because in essence, we are our own problem. We can get in the way, and it's what happened to us when we grew up wasn't our fault, but what we do with it is our responsibility. We may have grown up in a certain period or a climate. We didn't necessarily choose to do that, but what we do with that as a result is up to us. So we can stay in our victimhood and we can blame our parents, or we can blame the generation we are in, or we can blame the city, the location—however, that is relinquishing your power. That is staying in a victim mindset rather than a survivor or a thriver mindset. So it's about how can we look at the different areas in our life. Whether that is conflict, whether that is imposter syndrome, whether that is the generation we're born into. We try to understand how that has shaped us and how we may be getting in our own way to stop us from growing, to stop us from expanding, and to see where our blind spots are, our limitations are, and how that may impact us. There's so much going on in the moment in the world, whether that is in the digital realm, whether that is in the geo-climate that we're in at the moment. Again, that's going to bring up a lot for us. How can we find solutions to those problems for us so that we continue to move forward rather than be restricted and hindered by them? Jo: Alright. Well let's get into some more specifics. You have been in the author community now for a while. You go to conferences and you are in the podcast community and all this kind of thing. What specific issues have you seen in the author community? Maybe around some of the things you've mentioned, or other things? How might we be able to deal with those? Jack: With authors, I think it is such a wonderful and unique industry that I have an honour and privilege of being a part of now. One of the main things I've learned is just how creative people are. Coming from a creative industry like the music industry, there is a lot of neurodivergence in the creative industries and in the author community. Whether that is autism, whether that is ADHD—that is a real asset to have as a superpower, but it can be an Achilles heel. So it's understanding—and I know that there is an overexposure of people labelling themselves as ADHD—but on the flip side to that, it's how can we look at what's going on for us? For ADHD, for example, there's a thing called shiny object syndrome. You've talked about this in the past, Joanna, where it's like a new thing comes along, be it TikTok, be it Substack, be it bespoke books, be it Shopify, et cetera. We can rush and quickly be like, “oh, let me do this, let me do that,” before we actually take the time to realise, is this right for me? Does this fit my author business? Does this fit where I'm at in my author journey? I think sometimes as authors, we need to not cave in to that shiny object syndrome and take a step back and think to ourselves, how does this serve me? How does this serve my career? How does this work for me if I'm looking at this as a career? If you're looking at it as a hobby, obviously it's a different lens to look through, but that's something that I would often make sure that we look at. One of the other things that really comes up is that in order for any of us to address our fears and anxieties, we need to make sure that we feel psychologically safe and to put ourselves in spaces and places where we feel seen, heard, and understood, which can help address some of the issues that I've just mentioned. Being in that emotionally regulated state when we are with someone we know and trust—so taking someone to a conference, taking someone to a space or a place where you feel that you can be seen, heard, and understood—can help us and allow us to embrace things that we perceive to be scary. That may be finding an author group, finding an online space where you can actually air and share your thoughts, your feelings, where you don't feel that you are being judged. Often it can be quite a judgmental space and place in the online world. So it's just finding your tribe and finding places where you can actually lean into that. So there'd be two things. Jo: I like the idea of the superpower and the Achilles heel because I also feel this when we are writing fiction. Our characters have strengths, but your fatal flaw is often related to your strength. Jack: Yes. Jo: For example, I know I am independent. One of the reasons I'm an independent author is because I'm super independent. But one of my greatest fears is being dependent. So I do lots of things to avoid being dependent on other people, which can lead me to almost damage myself by not asking for help or by trying to make sure that I control everything so I never have to ask anyone else to do something. I'm coming to terms with this as I get older. I feel like this is something we start to hit—I mean, as a woman after menopause—is this feeling of I might have to be dependent on people when I'm older. It's so interesting thinking about this and thinking— My independence is my strength. How can it also be my weakness? So what do you think about that? You're going to psychotherapist me now. Jack: I definitely won't, but it's interesting. Just talking about that, we all have wounds and we all have the shadow, as you've even written about in one of your books. And it's how that can come from a childhood wound where it's like we seek help and it's not given to us. So we create a belief system where I have to do everything myself because no one will help me. Or we may have rejection sensitivity, so we reject ourselves before others can reject us. So it's actually about trying, where we can, to honour our truths, honour that we may want to be independent, for example, but then realising that success leaves clues. I always say that if you are independent—and I definitely align a hundred percent with you, Joanna—I've had to work really hard myself in personal therapy and in business and life to realise that no human is an island and we can't all do this on our own. Yes, it's amazing with the AI agents now that can help us in a business capacity, but having those relationships that we can tap into—like you mentioned all of the people that you tap into—it's so important to have those. I always say that it's important to have three mentors: one person that's ahead of you (for me, that would be Katie Cross because she's someone that I find is an amazing author and we speak at least once a month); people that are at the same level as you that you can go on the journey together with (and I have an author group for that); and then someone that is perceived to be behind you or in a younger generation than you, because you can learn as much from them as they can learn from you. If you can actually tap into those people whilst honouring your independence, then it feels like you can still go on your own journey, but you can tap in and tap out as and when needed. Sacha Black will give you amazing insights, other people like Honor will give you amazing insights, but you can also provide that for them. So there's that safety of being able to do it on your own. But on the flip side, you still have those people that you can tap into as and when necessary as a sounding board, as information on how they were successful, and go from there. Jo: No, I like that. If you're new to the show, Sacha Black and Honor Raconteur have been on the show and they are indeed some of my best friends. So I appreciate that. I really like the idea of the three mentor idea. I just want to add to that because I do think people misunderstand the word mentor sometimes. You mentioned you speak to Katie Cross, but I've found that a lot of the mentors that I've had who are ahead of me have often been books. We mentioned the Viktor Frankl book, and if people don't know, he was Jewish and in the concentration camps and survived that. So it's a real survivor story. But to me, books have been mostly my mentors in terms of people who are ahead of me. We don't always need to speak to or be friends with our mentors. I think that's important too, right? Because I just get emails a lot that say, “Will you be my mentor?” And I don't think that's the point. Jack: Oh, I a hundred percent agree with you. If you don't have access to those mentors—like Oprah Winfrey is one of the people that I perceive as a mentor—I listen to podcasts, I read her books, I watch interviews. There is a way to absorb and acquire that information, and it doesn't have to be a direct relationship with them. It is someone that you can gain the knowledge and wisdom that they've imparted in whatever form you may consume it. Which is why I think it is important to have those three levels: that one that is above you that may be out of reach in terms of a human connection, but you can still access; then the people at the same level as you that you can have those relationships and grow with; and again, that one behind that you can help pave the way for them, but also learn from them as well. So a hundred percent agree that that mentor that you are looking for that may be ahead of you doesn't necessarily need to be someone that is in a real-world relationship. Jo: So let's just circle back to your music industry experience. You mentioned being on the sort of marketing team for some really big names in music, and I mean, it's kind of a sexy job really. It just sounds pretty cool, but of course the music industry has just as many challenges as publishing. What did you learn from working in the music industry that you think might be particularly useful for authors? Jack: The perception of reality was definitely a lot different. It does look sexy and glamorous, but the reality is similar to going to conferences. It's pretty much flight, hotel, and dark rooms with terrible air conditioning that you spend a lot of time in. So sorry to burst the illusion. But I mean, it does have its moments as well. There is so much I've learned over the years and there's probably three things that stand out the most. The first one was I entered the industry right at the height of the music industry. In 2000, 2001. That was when Napster really exploded and it decimated the music industry. It wiped half the value in the space of four years. Then the music industry was trying to shut it down, throwing legal, throwing everything at it, but it was like whack-a-mole. As soon as one went down such as Napster, ten others popped up like Kazaa. So you saw that the old guard wasn't willing to embrace change. They weren't willing to adapt. They assumed that people wanted the formats of CDs, vinyls, cassettes, and they were wrong. Yes, people wanted music, but they actually wanted the music. They didn't care about the format, they just wanted the access. So that was one of the really interesting things that I learned, because I was like, you have to embrace change. You can't ignore it. You can't push it away, push it aside, because it's coming whether you like it or not. I think thankfully the music industry has learned as AI's coming, because now you have to embrace it. There's a lot of legal issues that have been going on at the moment with rights, which you've covered about the Anthropic case and so on. It's such a challenge, and I just think that's the first one. The second one I learned was back in 2018. There was an artist I worked on called Freya Ridings. At that time I was working at an independent record label rather than one of the big three major record labels. She had great songs and we were up against one of the biggest periods of the year and trying to make noise. At the time, Love Island was the biggest TV show on, and everyone wanted to be on it in terms of getting their music synced in the scenes. We were just like, we are never going to compete. So we thought, we need to be clever here. We need to think differently. What we did is we found out what island the show was being recorded on, and we geo-targeted our ads just to that island because we knew the sync team were going to be on there. So we just went hard as nails, advertised relentlessly, and we knew that the sync people would then see the adverts. As a result of that, Freya got the sync. It became the biggest song that season on Love Island, back when it was popular. As a result of that, we built from there. We were like, right, we can't compete with the majors. We have to think differently. We need to do things differently. We need to be creative. It wasn't an easy pathway. That year there were only two other songs that were independent that reached the top 10. So we ended up becoming a third and the biggest song that year. The reason I'm saying that is we can't compete with the major publishers. But the beauty of the independent author community is because we have smaller budgets—most of us, not all of us, but most of us—we have to think differently. We have to make our bang for our buck go a lot further. So it's actually— How can we stay creative? How can we think differently? What can we do differently? So that would be the second thing. Then the third main lesson that I learned, and this is more on the creative side, is that pressure can often work against you, both in a business sense, but especially creativity. I've seen so many artists over the years have imposed deadlines on them to hand in their albums, and it's impacted the quality of their output. Once it's handed in, the stress and the pressure is off, and then you realise that actually those artists end up creating the best material that they have, and then they rush to put it on. Whether that's Mariah Carey's “We Belong Together,” Adele with her song “Hello,” Taylor Swift did the same with “Shake It Off”—they're just three examples. The reason is that pressure keeps us in our beta brainwave state, which is our rational, logical mind. For those of us that are authors that are writing fiction, or even if we are creating stories in our nonfiction work to deliver a point, we need to be in that creative mindset. So we need to be in the alpha and the gamma brain state. Because our body works on 90-minute cycles known as our ultradian rhythm, we need to make sure that we honour our cycle and work with that. If we go past that, our creativity and our productivity is going to go down between 60% and 40% respectively. So as authors, it's important—one, to apply the right amount of pressure; two, to work in breaks; and three, to know what kind of perspective we're looking at. Do we need to be rational and logical, or do we need to be creative? And then adjust the sails accordingly. Jo: That's all fantastic. I want to come back on the marketing thing first—around what you did with the strategic marketing there and the targeted ads to that island. That's just genius. I feel like a lot of us, myself included, we struggle to think creatively about marketing because it's not our natural state. Of course, you've done a lot of marketing, so maybe it comes more naturally to you. I think half the time we don't even use the word creative around marketing, when you're not a marketeer. What are some ways that we can break through our blocks around marketing and try to be more creative around that? Jack: I would challenge a lot of authors on that presumption, because as authors we're in essence storytellers, and to tell a story is creative. There's a great quote: “One death is a tragedy. A thousand deaths is a statistic.” If you can create a story, a compelling narrative about a death in the news, it's going to pull at the heartstrings of people. It's going to really resonate and get with them. Whereas if you are just quoting statistics, most people switch off because they become desensitised to it. So I think because we can tell stories, and that's the essence of what we do, it's how can we tell our story through the medium of social media? How can we tell a story through our creative ads that we then put out onto Facebook or TikTok or whatever platform that we're putting them out—BookBub, et cetera? How can we create a narrative that garners the attention? If we are looking at local media or traditional media, how can we do that? How can we get people to buy in to what we're selling? So it's about having different angles. For me with my new romance book, Stolen Moments, one of the stories I had that really has helped me get some coverage and PR is we recorded the songs next door to the Rolling Stones. Now that was very fortunate timing, very fortunate. But everyone's like, “Oh my God, you recorded next door to the Rolling Stones?” So it's like, well, how can you bring in these creative nuggets that help you to find a story? Again, marketing is in essence telling a story, albeit through different mediums and forms. So it's just how can you package that into a marketable product depending on the platform in which you're putting it out on. Jo: I think that's actually hilarious, by the way, because what you hit on there, as someone with a background in marketing, your story about “we recorded an album for the book next door to the Rolling Stones”—it's got nothing to do with the romance. Jack: Oh, the romance is that the pop star in the book writes and records songs. Jo: Yes, I realised that. But the fact is— For doing things like PR, it's the story behind the story. They don't care that you've written a romance. Jack: Yes. Jo: They're far more interested in you, the author, and other things. So I think what you just described there was a kind of PR hook that most of us don't even think about. Jack: I'm sure a lot of authors already know this, so it's a good reminder, and if you don't, it's great. It's called the A, B, C technique. When you get asked a question, you Answer the question. So that's A. You Build a bridge, and then you go to C, which is Covering one of your points. So whenever you get asked a question, have a list of things you want to get across in an interview. Then just make sure that you find that bridge between whatever the question is to cover off one of your points, and that's how you can do it. Because yes, you may be selling a story, like I said, about writing the songs, but then you can bridge it into actually covering and promoting whatever it is you're promoting. So I think that's always quite helpful to remember. Jo: Well, that's a good tip for things like coming on podcasts as well. I've had people on who don't do what you just mentioned and will just try and shoehorn things in in a more deliberate fashion, whereas other people, as you have just done with your romance there, bring it in while answering a question that actually helps other people. So I think that's the kind of thing we need to think about in marketing. Okay, so then let's come back to the embracing change, and as you mentioned, the AI stuff that's going on. I feel like there's so many “stories” around AI right now. There's a lot of stories being told on both sides—on the positive side, on the negative side—that people believe and buy into and may or may not be true. There's obviously a lot of anger. There's, I think, grief—a big thing that people might not even realise that they have. Can you talk about how authors might deal with what's coming up around the technological change around AI, and any of your personal thoughts as well? Jack: I was thinking about this a lot recently. I mean, I guess everyone is in their own ways and forms. One of the things that came up for me is we have genre expectations and we have generation expectations. When we look at genres, you will have different expectations from different genres. For romance, they want a happily ever after or a happy for now. For cosy mysteries, they expect the crime to be solved. So we as authors make sure we endeavour to meet those expectations. The challenge is that if we are looking at AI, we are all in our own generations. We might be in slightly different generations, but there are going to be different generation expectations from the Alpha generation that's coming up and the Beta generation that's just about to start this year or next year because they're going to come into the world where they don't know any different to AI. So they will have a different expectation than us. It will just be normal that there will be AI agents. It will just be normal that there are AI narrators. It will be normalised that AI will assist authors or assist everyone in doing their jobs. So again, it is a grieving period because we can long for what was, we can yearn for things that worked for us that no longer work for us—whether it's Facebook groups, whether it's the Kindle Rush. We can mourn the loss of that, but that's not coming back. I mean, sometimes there may be a resurgence, but essentially, we've got to embrace the change. We've got to understand that it's coming and it's going to bring up a lot of different emotions because you may have been beholden to one thing and you may be like, yes, I've now got my TikTok lives, and then all of a sudden TikTok goes away. I know Adam, when he was talking about it, he'll just find another platform. But there'll be a lot of people that are beholden to it and then they're like, what do I do now? So again, it's never survival of the fittest—it's survival of the most adaptable. I always use this metaphor where there are three people on three different boats. A storm comes. And the first, the optimist, is like, “Oh, it'll pass,” and does nothing. The pessimist complains about the storm and does nothing. But the realist will adjust the sails and use the storm to find its way to the other side, to get through. It's not going to be easy, but they're actually taking change and making change to get to where they need to go, rather than just expecting or complaining. I get it. We are not, and I hate the expression, “we're all in the same boat.” I call bleep on that. I'm not going to swear. We're not all in the same boat. We're all in the same storm, but different people are going through different things. For some, they can adjust and adapt really quickly like a speedboat. For others, they may be like Jack and Rose in the Titanic on that terrible prop where they're clinging to dear life and trying to get through the storm. So it's about how do I navigate this upcoming storm? What can I do within my control to get through the storm? For some it may be easier because they have the resources, or for some of us that love learning, it's easy to embrace change. For others that have a fear mindset and it's like, “Oh, something new, it's scary, I don't want to embrace it”—you are going to take longer. So you may not be the speedboat, but at some point we are going to have to embrace that change. Otherwise we're going to get left behind. So you need to look at that. Jo: The storm metaphor is interesting, and being in different boats. I feel I do struggle. I struggle with people who suddenly seem to be discovering the storm. I've been talking about AI now since 2016. That's a decade. Jack: Yes. Jo: Even ChatGPT has been around more than three years, and people come to me now and they're talking about stories that they've seen in the media that are just old now. Things have moved on so much. I feel like maybe I was on my boat and I looked through my telescope and I saw the storm. I've been talking about the storm and I've had my own moments of being in the middle of the storm. Now I definitely do struggle with people who just seem to have arrived without any knowledge of it before. I oscillate between being an optimist and a realist. I think I'm somewhere between the two, probably. But I think what is driving me a little crazy in the author community right now is judgment and shame. There are people who are judging other people, and there's shame felt by AI-curious or AI-positive people. So I want to help the people who feel shame in some way for trying new technology, but they still feel attacked. Then those people judge other authors for their choices to use technology. So how do you think we can deal with judgment and shame in the community? Which is a form of conflict, I guess. Jack: Of course. I think with that, there's another great PR quote: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Especially in this digital age, there's a lot of clickbait. So the more polarising, the more emotion-evoking the headline, the more likely you are to engage with that content—whether that is reading it or whether that's posting or retweeting, or whatever format you are consuming it on. So unfortunately, media has now become so much more polarising. It's dividing us rather than uniting us. So people are going to have stronger positions. There's so much even within this to look at. One is, you have to work out where people are on the continuum. Do they have an opinion on AI? Do they have a belief? Or do they have a conviction? Now you're not going to move someone that has a conviction about something, so it's not worth even engaging with them because they're immovable. Like they say, you shouldn't talk about sports, politics, and religion. There are certain subjects that may not be worth talking about, especially if they have a conviction. Because they may not even be able to agree to disagree. They may not be willing or able to hear you. So first and foremost, it's about understanding, well, where are those people sitting on the continuum of AI? Are they curious? Do they have an opinion, but they're open to hearing other opinions? Do they have a belief that could be changed or evolved if they find more information? That's where I think it is. It's not necessarily our jobs—even though you do an amazing job of it, Joanna—but a lot of people are undereducated on these issues or these new technologies. So in some cases it's just a case of a lack of education or them being undereducated. Hopefully in time they will become more and more educated. But again, it's how long is a piece of string? Will people catch up? Will they stay behind? Are they fearful? I guess because of social media, because of the media, as they say, if you can evoke fear in people, you can control them. You can control their perspectives. You can control their minds. So that's where we see it—a lot of people are operating from a fear mindset. So then that's when they project their vitriol in certain cases. If people want to believe a certain thing, that's their choice. I'm not here to tell people what to think. Like I said earlier, it's more about how to think. But I would just encourage people to find people that align with you. Do a sense test, like a litmus test, to find where they sit on the continuum and engage with those people that are open and have opinions or beliefs. But shy away or just avoid people that have convictions that maybe are the polar opposite of yours. Jo: It's funny, isn't it? We seem to be in a phase of history when I feel like you should be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Although, as you mentioned, there's certain members of my family where we just stay on topics of TV shows and movies or music, or what books are you reading? Like, we don't go anywhere near politics. So I do think that might be a rule also with the AI stuff. As you said, find a community, and there are plenty of AI-positive spaces now for people who do want to talk about this kind of stuff. I also think that, I don't know whether this is a tipping point this year, but certainly— I know people who are in bigger corporates where the message is now, “You need to embrace this stuff. It is now part of your job to learn how to use these AI tools.” So if that starts coming into people's day jobs, and also people who have, I don't know, kids at school or people at university who are embracing this more—I mean, maybe it is a generational thing. Jack: Yes. Look, there were so many people that were resistant to working from home, or corporations that were, and then the pandemic forced it. Now everyone's embraced it in some way, shape, or form. I mean, there are people that don't, but the majority of people—when something's forced on you, you have to adapt. So again, if those things are implemented in corporations, then you're going to see it. I'm seeing so many amazing new things in AI that have been implemented in the music industry that we'll see in the publishing industry coming down the road. That will scare a lot of people, but again, we have to embrace those things because they're coming and there's going to be an expectation—especially from the younger generations—that these things are available. So again, it's not first past the post, but if you can be ahead of the wave or at least on the wave, then you are going to reap the rewards. If you are behind the wave, you're going to get left behind. So that's my opinion. I'm not trying to encourage anyone to see from my lens, but at the same time, I do think that we need to be thinking differently. We need to always embrace change where we can, as we can, at the pace that we can. Jo: You mentioned there AI things coming down the road in the music industry. And now everyone's going, wait, what is coming? So tell us— What do you see ahead that you think might also shift into the author world? Jack: There are three things that I've seen. Two that have been implemented and one that's been talked about and worked on at the moment. The first, and this will be quite scary for people, is that major record labels—so think the major publishers on our side—they're all now putting clauses in their contracts that require the artists that sign with them to allow their works to be trained by their own AI models. So that is something that is now actually happening in record labels. I wouldn't be surprised, although I don't have insight into it, if Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, et cetera, are potentially doing the same with authors that sign to them. So that's going to become more standardised. So that is on the major side. But then on the creative side, there are two things that really excite me. The music AI platforms that we're hearing about, the stories that we've seen in the press, and it's the fact that with a click of a button, you can recreate a song into a different genre. I find it so fascinating because if you think about that—turning a pop song into a country song or a rap song into a dance song—the possibilities that we have as authors with our books, if we wish to do so, are amazing. I just think, for example, with your ARKANE series, Joanna, imagine clicking a button and just with one click you can take Morgan Sierra and turn her into a romantic lead in a romance book. Jo: See, it's so funny because I personally just can't imagine that because it's not something I would write. But I guess one example in the romance genre itself is I know plenty of romance authors who write a clean and a spicy version of the same story, right? It is already happening in that way. It's just not a one-click. Jack: Well, I think you can also look at it another way. I think one of the most famous examples is Twilight. With Twilight and Stephenie Meyer, if she had the foresight—and I'm not saying she didn't, just to clarify—but fan fiction is such a massive sub-genre of works. And obviously from Twilight came 50 Shades of Gray. Imagine if she had the licensing rights like the NFTs, where she could have made money off of every sale. So that you could then, through works that you create and give licence, earn a percentage of every release, every sale, every consumption unit of your works. There are just so many possibilities where you can create, adapt, have spinoffs that can then build out your world. Obviously, there may need to be an approval process in there for continuity and quality control because you want to make sure you're doing that, but I think that has such massive potential in publishing if we wish to do so. Or like I said, change characters. Like Robert Langdon's character in Dan Brown's books—no longer being the kind of thriller, but maybe being a killer instead. There's so many possibilities. It's just, again, how to think, not what to think—how to think differently and how we can use that. So that's the second of three. Jo: Oh, before you move on, you did mention NFTs and I've actually been reading about this again. So I'm usually five years early. That's the general rule. I started talking about NFTs in mid-2021, and obviously there was a crypto crash, it goes up and down, blah, blah, blah. But forget the crypto side—on the blockchain side, digital originality, and exactly what you said about saying like, where did this originate? This is now coming back in the AI world. It could be that I really was five years early. So amusingly—and I'm going to link to it in the notes because I did a “Why NFTs Are Exciting for Authors” solo episode, I think in 2022—it may be that the resurgence will happen in the next year, and all those people who said I was completely wrong, that this may be coming back. Digital originality I think is what we're talking about there. But so, okay, so what was the other thing? Jack: So the third one is the one that I'm most excited about, but I think will be the most scary for people. Obviously consumption changes and formats change. Like I said, in music I've seen it all the time—whether it's vinyl to cassettes, to CDs, to downloads, to streaming. Again, there's different consumption of the same format, and we see that with books as well, obviously—hardbacks, paperbacks, eBooks, audiobooks. Now with the rise of AI, AI narration has made audiobooks so much more accessible for people. I know that there are issues with certain people not wanting to do it, or certain platforms not allowing AI narration to be uploaded unless it's their own. The next step is what I'm most excited about. What I'm seeing now in the music industry is people licensing their image to then recreate that as music videos because music videos are so expensive. One of my friends just shot a music video for two million pounds. I don't think many authors would ever wish to spend that. If you can license your image and use AI to create a three-minute music video that looks epic and just as real as humanly possible, imagine if those artists—or if we go a step further, those actors—license their image to then be used to adapt our books into a TV series or a film. So that then we are in a position where that is another format of consumption alongside an audiobook, a paperback, an eBook, hardcover, special edition, and so on and so forth. It potentially has the opportunity to open us up to a whole new world. Because yes, there are adaptations of books that we're seeing at the moment, but for those of us that are trying to get our content into different formats, this can be a new pathway. I'm going to make a prediction here myself, Joanna. Jo: Mm-hmm. Jack: I would say in the next five to ten years, there will be a platform akin to a Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Apple Plus, where you can license the rights to an image of an actor or an actress. Then with the technology—and you may need people to help you adapt your book into a TV series or a film—that can then be consumed. I just think the possibilities are endless. I mean, again, I think of your character and I'm like, oh, what would it be if Angelina Jolie licensed her image and you could have her play the lead character in your ARKANE series? I mean, again, the possibilities potentially are endless here. Jo: Well, and on that, if people think this won't happen—1776, I don't know if you've seen this, it's just being teased at the moment. Darren Aronofsky has made an American revolutionary story all with AI. So this is being talked about at the moment. It's on YouTube at the moment. The AI video is just extraordinary already, so I totally agree with you. I think things are going to be quite weird for a while, and it will take a while to get used to. You mentioned coming into the music industry in 2000, 2001—I started my work before the internet, and then the internet came along and lots of things changed. I mean, anyone who's older than 40, 45-ish can remember what work was like without the internet. Now we are moving into a time where it'll be like, what was it like before AI? And I think we'll look back and go like, why the hell did we do that kind of thing? So it is a changing world, but yes, exciting times, right? I think the other thing that's happening right now, even to me, is that things are moving so fast. You can almost feel like a kind of whiplash with how much is changing. How do we deal with the fast pace of change while still trying to anchor ourselves in our writing practice and not going crazy? Jack: Again, it's that everything everywhere all at once—you can get lost and discombobulated. I always say be the tortoise, not the hare—because you don't want to fly and die. You want pace and grace. Everyone will have a different pace. For some marathon runners, they can run a five-minute mile, some can run an eight-minute mile, some can run a twelve-minute mile. It's about finding the pace that works for you. Every one of us have different commitments. Every one of us have different ways we view the industry—some as a hobby, some as a business. So it's about honouring your needs, your commitment. Some of us, as you've had people on the podcast, some people are carers. They have to care. Some people are parents. Some people don't have those commitments and so can devote more time and then actually learn more, change more as a result. So again, it's about finding your groove, finding your rhythm, honouring that, and again, showing up consistently. Because motivation may get you started, but it's habit and discipline that sees you through. Keep that discipline, keep that pace and grace. Be consistent in what you can do. And know where you're at. Don't compare and despair, because again, if you look at someone else, they may be ahead of you, but the race is only with yourself in the end. So you've got to just focus on where you are at and am I in a better place than I was yesterday? Am I working on my business as well as in my business? How am I doing that? When am I doing that? And what am I doing that for? If you can be asking yourself those questions and making sure you're staying true to yourself and not burning out, making sure that you are honouring your other commitments, then I think you are going at the pace that feels right for you. Jo: Brilliant. Jo: Where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Jack: Thank you so much for having me on, Joanna, today. You can find me on JackWilliamson.co.uk for all my nonfiction books and therapy work. Then for my fiction work, it is ABJackson.com, or ABJacksonAuthor on Instagram and TikTok. Jo: Well, thanks so much for your time, Jack. That was great. Jack: Thank you so much. The post Post-Traumatic Growth, Creative Marketing, And Dealing With Change with Jack Williamson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Jedną z rzeczy, których ja najbardziej się bałam, gdyzachorowałam na raka, obok oczywiście zdrowia, życia i kosztów psychicznych mojej rodziny, było to, jak zareaguje na moją chorobę moja społeczność. Bo oto ja, dziewczyna od nażywania, w najlepszym momencie życie, tuż po premierze bestsellerowej książki #nażyćsię odkrywa, że ma raka piersi i co więcej ma przejść słynną, choć przede wszystkim poważną operację a'la Angelina Jolie, czyli obustronną mastektomię. Tak! Serio. Naprawdę bałam się komentarzy w stylu „grasz na raka”, albo gorzej „sprzedajesz na raka”. Dlatego też, jak powstawała koncepcja serii podcastów „Kiedy życie mówi sprawdzam” wiedziałam, że chcę o tym porozmawiać z Martą Lech – Maciejewską, znaną w sieci jako SuperstyleBlog https://www.instagram.com/superstylerblog/ i marka Spadiora, bo ona – moja onkologicznasiostra – przeszła podobną drogę i usłyszała podobne komentarze. Ale nie jest to odcinek, rozmowa tylko o tym ♥️To rozmowa o życiu po raku. O odbudowywaniu zaufania dożycia, pomimo tego, jak bardzo ono nas zawiodło, pomimo tego, bardzo odebrało nam poczucie bezpieczeństwa. Moja przyjaciółka, która miała już okazję posłuchaćtej rozmowy powiedziała o niej „Marta, mówicie o tym, o czym się milczy … o tym, o czym ludzie zdrowi nie mają pojęcia”. Tak. Mówimy. Ale mówimy też o sprawczości. Marta pięknie opowiada o tym, jak sprawczość (ważny filar odporności psychicznej) może nas wspierać, ale też zaprowadzić na manowce. Opowiada o tym, że sprawczość może być udręką i ekstazą.Może. Posłuchajcie tej rozmowy!Ale jeszcze dodam, że partnerem tego odcinka jest marka Klaudyna Hebda, która tworzy mieszanki oparte naolejkach eterycznych i ziołach. Mieszanki, które wspierają zdrowie i samopoczucie. I każda z Was, która była na moich warsztatach wie, że od lat polecam olejki Hebdy na silne emocje i natłok myśli. Dodam, że stronie https://klaudynahebda.pl  obowiązuje kod - MARTAIP10 - i działa na produkty poza promocją. Zapraszamy!Dziękuję za każdy komentarz, każde serduszko, każdeudostępnienie

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been arrested in the UK on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The former prince is the first senior British royal in modern history to be detained by police.How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what does King Charles have to say about it?On this extraordinary day for the Monarchy, we cross to Out Loud Royal Correspondent, Holly Wainwright for an Emergency Meeting. What To Listen To Next: Listen to our latest episode: Angelina Jolie & The Existential Threat Of Desirable Older Women Listen: MAFS & The Specific Cruelty of the ‘Sexual Chemistry’ Question Listen: All The Gossip From The Wuthering Heights Premiere (And Why Mia Walked Out) Listen: Wuthering Heights & the ‘Bad Man’ Controversy Listen: "Uh-Oh, I'm A Finger Princess" Listen: Jessie and Clare Stephens' Weird Twin Shit Just Got Weirder Listen: An Affair Confession Live On Air Listen: The Best (And Worst) Generations Of Parents. A Leaderboard! Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts Discover more Mamamia Podcasts here including the very latest episode of Parenting Out Loud, the parenting podcast for people who don't listen to... parenting podcasts. SUBSCRIBE here: Support independent women's media Watch Australia's #1 podcast, Mamamia Out Loud: Mamamia Out Loud on YouTube What to read: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is the first British royal arrested in almost 400 years. Here's everything we know. HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: Only Andrew, just Sarah and a teenage 'nobody' who rewrote royal history. 'Margaret Qualley just shared her "dating rules," and I'm here to break every single one.' Anna Wintour is fashion's most powerful woman. She is famously secretive about her love life. Inside the extremely elite Le Bal des Débutantes, a Bridgerton ball for nepo babies. THE END BITS: Check out our merch at MamamiaOutLoud.com GET IN TOUCH: Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message. Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show. Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud and on Tiktok @mamamiaoutloud Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"A Paris, dans le tumulte de la Fashion Week, Maxine, une réalisatrice américaine apprend une nouvelle qui va bouleverser sa vie. Elle croise alors le chemin dʹAda, une jeune mannequin sud‐soudanaise ayant quitté son pays, et Angèle, une maquilleuse française aspirant à une autre vie. Entre ces trois femmes aux horizons pourtant si différents se tisse une solidarité insoupçonnée. Sous le vernis glamour se révèle une forme de révolte silencieuse : celle de femmes qui recousent, chacune à leur manière, les fils de leur propre histoire." "Coutures" dans les salles romandes depuis le 18 février, avec Angelina Jolie, Ella Rumpf, Anyier Anei. La réalisatrice Alice Winocour et l'actrice Ella Rumpf sont les invitées de Rafael Wolf.

Outlouders, enjoy this free bite of Mia, Holly and Jessie. Catch the full chaos of Angelina Jolie & The Existential Threat Of Desirable Older Women at 5 pm TODAY. Not a subscriber yet? Honestly, why wait? She’s back. Angelina Jolie has a new movie out and the gossips think she and her co-star, Louis Garrel might be… you know. The comments section is flooded with young women claiming "ick", and that Ange "could be Louis’ mother." She could not, but okay. Anyway, Mia Freedman, Holly Wainwright and Jessie Stephens are unpacking why a 50-year-old woman dating a younger man feels like such a personal attack to Gen Z. Is this about scarcity, ageism, prudishness or just good old-fashioned man-eater panic? Remember, this is your free sample of today's subs episode. The full debrief drops for subscribers at 5pm. What To Listen To Next: Listen to our latest episode: MAFS & The Specific Cruelty of the ‘Sexual Chemistry’ Question Listen: All The Gossip From The Wuthering Heights Premiere (And Why Mia Walked Out) Listen: Wuthering Heights & the ‘Bad Man’ Controversy Listen: "Uh-Oh, I'm A Finger Princess" Listen: Jessie and Clare Stephens' Weird Twin Shit Just Got Weirder Listen: An Affair Confession Live On Air Listen: The Best (And Worst) Generations Of Parents. A Leaderboard! Listen: The Most Bizarre Celebrity Profile We’ve Ever Read Listen: Do I Matter? & The Bathroom Taboo Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts Discover more Mamamia Podcasts here including the very latest episode of Parenting Out Loud, the parenting podcast for people who don't listen to... parenting podcasts. SUBSCRIBE here: Support independent women's media Watch Mamamia Out Loud: Mamamia Out Loud on YouTube What to read: The year the tide turned for Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie shared what really happened after divorcing Brad Pitt. It paints an ugly picture. Brad Pitt says his divorce wasn't a 'major thing'. The real story says otherwise. 'I’m 44 and I look my age.' The anti-ageism campaign that's going viral. THE END BITS: Check out our merch at MamamiaOutLoud.com GET IN TOUCH: Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message. Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show. Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud and on Tiktok @mamamiaoutloudBecome a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

María José Martínez Garcerán nos trae lo más destacado de las revistas del corazón. La actualidad de la crónica social destaca a Isabel Preysler, quien protagoniza la portada de la revista Hola con motivo de su 75º aniversario, celebrado en Miami junto a sus hijos mayores y sus seis nietos. En un tono mucho más serio, las fuentes reportan la detención de Andrés de Inglaterra por su presunta implicación en el caso Epstein, tras haber filtrado supuestamente información privilegiada. El repaso a las revistas también incluye otros temas de interés, como la boda de la hija de Ethan Hawke y Uma Thurman, y el anuncio de que Angelina Jolie planea abandonar Hollywood para buscar una vida más segura y tranquila lejos de los Estados Unidos.

Trois histoires de femmes à un carrefour de leur vie durant la fashion week de Paris. Il y a Angèle, la maquilleuse française, Ada, top model soudanaise, et Maxine, cinéaste américaine venue en France fuir son divorce mais qui va être rattrapée par le cancer qu'on lui diagnostique. Toutes trois vont tisser des liens uniques dans les coulisses de la mode et se révolter contre l'injustice. Pour Angelina Jolie, ce projet n'est pas anodin : on se souvient que la star de "Lara Croft" ou de "Mr and Mrs Smith" a révélé s'être fait enlever les seins pour éviter un risque de cancer comme celui qui a emporté sa mère... Ecoutez Laissez-vous tenter - Première avec Stéphane Boudsocq du 18 février 2026.Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Robert Duvall gone too soon, Michael Jordan backlash over celebration with a child, Me-me-Meghan Markle at NBA All-Star game, Drew Crime: Alexander brother rape trial, Tyreek Hill unemployed, and Kate Cassidy TikTok grift. RIP Robert Duvall. We remember some of his greatest rolls. If you have any celebrity phone numbers, send them to 209-66-Boner. We'll call them and try to “weasel in”. Nancy Guthrie remains missing. Savannah sends out another plea to the captor. Donate to save Nancy right here buy helping to buy a Bitcoin or something. Donald Trump wants the kidnapper's heads. Angelina Jolie is leaving the USA. Slow down. Jaden Smith stormed away from an interview in a huff when asked about Kanye West. Drew Crime: The crimes of the Alexander Brothers. Kull comes through with our Robert Duvall ‘interview'. Check out his YouTube channel right here. Nicole Curtis is finished. Chappell Roan is a hypocrite. We check on Kate Cassidy to see the riveting content she's posting to TikTok. She's still grieving her loss of Liam Payne. North West is set to launch a new fashion company at just 12 years old. Bijou Phillips needs a kidney. Sports: Tyreek Hill BLOWN OUT by the Miami Dolphins, Antonio Brown, meanwhile, has bonded out of jail and is making music. Michael Jordan decided to touch a child inappropriately following his big NASCAR victory. Jutta Leerdam nabs $1M for showing her bra at the Olympics. Traitors are winning medals. Meghan Markle and Not-a-Prince Harry sat courtside at the NBA All-Star Game. Meghan sucked at acting on the set of General Hospital. ‘Meghan' isn't really even the witch's real name! Thomas Markle is trying to move on. Cardi B is so done with Stefon Diggs. We somehow still have merch. Buy it before it's gone. If you'd like to help support the show… consider subscribing to our YouTube Channel, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Drew Lane, Marc Fellhauer, Trudi Daniels, Jim Bentley and BranDon)

On today's podcast I welcome back photographer Dan Winters. Dan has photographed everyone from Barack Obama ,Tom Hanks ,Tupac ,and Angelina Jolie to name a few. Dan has exhibited his work around the world and has worked with publications such as The New Yorker,WIRED,Esquire and Vanity Fair to name a few. In this interview I speak to Dan about his approach to environmental portraiture, aging as a photographer as well as finding his voice as an artist. USE PROMO CODE "Banter" for 2 months free for all first time users. www.picdrop.com/go/banter Peep Dan's Work www.danwintersphoto.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/danwintersphoto/

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In this episode of arts24, film critic Manon Kerjean reviews several new French releases: Alice Winocour's "Coutures", starring Angelina Jolie and Louis Garrel in a backstage drama about women navigating illness and industry pressures during Fashion Week; Anthony Marciano's "Le Rêve américain", featuring Raphaël Quenard and Jean-Pascal Zadi as two unlikely French NBA agents; and Pascal Bonitzer's "Maigret and the Dead Lover", with Denis Podalydès investigating aristocratic secrets in early 2000s Paris.

We're back this week to discuss crime thrillers and immediately devolve into shouting about bad cops, worse vibes, and dudes who absolutely should not be mentors.We kick things off with Taking Lives (2004), directed by D.J. Caruso, a movie that asks: What if a serial killer's whole thing was identity theft… but make it sexy and deeply confusing?Angelina Jolie shows up doing FBI profiler business while Ethan Hawke exists in a constant state of “this man is lying with his face.” We spiral into debates about:Serial killers who commit WAY too hard to the bit How fingerprints apparently work however the plot wants The early-2000s belief that psychology is basically magic Why everyone in this movie looks like they need a shower and a therapist We lovingly roast Taking Lives for being slick, grimy, and wildly convinced it's smarter than it is — which honestly just makes it more fun.Then we sprint headfirst into Training Day (2001), directed by Antoine Fuqua, aka “What if your first day at work ruined your entire belief system?” Denzel Washington delivers a performance so powerful it permanently altered the laws of acting, playing a corrupt cop who spends 24 hours psychologically waterboarding Ethan Hawke (again!) while yelling philosophy at him.We lose our minds over:Denzel's unmatched villain charisma Lines that feel like they were carved into stone tablets Sweat acting (elite tier) How this movie feels like a nightmare if your sleep demon is authority At some point the episode fully derails into:Ranking fictional worst first days on the job Debating whether Training Day counts as horror (it does, emotionally)Screaming about early-2000s thrillers having zero chill Realizing Ethan Hawke has spent his entire career being spiritually bullied By the end, we agree that Taking Lives is a beautifully messy serial killer puzzle box, Training Day is a masterclass in controlled chaos, and both films pair perfectly if you enjoy paranoia, betrayal, and yelling “WHY WOULD YOU TRUST HIM??” at your screen.CREEP-O-RAMA is: Store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CREEP-O-RAMA⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@creep-o-rama⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@joshblevesque⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Artwork: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@bargainbinblasphemy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Theme: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@imfigure⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Audio: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@stranjlove

durée : 00:09:17 - L'invité de 7h50 - par : Benjamin Duhamel - Dans “Coutures”, en salles le 18 février, une réalisatrice apprend qu'elle a un cancer du sein lors de la Fashion Week à Paris. Une histoire intime incarnée par Angelina Jolie, dont la mère et la grand-mère ont été touchées par la maladie. - invités : Alice Winocour, angelina jolie - Alice Winocour : Cinéaste, réalisatrice, Angelina Jolie : Réalisatrice, actrice, journaliste Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les autres épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France.

durée : 00:09:17 - L'invité de 7h50 - par : Benjamin Duhamel - Dans “Coutures”, en salles le 18 février, une réalisatrice apprend qu'elle a un cancer du sein lors de la Fashion Week à Paris. Une histoire intime incarnée par Angelina Jolie, dont la mère et la grand-mère ont été touchées par la maladie. - invités : Alice Winocour, angelina jolie - Alice Winocour : Cinéaste, réalisatrice, Angelina Jolie : Réalisatrice, actrice, journaliste Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les autres épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France.

Rushing a divorce can cost you money, leverage, and peace—especially if you're dating, listening to family “advice,” or skipping the right experts. In this episode, Morgan Stogsdill and Andrea Rappaport break down the most common divorce regrets and the smart, strategic moves to avoid them.In this episode of How Not to Suck at Divorce, Morgan and Andrea unpack the most common divorce regrets they see over and over again: the ones that quietly cost you money, complicate custody, drag out the process, and make you look back thinking… why did I do that?Get real divorce advice your lawyer may be too polite to share. We break down unpopular divorce opinions and practical divorce tips that can save you thousands of dollars in legal fees, reduce stress, and help you avoid costly mistakes. How Not to Suck at Divorce is the divorce podcast for people who want clarity, strategy, and supportFrom rushing because you've moved on romantically, to letting your dad become your “legal strategist,” to skipping experts like OurFamilyWizard because you're trying to save money—this is your highlight reel of what not to do (and what to do instead).And yes… Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie make an appearance. Because apparently six marriages is one way to earn a PhD in divorce.In this episode, we cover:The #1 regret: rushing your divorce and leaving money on the tableWhy “I want to be divorced by March” can backfire fastHow outdated financials and an old balance sheet can cost you thousandsWhy your new partner should not be part of the divorce “mischigas”The danger of letting family and friends influence legal decisionsHow well-meaning parents can accidentally run up your legal billWhen outside experts (forensic accountants, co-parenting tools, therapists) actually save you moneyWhy trying to “cheap out” can lead to a future court nightmareThe difference between fighting for what matters vs. fighting over balsamic vinegarHow to decide what's worth it (and what's just ego, fear, or control)Key Takeaways (Quick & Skimmable)1) Don't rush the process and leave money on the tableWhen you're desperate to be done, you cut corners. That's how people sign agreements with missing details, outdated account values, or unclear parenting language—then regret it later.Do this instead: Ask your attorney if your timeline is realistic, and if it is—map the steps from A to Z.2) Don't bring your new relationship into your divorce chaosYour new person may mean well, but they are not your lawyer—and emotionally, it can start poisoning the relationship fast.Do this instead: Process the divorce with your therapist, your support system, and your attorney—not your new partner.3) Don't let non-lawyers steer legal decisionsEven smart, loving parents can unintentionally derail the strategy—especially when they aren't in the day-to-day “trenches” of your case.Do

Filip & fredrik är i London och jobbar med Björn Borg. Med beska i munhålan går de bland många andra igenom paret Grimwalker, Billy Bob Thornton, Angelina Jolie, Paula Yates, Bob Geldof, Meg Mathews och Boutros Boutros-Ghali, innan det bär iväg ut i natten igen.

What if your entire life was a lie, but also you're really good at parkour? Salt is a movie four years ahead of its time and about eleven different cuts ahead of Greg and Joe truly understanding it. They discuss how this spy thriller delivers John Wick-level action sequences but with a plot that requires an advanced degree in, I don't know, something. Is Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) a loyal CIA agent? A Russian sleeper agent? Both? Neither? The answer is yes—and also no.Join them as they debate the critical clues in this film, like how a half-eaten sandwich and an overturned chair are obvious signs of kidnapping, why a German arachnologist is the perfect husband for a spy, and how Angelina Jolie maintains perfect hair after dyeing it black in a sink. They marvel at the 17-minute escape sequence, attempt to understand Liev Schreiber's motivations, and confirm that spider venom is a totally normal thing to just have on hand.As with every episode, this is the love letter that needed to happen about this movie. Also: Drinking Games, Important Questions, Joe's Back of the Box, and more.Subscribe to Great Bad Movies wherever you listen to podcastsMore Great Bad Movies online:InstagramGreat Bad Movies WebsiteYouTubeEmail us at greatbadmoviesshow@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nick catches up with Dan Fienberg from The Hollywood Reporter for another round of TV talk, starting with a few standout documentaries from Sundance and the latest run of SNL episodes. From there, Dan digs into a busy slate of new shows, including Memory of a Killer starring Patrick Dempsey, The Beauty from Ryan Murphy, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins with Tracy Morgan, and a new spinoff from the Game of Thrones universe. Esmeralda Leon joins Nick later as the conversation shifts into what they have been watching lately and quickly veers into some truly baffling casting choices. They revisit moments like Angelina Jolie playing the mother of Colin Farrell and the long tradition of actors in their twenties and thirties somehow passing as high school kids. It's a mix of sharp TV insight, shared viewing notes, and plenty of head shaking over casting decisions that still make no sense.  [Ep 424]

Actor Timothy Busfield behind bars without bond. New details emerge in the child sex abuse case as the family of an alleged victim speaks out. Then, Jay Leno on his wife's dementia battle. Plus, why Pamela Anderson hated being at the Golden Globes with Seth Rogen. And, why Pam says she's waiting on an apology. Then, wild star transformations. Andrew Garfield and Jude Law channel Siegfried and Roy. Plus, an “Alias” star now unrecognizable after quitting Hollywood. And, Ashton Kutcher's return to acting. Was he inspired by ex Demi Moore? Then, ET's with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Ben on getting ripped for their new movie, “The Rip”. And, why Matt is not impressed. Plus, Ali Larter gets rETrospective. From her “Varsity Blues” beginnings to her risqué role on “Landman”. Ali shares never-before-told stories from the set. Then, only ET is on set with Hilary Duff for her music comeback a decade in the making. And, Sophie Turner suits up as Lara Croft. How her “Tomb Raider” transformation compares to Angelina Jolie's. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michelle & Julian's ThriftingHealthiest breakfast ordersMorons in the news2 Hotel storiesNCAA championship game pricesSad NFL on FoxJunk in MJ's houseMichelle's new FBI Terrorism Task Force shirt$15 million scratcher won in FloridaKiefer Sutherland's ride-share incidentPhoto - Rules for Carrie Underwood appearanceWhat's the issue with Angelina Jolie's finances?Oprah on GLP1 drinks a lot of waterBlake Shelton on rumors of split with Gwen StefaniPooping in an aisle in a storeAnxious fliersA.I. food delivery fraudFast food worker threatens to kill coworkerFester's mattressGreenland/Greenland 2Worst states to raise a familyOlympic rugby star Ilona Maher sets a troll straightFood by Tiana - Largest slice of pizzaInfluencer and ER nurse go head-to-head over shirtColor changing nails at CESVillages resident in trouble for moldy drivewayWhich state's residents spend the most on alcohol per capitaWorst selling cars in the USACostco items that make the $65 membership worthwhileSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome back to Morgan Hasn't Seen with Jeannine Brice & Morgan Robinson!!Kicking off 2026 in very thought provoking style, Jeannine has curated a series of movies based on bestselling novels for Morgan to discover in NOVEL IDEA!Taking a grim turn into dark thrillers in the series this week as Denzel Washington's quadriplegic detective teams up with a driven Angelina Jolie to track down a methodical NYC serial killer in THE BONE COLLECTOR (1999)!Our YouTube Channel for all our regular videos:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvACMX8jX1qQ5ClrGW53vow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ItsAWonderful1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Patreon:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ItsAWonderful1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IT'S A WONDERFUL PODCAST STORE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/user/g9design⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sub to the feed and download now on all major podcast platforms and be sure to rate, review and SHARE AROUND!!Keep up with us on (X) Twitter:Podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ItsAWonderful1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Morgan:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Th3PurpleDon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeannine:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/JeannineDaBean_⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Keep being wonderful!!

EXCLUSIVE: Ailing Angelina Jolie 'Sicker Than Anyone Knows' - With Her Brood 'Giving Round-the-Clock Care' to Pin-Thin ActressAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Visit: RadioLawTalk.com for information & full episodes! Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/RLTFacebook Follow us on Twitter: bit.ly/RLTTwitter Follow us on Instagram: bit.ly/RLTInstagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Owf1BEB-klmtD_92-uqzg Your Radio Law Talk hosts are exceptional attorneys and love what they do! They take breaks from their day jobs and make time for Radio Law Talk so that the rest of the country can enjoy the law like they do. Follow Radio Law Talk on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!

Many high performers blame stress or burnout for feeling off when the real drain on their sleep focus and relationships is hiding in plain sight inside their nightly drinking habits and the broader lifestyle choices tied to alcohol.   James Swanwick joins Dr. Andrew Fix to question the belief that alcohol only becomes an issue at the extreme. He reflects on years of socially acceptable drinking that slowly eroded his energy clarity and presence until the cost could no longer be ignored and a lasting shift felt necessary.   The conversation explores what alcohol does beneath the surface, starting with sleep and rippling into mood focus cravings and connection at home. When recovery suffers everything else follows. How often do we point to work pressure or discipline when the issue starts the night before? What changes when rest, clarity and patience return?   Rather than prescribing rigid rules Swanwick encourages awareness, experimentation and choice. Track the data. Notice the patterns. Pay attention to how you show up with the people who matter most. This episode invites listeners to stop normalizing feeling less than their best and to consider what becomes possible when alcohol no longer compromises daily life.   Quotes “Drinking is just attractively packaged poison.” (15:05 | James Swanwick) “You've just clocked out of a day's work from your job, the moment that you put your head on the pillow, you've just clocked in for a whole night's additional work, the moment that you chose to drink that red wine or that beer or that seemingly innocent gin and tonic or vodka at the end of the night.”  (19:08 | James Swanwick) “We're positioning alcohol as the fun and the reward, and not drinking alcohol is the pain and the suffering. It's ridiculous. It should be the other way around.” (28:17 | James Swanwick) “If you could have reduced or quit alcohol on your own, you would have. You haven't, so you probably can't. So try a different way.” (54:46 | James Swanwick) “I've had a life with alcohol and a life without and without as far superior.” (58:00 | James Swanwick) Connect with James Swanwick: Visit Alcohol-Free Lifestyle CLEAR by James Swanwick   James Bio James Swanwick is an Australian-American investor, entrepreneur, and speaker, and a former SportsCenter anchor on ESPN. He is the founder of Alcohol Free Lifestyle, a company that helps high achievers change their relationship with alcohol, and the host of the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast. James is also the creator of Project 90, a neuroscience-based program designed to help high performers gain lasting control over alcohol, and the founder of Swanwick Sleep, maker of Swannies blue-light blocking glasses to support better sleep. Over the course of his career, he has interviewed notable figures including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Kobe Bryant, David Beckham, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.   SideKick Tool   Movemate: Award-Winning Active Standing Board 15% off Promo Code: DRA15   RAD Roller   Revogreen   HYDRAGUN    Athletic Brewing 20% off: ANDREWF20     Connect with Physio Room: Visit the Physio Room Website Follow Physio Room on Instagram Follow Physio Room on Facebook Andrew's Personal Instagram Andrew's Personal Facebook     Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Lara Croft goes on a quest to retrieve two halves of an ancient artifact that control time before it falls into the wrong hands.  The fearrless tomb raider must team up with a rival in order to complete the quest and find it's connection with her Father.  Angelina Jolie stars in the 2001 video game adaption of Tomb Raider! We also kick off 2026 with some things we watched over the holidays including Avatar: Fire and Ash, we discuss some films we are looking forard to this year and will Avengers: Doomsday be any good?  All this in outr first episode of the year!  Next week: Elysium! Visit us for all episodes & more at the www.therebelradiopodcast.com Please leave us a 5-Star review on iTunes! You can also find us on Spotify iHeartRadio Follow us on Facebook

AP's Lisa Dwyer reports that daily tragedies continue in Gaza.

Every year on Podcast Like It's the 2000s, Phil and Emily pick one Chaos Pick a movie that doesn't quite fit into any miniseries, but demands to be talked about anyway. This year's selection is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the ambitious 2004 pulp-sci-fi experiment that looked like the future of filmmaking… and then quietly disappeared.Joining the conversation is Emma Stefansky, here to passionately defend Kerry Conran's retro-futurist spectacle starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie. The group digs into the film's groundbreaking all-digital production, its sepia-toned visual language, and why it feels like a volume-stage movie years before volume stages became standard. They also explore how Sky Captain fits into a lineage of stylized adventure films like Dick Tracy and The Rocketeer, and why audiences often remember how the movie looked more than what actually happens in it.Along the way, they discuss Roger Ebert's glowing four-star review, the film's middling box office and critical afterlife, the risks of resurrecting actors digitally, and whether Sky Captain is a misunderstood cult object or simply a fascinating near-miss. It's a conversation about ambition, technology, and the strange movies that briefly convince us we're looking at the future right before the future changes again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ex boyfriend scams old girlfriend…  Drunk Raccoon being exploited…  Missing for forty-two years...  Instagram TV…  TikTok ads for everyone…  Oscars to Youtube in 2029…  Conan hosting again this year…  Reiner murders still on my mind…  Angelina Jolie shows off mastectomy scars…Email: Chewingthefat@theblaze.com   www.blazetv.com/jeffy   $20 off annual plan right now ( limited time )   Who Died Today: Anthony Geary 78 / Carl Carlton 72 / Gil Gerard 82…  Crumbl may be done?...  Joke of The Day Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Deux/U, Deux is talking about the hottest topics of the week, including: Updates: Heated Rivalry, Glen Powell + Michelle Randolph, Tate McRae + Jack Hughes Angelina Jolie Taylor Russell Jeremy Allen White + Molly Gordon Deux/U Hotline: Ethan Slater, Taylor Swift + Travis Kelce, Anon Please, Liam Neeson, Stranger Things and more! *Hanna deeply apologizes for the quality of her mic but promises it will be fixed soon To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patreon preview. Unlock full episode at https://www.patreon.com/stavvysworldThe Mastermind of Those Out of Their Mind, JP McDade, taps Myka Fox for the newest edition of McDade's Maniacs, to discuss the joys of shoplifting, Arizona childhoods, her dad's pragmatic dream of becoming a dentist, whether Stav is smart or dumb, Angelina Jolie in Beowulf, and much more. Myka, JP and Stav help callers including an adult man who doesn't like his best friend's nephew's girlfriend because she can't riff, and a woman who's mad that he male friend dogged a girl from Bumble.  Check out Myka Fox's podcast Great Hang: https://www.patreon.com/GreatHangSee Myka Fox live and follow her on social media:https://www.mykafox.com/http://instagram.com/mykafoxhttp://twitter.com/mykafoxhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/MykaFox☎️ Want to be a part of the show? Call 904-800-STAV and leave a voicemail to get advice!

Brittany's house is cold, the woman from the CEO Coldplay Controversy speaks out and what is going on with Jon Travolta and Riley Keough story. Brad Pitt gets a win against Angelina Jolie and Crisco joins to talk about the Christmas movie he and Brittany watched. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The DA has officially charged Nick Reiner with the murder of his parents, Rob and Michele. Howard Stern inks a 3 year deal to stay at SiriusXM, Hailey's haircut and Angelina Jolie shares mastectomy scars. A wild story that could involve David Harbour and Hilaria so badly wants to be Kris Jenner. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

People magazine called Laura Wasser “the celebrity of celebrity divorce attorneys,” which makes sense considering she has—according to Wikipedia—handled cases for A+listers like Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian, Johnny Depp, Ryan Reynolds, Dr. Dre, Kevin Costner, Maria Shriver, and Jimmy Iovine, among many others. And while “celebrity divorce attorney” might conjure up images of a rapacious shark in Prada boots squeezing every dollar out of her clients' exes, Laura preaches the gospel of divorce with dignity. Her book, It Doesn't Have to Be That Way: How to Divorce Without Destroying Your Family or Bankrupting Yourself is a jungle guide for ending a marriage while preserving decency, values, and a couple's wealth. As she writes, “…the more acrimony, argument, and angst, the more money your attorney makes. We profit from your inability to resolve issues.” In other words, don't pay your lawyer $1,000/hr to determine—as famously captured in When Harry Met Sally—who gets the “stupid, wagon wheel, Roy Rogers, garage sale coffee table.” Her book is a plea to all those going through one of the most stressful human experiences possible to summon your best self and think about who you want to be when the dust settles. Laura and I talk about the fundamental language of divorce, including spousal support, child support, no-fault divorce, community property, and also the more philosophical dimensions of the process, like the concept of “fairness” and how one defines “winning.” Sincere thanks to my former Facebook colleague, Matt Jacobson for making the connection to Laura. I appreciate, Jake! (encore presentation) Follow Laura on ⁠on Instagram⁠ and learn more about her practice ⁠here⁠.   ✍️Subscribe to Paul's Substack ⁠here⁠ ✍️

In this powerful episode of Best in Fest, Leslie LaPage sits down with Marcia S. Ross—Emmy-nominated documentary producer and former SVP of Casting at Walt Disney Pictures—to reveal the real Hollywood career path that led her from discovering breakout stars to producing globally recognized documentaries like Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life, Nazarene, and The Savoy King.Marcia opens up about:Her rise through New York theater and casting—including her years at CBS, Warner Bros., and Disney.How she identified early star power in actors such as Channing Tatum, Angelina Jolie, and Megan Fox—and what “compelling” really means in the audition room.What filmmakers get wrong about distribution and why marketing begins before you finish the film.Building social media momentum for documentaries, leveraging algorithms, and why PR budgets must center around festival premieres.Raising money, navigating approvals, and surviving the business side of both indie film and Hollywood studios.Why filmmakers—not distributors—must drive viewership on streamers like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.Her passion for films centered on activists, underdogs, and global changemakers—and how those stories reshaped her own life.Career advice for actors: how to stand out, how casting directors think, and why the best auditions create long-term advocates.Why comparison is career-killing, and how she maintains perspective, gratitude, and purpose in a brutal industry.Whether you're a filmmaker preparing to pitch distributors, an actor trying to understand casting, or a creative searching for a sustainable path in the industry, this conversation delivers deep, actionable insight from someone who has shaped careers and stories for over three decades.

MUSICSlipknot have sold a majority stake in their catalog for $120 million in a deal with HarbourView Equity Partners. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/slipknot-sells-catalog-to-harbourview-1236429056/ Ariana Grande will embark on her "The Eternal Sunshine Tour" in limited cities next year, and it may be a long time until you see her on tour. That's what she told Amy Poehler recently. Shinedown have released "Searchlight," the song they performed last month at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. At the show, singer Brent Smith introduced it by saying, "Sometimes when you listen close enough to the universe and you're willing to receive something from it — a song can come out of thin air. We didn't find this one, it found us."Guns N' Roses, Foo Fighters and My Chemical Romance are among the more than 160 bands announced for the Welcome to Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Florida from May 7th through the 10th. The bill also includes Bring Me the Horizon, Five Finger Death Punch, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin, Godsmack, Staind, Alice Cooper, Coheed and Cambria, Black Label Society, Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening, Tom Morello and many, many others. https://welcometorockville.com/ Disney Plus has dropped its first trailer for the updated Beatles doc, 'Anthology', restoring and remastering ABC's 1995 special. https://societyofrock.com/beatles-anthology-series-trailer/ TVWalton Goggins posed nude for "GQ's" Men of the Year issue. https://www.gq.com/story/walton-goggins-on-rebirth-and-near-death New console plays original N64 cartridges … Retro gamers rejoice! A new console – called the Analogue 3D – plays all those Nintendo 64 cartridges you may still have. The engineers designed this thing to bring the old games to life on modern TVs. They even included a pair of tiny game cartridge cleaners, which require just a little swipe to freshen up the dust and grime on the metal pins. MOVING ON INTO MOVIE NEWS:Billy Bob Thornton is talking about an infamous pop culture moment from his past relationship with Angelina Jolie. https://people.com/billy-bob-thornton-explains-famous-blood-vial-necklaces-with-angelina-jolie-that-was-one-of-the-greatest-times-of-my-life-11851532 Liev Schreiber was hospitalized in New York on Sunday. https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/liev-schreiber-hospitalized-in-new-york-city-after-health-scare/?link_source=ta_thread_link&taid=691c6e0387ea5e0001e7f8ee&utm_campaign=true_anthem_usweekly&utm_medium=social&utm_source=threads.net Mary Steenburgen actually ate spaghetti with maple syrup during the filming of "Elf"There are also, she added, moments she won't ever forget — like filming the scene in which her character enjoys a plate of spaghetti made by Buddy the Elf (played by Ferrell) and topped with chocolate, candy, and maple syrup."That first scene of the dinner, that's the very first scene in the movie," Steenburgen said on Today of the scene, which begins with Buddy chugging an entire 2-liter of soda. "And I wasn't yet used to anything of the way he was dressed. And I broke up so many times during that scene. Plus, while eating spaghetti with maple syrup." "I actually did eat it. I've had worse, but it's not my dream food." AND FINALLYA new country song was just released called "Cold Beer" from the "There I Ruined It" guys. It's a mashup of 50 different country artists singing the phrase "cold beer" over and over. (Which country stars do you hear in the song?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR2pslqKNP8 AND THAT IS YOUR CRAP ON CELEBRITIES!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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