Podcasts about Writing

Subscribe to Greg Fitzsimmons: https://bit.ly/subGregFitz Alabama comic Derrick Stroup joins Greg Fitzsimmons to talk about his new Netflix special produced by Nate Bargatze, his rapid rise in stand-up, and life on the road performing every weekend. The two get into Comedy Cellar initiation stories, Southern stereotypes, music debates, and the realities of balancing career momentum with fatherhood and health challenges. Plus, Greg shares highlights from his St. Patrick's Day show before wrapping things up with a round of Fastballs with Fitz. This episode is brought to you by Tempo — fresh, chef-crafted, dietitian-approved meals delivered straight to your door and ready in just two minutes. Go to tempomeals.com/fitzdog for 60% off your first box. This show is produced by Gotham Production Studios and part of the Gotham Network. https://www.gothamproductionstudios.com/studios/ Follow Greg Fitzsimmons: Facebook: https://facebook.com/FitzdogRadio Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregfitzsimmons Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregfitzshow Official Website: http://gregfitzsimmons.com Tour Dates: https://bit.ly/GregFitzTour Merch: https://bit.ly/GregFitzMerch “Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons” Book: https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82 “Life on Stage” Comedy Special: https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial Listen to Greg Fitzsimmons: Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio Sunday Papers: http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod Childish: http://childishpod.com Watch more Greg Fitzsimmons: Latest Uploads: https://bit.ly/latestGregFitz Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/radioGregFitz Sunday Papers: https://bit.ly/sundayGregFitz Stand Up Comedy: https://bit.ly/comedyGregFitz Popular Videos: https://bit.ly/popGregFitz About Greg Fitzsimmons: Mixing an incisive wit with scathing sarcasm, Greg Fitzsimmons is an accomplished stand-up, an Emmy Award winning writer, and a host on TV, radio and his own podcasts. Greg is host of the popular “FitzDog Radio” podcast (https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio), as well as “Sunday Papers” with co-host Mike Gibbons (http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod) and “Childish” with co-host Alison Rosen (http://childishpod.com). A regular with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, Greg also frequents “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Lights Out with David Spade,” and has made more than 50 visits to “The Howard Stern Show.” Howard gave Greg his own show on Sirius/XM which lasted more than 10 years. Greg's one-hour standup special, “Life On Stage,” was named a Top 10 Comedy Release by LA Weekly. The special premiered on Comedy Central and is now available on Amazon Prime, as a DVD, or a download (https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial). Greg's 2011 book, Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons (https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82), climbed the best-seller charts and garnered outstanding reviews from NPR and Vanity Fair. Greg appeared in the Netflix series “Santa Clarita Diet,” the Emmy-winning FX series “Louie,” spent five years as a panelist on VH1's “Best Week Ever,” was a reoccurring panelist on “Chelsea Lately,” and starred in two half-hour stand-up specials on Comedy Central. Greg wrote and appeared on the Judd Apatow HBO series “Crashing.” Writing credits include HBO's “Lucky Louie,” “Cedric the Entertainer Presents,” “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Man Show” and many others. On his mantle beside the four Daytime Emmys he won as a writer and producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” sit “The Jury Award for Best Comedian” from The HBO Comedy Arts Festival and a Cable Ace Award for hosting the MTV game show "Idiot Savants." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy Weir's first time at the Hollywood rodeo was a singular trip. His debut novel, “The Martian,” went from self-published project to blockbuster, best picture-nominated film starring Matt Damon. His third book, “Project Hail Mary,” was also a sensation, and its adaptation, starring Ryan Gosling as a middle school science teacher tasked with saving humanity from slow extinction, charts warmly familiar territory: a lone man, stuck in space far from Earth, solving science problem after science problem with many a humorous aside. Weir joined the Book Review's podcast and spoke to the host Gilbert Cruz about the similarities and differences between Mark Watney and Ryland Grace (the main characters of “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary”), his second novel “Artemis” and the alien character that readers have fallen in love with. We Want to Hear From You We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to thebookreview@nytimes.com. Credits “The Book Review Podcast” is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Sarah Diamond and Amy Pearl. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado. Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad, and Paula Szuchman. Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Taylor Glascock for The New York Times Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

adrienne and Autumn are joined by Kate McCabe (Founder and Executive Director of Bog & Thunder), Max Sussman (Culinary Director of Bog & Thunder) and Dwight Dunston (facilitator, hip-hop artist, educator, and activist) to chronicle and celebrate their majestic time on a private island in the wilds of West Cork for a writing workshop unlike any other. Writing the Next World is a space to ideate, experiment with genre, and find a writing voice that creates more possibilities for our collective future, all while exploring the beautiful Connemara countryside and eating outstanding food. The event is rooted in the lineages of visionary and speculative fiction and Black Feminist Praxis. The next one is coming up JULY 5TH - JULY 10TH. APPLY HERE!---Listen to WRITING THE NEXT WORLD: the album by duns---Max's Egg Salad Recipe!6 eggs40 gm celery, diced20 gm pickles, diced60 gm mayo30 gm red onion, diced2 Tbsp parsley, finely chopped2 scallions, slicedPinch MSGplenty of salt and pepper1. Bring pot of water to a boil. Add eggs and start a 10 minute timer, keep eggs at a low boil the entire time.  2. After 10 minute timer goes off, place eggs in ice bath until cool.3. Chop eggs or break up with gloved hands. 4. Mix with remaining ingredients, adjust seasoning to taste.---⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TRANSCRIPT⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SUPPORT OUR SHOW⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Endoftheworldshow---HTS ESSENTIALS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SUPPORT Our Show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Endoftheworldshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PEEP us on IG⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/endoftheworldpc/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠

When Connor Cleaner Fish gets a visit from some traveling fish, he realizes that it’s good to take a break sometimes. Hello everyone!  We hope you enjoyed our new stories this week. Now, welcome to Favorite Friday! Sometimes we like to listen to our favorites again. Please enjoy “Cozy Cove,” and we'll be back with a new story on Monday! Narrator: Male Story Begins: 3:26 Cozy Cove Excerpt: Connor was a little different from the other fish that lived around him. He didn't like to play as much as they did. When he wasn't working on cleaning the other fish who came to him when they needed their scales or shells or fins cleaned, Connor spent much of his time near his coral cave and the nearby rocks making sure that his home stayed just as clean as his fish friends. Connor didn't like a messy home, or anything messy, really. It was hard for him to sleep knowing that there was mess anywhere! So, Connor spent most of his free time cleaning the front, back and even the top of the comfy little coral and the surrounding rocks of his home. Today's Meditation: Relax as you imagine you are a baby penguin snuggled close to its papa. Looking for a podcast to help settle your child in for nap time, bedtime or a break?  You’ll find it on Ahway Island®. Be Calm on Ahway Island® Podcast offers original bedtime stories, like “Nap Time or Not?” paired with meditations for kids. We help them drift off to sleep with a guided relaxation and a calming story. Gently nestled within each podcast episode are mindfulness techniques and positive learning moments. You can search for stories by Learning Message, Character Type, or Narrator Type on our Episodes page. To learn more about our mission at Ahway Island and our team, please visit our About page, or check out our FAQs. Creating the original bedtime stories and art for Be Calm on Ahway Island takes a lot of time and care. As a listener-supported podcast, we truly appreciate our members on Patreon. If you’re not already a member, please consider joining! Writing, recording, editing, and publishing episodes and managing digital platforms is an enormous endeavor. Our Patreon program will help continue to grow Ahway Island and we hope you will support us! You can choose from 2 different Membership Levels, all of which include access to our Archives and an extra episode each week! Are you and your children enjoying our stories and self-soothing meditations? We hope your child loved “Cozy Cove.” We ask for your positive reviews to help others find us, too! Please leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast app (such as Apple Podcasts). And, please follow, like, and/or share our social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ) to help us bring our original stories with positive messages to even more listeners! In the press: Digital Trends warns listeners that “you may not make it through an entire episode fully conscious.” Yay! We're honored that the website of Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems includes us on their list of Technology to Boost Mental Health. Jooki recommends us as an outstanding podcast for preschoolers. We're reaching listeners internationally! Sassy Mama Hong Kong included us in their article on transitioning into the new year, Sassy Mama Singapore recommends us for limiting screen-time while sheltering at home, and Haven Magazine Australia included us in their tips for getting through the school holidays. Thank you to Anne Bensfield and Pamela Rogers of School Library Journal for listing us as one of “8 Podcasts To Encourage Mindfulness!” Thanks for tuning into today’s story. We’ll be back soon with another!

After ten years of the #amwriting podcast, KJ, Jess, and Sarina are marking a milestone—and a transition. In this episode, the longtime hosts reflect on what the writing world looked like when the show began and share their best advice for writers trying to do meaningful work. They also pass the microphone to Jennie, who will carry the podcast into its next chapter.Moving forward, Jennie will keep the show focused on helping writers do their best work and make smart decisions about their writing lives. Expect familiar features and new conversations, including Write Big solo episodes, Book Lab breakdowns of listener submissions, coaching sessions with writers across genres, and Margin Notes exploring the thinking behind creative choices. The mission remains the same: helping writers play big in their writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most.#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TranscriptJennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jennie Nash and you're listening to the hashtag am Writing podcast. The place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most.KJ: Hey everyone. I'm kj and you are listening to the hashtag am Writing podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most.So today is a big day. We're we'reJess: big day.KJ: Yeah. We're celebrating the 10th year of the hashtag am writing podcast, which I have to say is officially the longest I've been able to sustain any job-like thing. Um, and we're announcing that we're going in a new direction. So this is really cool. After a decade of talking to y'all, um, Jess and I and then [00:01:00] Sarina, who is at minus a decade. I don't wanna, um, have decided to step back and hand over the reins to Jennie.Jess: YeahJennie: It is, it is such a big milestone and such a big deal. And before we. Actually say goodbye to the three of you. I mean, it's not forever. You're coming back as guests, all of you, all the time, hopefully.KJ: Oh, heck yes. Absolutely. You, you, you and I have already planned all the things, so don't get too excited and, and weepy here folks, but things are just, things are gonna be. New and fresh and more interesting and, uh, more craft filled and more inspirational. When I need inspiration to write, I look for one of our episodes.That's Jennie. So I think this is gonna be, this is gonna be great.Jennie: I think it's gonna be great too. But before we actually say goodbye, I mean, 10. Is a long time and I thought it would be fun to ask you all what it was like 10 [00:02:00] years ago when you started, and Sarina 10 minus whatever the time is, but what was the writing landscape like as a whole maybe for you, and then all this wisdom, all these years that you've shared.What's, what's the thing that sticks in your head the most is what you would want to leave with, with the listeners, what is the your best piece of writing advice from all of this time? So. Jess, why don't you start? You're the og.Jess: Well, I, I definitely wanted to start. For those people who have not been around since the very beginning, you have to understand that it's really horrifying when people say they go back and like start from the beginning because, um, and we'll be posting pictures in the show notes.I have a ton of pictures throughout the years, but we originally, um, we, we would go into this little, I had a tiny, tiny house and we would go into the eve space off of my daughter's room. And it was raw insulation with a light bulb, and we sat on the floor and it was [00:03:00] like. Maybe at the tallest point, maybe four feet high, so you had to kind of crawl in.And I have a picture of us, um, podcasting from inside there. And it was, and it was very hot in the summer. It would get very, very hot. My house did not have air conditioning and um. But it was delightful and it was this thing that we had talked about doing for such a long time, and I was so proud of us.And mainly it was kj. KJ was the one who said, we're not gonna talk about this anymore, we're just gonna do it. So she got us into gear and just brought her stuff over to my house in her basket and said, let's go. Let's do it. And we bought microphones and everything and it was. It was a big new adventure.And if you had said, then, how long do you think this is gonna last? I don't know that I would've said 10 years. But there's, you know, then Sarina came in and, and Sarina has, has been a part of this as a guest since the very beginning too. And a couple of things that I wanted to share were that one time Sarina and KJ and I, uh, were doing a [00:04:00] double, a double header episode and I forgot to hit record for both of them.And so. We did this incredibly fun, very long episode, broken into two pieces that, um, it went off into the ether and. I did learn from that. And then at the same time, by the time we were sort of on our game enough to be able to really interview people, we went up to Maine to interview Richard Russo and we went to record at his daughter's wonderful bookstore in Portland, Maine.And um, I had three modes of recording. I had, um. Two microphones and I had a handheld digital thing that I had on the table between us and, um, mode one failed and mode two failed. And so the only thing we had was, you know, our little digital handheld on the table in between us. So. There's a lot of stuff like that.There was the moment I got to text KJ and tell her that we were getting David [00:05:00] Sedaris, there was the day she emailed me to tell me that we were getting Anna Quinlan. You know, and I just so many cool things that, um. It makes me so happy that we've produced something good out of all of that. And one last thing.The, the, the thing that I think I've learned the most is there is no one right way to do this. That every single time I hear about, like whether it's the, you have to write, writer write every day, you have to write every day, or you have to write in a certain way, or you have to write in a certain place, or you have to write with the door closed, or you have to write with the door open, all of those things.Um, none of those are rules. None of them are rules. They're things that people do and I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about all the different ways they do it.Jennie: That's amazing. Um, kj, do you remember this, uh, light bulb and no insulation time? KJ: Oh yeah. I don't remember the time you didn't record particularly just ‘cause it happened more than once. And [00:06:00] the other thing I would throw in is that the more famous, the guest, the. Less interesting. They were, it was almostKJ: always true. Jess: It wasn them. It was, yeah. I think we got all jacked up about like, I don't know. It just,Jess: I don't know.Wasn David Sari's advice to young writers was the worst.KJ: Yeah. It advice really wasJess: anyone has ever given, itKJ: was,Jess: yeah, a writer. He said, don't submit your work. Don't ask. Don't try to get you, wait for people to read it. Wait for people to ask you if they can read it.KJ: Yeah,Jess: that's which this, this is, KJ: this worked for him. He is an NF one and it will not work for you.Jess: Right. Yeah, I think thatKJ: my favorite, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna lay it out there. I'm not even gonna put any caveats on that. That won't work.Jess It won't work.KJ: No. I think it's always been the most fun when we get in deep into the craft and anytime someone is too practiced with their answers or it's the same answer they've given a million times.You're [00:07:00] right. It was cold and it was, um, it just wasn't good.Sarina: Yeah. So the more fun people were always the people who were really in it with us.KJ: Yeah. Yeah.Jennie: So, Sarina, do you know when you came in, do you know what the, the n minus number is?Sarina: No, because I was a guest star even before we got out of the, the, um, kgs closet.It's true. It's true.KJ: One of those not recorded episodes was recorded in the eve space. That's true. We had, we roped during fairly early.Jennie: Yeah. In that 10 years, you've probably written more. More than, well, how many books have you written in that time? Sarina, I mean,Sarina: um, 50. At 50 50 ish.Jennie: That's crazy. That's crazy. So what do you know now that you didn't know then?Sarina: Oh, so much, so much that, like giving advice, you know, I, I [00:08:00] now feel like less qualified to give advice than I did then, you know how that goes. Like, the job gets harder, not easier. I have a, a good working vocabulary for why, but it doesn't make me feel like anybody's, you know, special savior.Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. What do you remember about starting in and the, the, um, all these episodes? What sticks in your mind asSarina: you know? Um, I loved the opportunity to talk to people who I think are fantastic. I also learned that I am not a fantastic interviewer and that, and that, um. That isn't a skill of mine that I, it's, there's so many things, like I'm so busy, I write so many books.I can't learn to be the interviewer that you deserve. So I only. Did interviews selectively and sometimes they were just so fun. Like, [00:09:00] um, the, the person who broke broke the mold about the interview being interesting, the more famous they are was Emily Henry. ‘cause she was Oh yeah. She was fun to talk to.She was just right there with us and, and ready to have a good time and, and so wise and also so, so nice. And that, that's really great when you can talk to somebody who's killing it in your own genre and you know, they're just so wonderful about it. Um, and then, you know, then we had the odd, very sweaty interview where nothing seems to go according to plan.And I won't name the author because I do admire this person very much, but they were not. Willing to take any expertise onto themselves. So KJ and I just sweated all the way through this interview trying to get this person to, to tell us KJ: Say something. Say anything.Sarina: Yeah. Tell us how you feel, you know?KJ: Yeah.Sarina: And it could not be done.KJ: Nope.Sarina: So, you know, that one, I, [00:10:00] I will never re-listened to that one, but, um, but I really, what I got out of it, honestly, was spending time with all of you guys, and you teach me things every single day. And another thing about this job is that I find that I have to relearn the best lessons over and over again.And when you are compelled to speak lucidly about your job, you know, a couple of times a month, um, it forces a certain reckoning with your own skill and expertise. Like I might say that I, you know, don't want to be anybody's, um, masterclass, but I really do know a lot at this point and, um, every time I talk to you guys and we'd, and we gathered together like this, I always learn something.Jess: I love, I think Sarina is the most amazing explainer and teacher. And so getting to learn, um, especially, you know, in these [00:11:00] recent, uh, nerd Corner Publishing Nerd Corner episodes, it's been so cool to just learn from her. It's really, really fun. And, you know, if, if we take it all the way back, like the first, your first romance novels, you know.We're just coming out when we just, when we started this thing. It's just been such an incredible journey from there to where we are now. The other thing that's been really cool is that this podcast has made me really accountable to my goals and to, you know, not that. You guys also do that for me. But saying things out loud in front of other people has always been my, the thing that has saved me, whether that's about my recovery or, um, you know, whatever it is.Um, people talk to me all the time and say, you know, was it hard to come out publicly about, you know, being an alcoholic? I'm like, absolutely not. It's what's kept me sober. And I feel the same way about the writing, that when I talk to, um, the listeners that I, I feel like. Someone may [00:12:00] come along someday and ask how that, uh, that goal of mine is going. And, and I like that.Jennie: Yeah. That's so good. Kj, what, what are your best memories and, um, best, best advice that you've gotten or, or given?KJ Well, you know, spend 10 years, so it is a long time ago, but I do remember the time Jess was riding her dinosaur to my house to record and got hit by a snowplow. Mm-hmm. Um, that was, that was good times.Jess: Yep.KJ: We have Snow Fred Dinosaurs up here. Yep. In New Hampshire. Um, the Sedaris thing that was, that was just funny and also really cool ‘cause I have such deep admiration for, for him, and I'm quite certain that if somehow he ever heard. I, he would not care. We think that was terrible advice.Jess: What's also really was really funny about that one is this is an only David Sedera sort of situation where, oh Lord, he, he has said very specifically that he, during COVID, he refused.To get Zoom, any [00:13:00] kind of zoom sort of situation. So we had to, we went all the way to Concord to,KJ: this wasn't Coco COVID, this was before that. No, no, no. I, I know, but I'm saying like, he has, this is not new information. He has said very publicly that he doesn't do likeJess: Oh, yeah. So he wouldn't even, even let us have somebody bring him a laptop to his apartment.Right. And set it up for us, which we were like, happy to do, butKJ: Yeah. Yeah. We had to go there.Jess: So he called and yeah, we went to NHPR in Concord and, uh, our, and our wonderful producer Andrew was. Able to get everything connected for us. Um, but it was one of those moments where, you know, we are constantly talking about how to like bend over backwards to get marketing and get people to listen to what we have to say.And yet, even though he puts obstacles in the path of people who want to hear what he has to say, they will gladly jump through those hoops, uh, for him.Jess: Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, you know, so kind of him to do it.KJ: Yes. Anyway, I mean, that was super funnyJess: and, and I am looking at my wall that [00:14:00] has the postcard, the thank you postcard that he sent us.So when he says he sends thank you notes to everyone, he sends thank you notes to everyone because we got one. And from what I understand, he sends them to every bookseller, every person who drives them everywhere. He sends thank you notes to everyone.Jennie: Wow. That's what I think of when I think of you, Jess.mThat's a thing you do too. You're so good at that. Well, I, I have to say that I have been a listener for this whole time, and the thing that you all brought was. This authenticity, this sense of what it's really like to do this work. And you all are writing such different things and so accomplished at those things, and your willingness to kind of just open, open it up and share what that looks like with no, you know, varnish over it or, or you know, polished.Just like, this is what it's really like and this is who we are and this is how it happens, and [00:15:00] that the work gets done in such. Messy circumstances and, um, that lesson and, and that generosity of showing people that that's true. Which kind of goes to what you were saying, Jess, like there is no way, but, but also just doing the work is the way and.That's what you have all modeled and continue to model, and obviously,KJ well, that's what I want people to take away from this. Mm-hmm. Is listen. Okay. We're joking that 10 years is a long time and 10 years is a long time. It's a long time to do anything. But also 10 years ago I had one book to my name. And you've never heard of it.It was called Reading with Babies, toddlers, and Twos, and it got me all my other jobs. Jess had no books to her name. Mm-hmm. 10 years ago, Sarina Couple not, you know, just, just, just barely getting started. Jennie actually had a ton of books to her name, but that's, you know, that's a different story. So here we were.10 years ago sat down and said, [00:16:00] we are gonna do these things. And we did not all, I mean, it wasn't, nobody came and asked us for it. All of David Saris. Um, nobody had, none of us had instant success. You know, no one called up and said, Hey, can I do this? And like immediately got articles in the New Yorker or whatever.Uh, publishers were not banging down our doors. We. We were banging down theirs and we were all very determined to, um, to make this a professional endeavor. The, the podcast and the writing and the books and all of it. And so I guess what I'm saying is I don't know where you are listener, but wherever you wanna be in 10 years.Uh, you know, maybe you won't get exactly there. I wouldn't say any of us has gotten exactly there ‘cause we're not done. But still, we came a long way in 10 years and I would like to see other people, [00:17:00] um, sit down and actually do the thing so you can go to the place.Jess: That's been one of the big joys, I think, also of this podcast is seeing other people's work happen.Like hearing from listeners that, oh my gosh, I hadn't started my book. I was trying to get motivated to start my book, and then I created this proposal and now the book is coming out, and that's, I, I, I just, I can't, I can hardly wrap my brain around that. Um, it's been a really amazing progression and the, the group of people that have sort of coalesced around listening to this podcast and getting in, in touch, some of them have become friends and that's been really amazing too.Sarina: I hope what some people will take away from this, um, is that very few people who do what we do are truly trained for it. You know, I don't have an MFAI don't KJ and just don't have journalism degrees. They have law degrees instead. But, um, you can, you can [00:18:00] do this on the job training. That's what we did.That's what you listened to us do. And I'm reminded of that, um, quote by El Doctoral. You know, writing a book is like driving at night with the headlights on. You can. You can't see the whole distance, um, but you can still get to your destination. And there was this Time when KJ and I were debating this quote on this podcast and KJ said, yeah, but the last time we went driving at night, we almost hit a bunny.And it was true. And I think that what might be the, one of the times I laughed the hardest on this podcast.Jess: You know, it's also interesting, I was thinking that, um, you know how I said that there isn't one way to do things, and even the way that we do things has evolved over time and like Sarina has learned how to, has become a coffee shop writer and has learned how to write in other places.And I've learned how to write in other places and I never used to be able to do that. Um, [00:19:00] so how we get the work done really has. Uh, evolved with the needs of what's going on around us and what our career needs from us, and, and that's been really pleasant. Pleasant to watch too.Jennie: Well, it's been an honor to listen to you all and to be, uh, working alongside you.And I am, I'm thrilled to be carrying the show forward. I have lots of big ideas to bring to these episodes To continue to center the writer and the writing and getting the work done in authentic conversations about what it takes, both from a craft perspective and a mindset perspective. So I'll be reaching out soon for submissions to book Lab because that's gonna continue with a twist and I will be letting you know about what's coming. Um, for sure. New episodes with our producer Andrew, who's stepped out from behind the mic, um, as you heard last week. And I'll be continuing to coach him forward, which will be really [00:20:00] fun. So lots of good stuff coming and I appreciate your ongoing support and I appreciate.Getting you to stand on the shoulders of these three incredible writers and entrepreneurs and thinkers and friends, and, um, thank you all.KJ Thank you. I'm just so glad. Thank you guys to see this, uh, keep going and to become a little bit more of a passenger. I have very much been the driver for the past few years.Um, Jess had her turn in the, in the driving seat and Sarina said from day one, no, no, I am buddy, humble guest. So, um, I'm so thrilled that you're taking over and I am excited to listen when I am not part of it, and to also continue to be part of it. Yay. Thank you guys.Jennie: Thank you all so, so much.Hey, why don't you, uh, why don't you take us out?KJ No, no. Jess has to take us out. It's cool. That's the tradition.Jess: Alright. And actually coming up with our, this little bit of the show happened in the eve space, so [00:21:00] it's a very. Yeah, that's a sentimental phrase for me too. So until next week, everyone, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.Jess: The hashtag am writing podcast. Is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Visit the webpage to join our growing communitywww.podpage.com/the-3-13-men-money-and-marriageCash App $a114johnsonSummaryThis episode explores the complex emotions behind falling out of love in marriage, addressing how to recognize, understand, and rekindle the relationship. Hosted by Andrew Johnson, it offers practical advice on communication, emotional connection, and seeking help.keywordsmarriage, falling out of love, relationship advice, emotional connection, communication, therapy, rekindling love, relationship challengesKey topicsThe nature of love and emotional connection in marriageSigns and causes of falling out of lovePractical strategies to rekindle love and intimacyThe importance of vulnerability and honest communicationWhen and how to seek professional help or therapyReignite Your Marriage: The 2-2-2 Rule for LoveFalling Out of Love? How to Rebuild Your Relationship"Love is a spark, but a marriage is a slow burn.""Writing a journal helps focus on positives and goals.""Seeking help from a professional can provide clarity."Chapters00:00 Introduction to Falling Out of Love02:24 Understanding the Spark vs. Slow Burn of Love05:03 Identifying Causes of Falling Out of Love07:26 The Importance of Vulnerability and Communication10:02 Reigniting the Flame in Relationships15:33 Seeking Help and Professional Guidance

Welcome to The DMF — Discovering Meaning in Film and Acting. I'm Justin Younts, and in this episode I continue my conversation with filmmaker, producer, and author Brent Lindstrom as we dive into the realities of writing, editing, and building a career as an author.Brent shares his journey through writing what he calls “trunk novels” — early works that helped him develop his voice and understand the craft of storytelling. Through this process, he realized just how much there is to learn when it comes to structure, character development, and refining a story.We explore the two primary writing approaches — outlining vs. pantsing — and why Brent believes outlining can help writers avoid writer's block and create a more efficient storytelling process.In this episode we discuss:• Common writing and editing mistakes authors make• How to edit your book effectively• Outlining vs pantsing in storytelling• Developing characters and narrative structure• The financial realities of being an author• Marketing your book and building an audienceBrent also shares lessons from writing his novel “Swing Low, Hangman of the Woods,” including the challenges he faced and how those experiences shaped his growth as a storyteller.This episode highlights the importance of patience, persistence, and continuous learning — whether you're writing your first book or refining your craft as a creative professional.Join us as we explore the writing process, editing strategies, and what it really takes to succeed as an author.

From Krista: I was longing for a deep dive on the radiant and common-sense hope that Jason Reynolds embodies after I interviewed him at a Georgetown event last year. I got my chance at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival. Jason's perspective is so urgent for the world we've now walked into: on giving ourselves grace to be hopeless, the virtue of stamina, and the hope that stays strong in him from his life in relationship with the very young in our midst — "the arbiters and purveyors of the future" — as well as an occasional stranger in a bar. Jason himself is preternaturally wise as well as talented and kind and humble. He's become a friend across the years and is one of my favorite people in the world.  — Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be on our mailing list for all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday newsletter, including a heads up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations. Jason Reynolds is a New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books for children and young adults. From 2020–2022, he served as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Among many honors, he has received the Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Awards, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2024. He is on the faculty at Lesley University for the Writing for Young People M.F.A. Program. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's probably a bit too much pressure on reaching a definitive state of happiness isn't there? It's not realistic gang! So Fearne's dropping into your feed every week for some candid chat about what's making her feel great, and what's making her feel completely rubbish ...and this episode is brought to you by new original Paramount Plus show The Madison.This is the cosy little corner where all of us can explore what's been on our minds, what's been getting us down, inspiring us, and making us laugh. Want to join the chat? Send us a voicenote, DM, or comment on Instagram @happyplaceofficial!In this chat, Fearne covers:-The joy of having a great TV series on the go-Dreaming of escaping to a hazy golden farm in Montana-The small but delicious joy of beautiful stationary-The frustration of waking up too early at the weekend-The debate about whether to feed foxes or not-How to toilet train kittens-The madness of how much we all rush through the day-BTS of some of the roles on Team Happy Place Episodes 1-3 of The Madison are available to stream now on Paramount Plus. Episodes 4-6 will be available to stream on 21 March. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nilofer Merchant debunks some of the pervasive beliefs and practices that keep us from succeeding at work.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) Striking examples of how hidden norms limit us2) Why you owe it to yourself to play office politics3) The mindset that creates more win-win solutionsSubscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1138 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT NILOFER — Nilofer Merchant spent over 25 years leading technology companies (Apple, Autodesk, GoLive/Adobe) and personally launched over 100 products and services, netting $18 billion in revenues. She is ranked among the top 50 influential management thinkers in the world (one of her TED Talks has been referenced 300 million times). Our Best Work is her 4th book.• Book: The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy• Book: Our Best Work: Break Free from the 24 Invisible Norms That Limit Us • Website: NiloferMerchant.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Book: Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.• Vanguard. Give your clients consistent results year in and year out with vanguard.com/AUDIO• Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/betterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Description:Today's bonus episode is a joy from start to finish. We're sitting down with treasured friend Anne Lamott—beloved writer, teacher, and spiritual guide—whose voice has shaped how so many of us think about faith, truth, writing, and what it means to be human on the page. Anne returns to For the Love to talk about her upcoming book, Good Writing, co-written with her husband, journalist and editor Neal Allen. While Neal couldn't join us today, this conversation is very much about the shared work they created together—a book that isn't chasing polish or perfection, but clarity, honesty, and respect for the reader. Good Writing is part craft guide, part philosophy of living. Written in alternating voices, it blends Anne's signature warmth, humor, and spiritual insight with Neal's journalistic precision and discipline. Together, they explore what makes sentences work, how voice is formed, why ego gets in the way, and why clarity is not just a stylistic choice—but an act of generosity. In this intimate and often funny conversation, Jen and Amy talk with Anne about what it was like to co-write a book so closely, what collaboration revealed about trust and restraint, and how writing—at its best—is a relationship. They dig into voice and ego, bad sentences and letting go, rhythm and revision, and why removing what doesn't serve the sentence can feel like both grief and grace. But as always with Anne, the conversation goes deeper than craft. This episode explores writing as a way of being in the world—how attention, humility, and courage shape not only our sentences, but our lives.  If you've ever loved Bird by Bird, wrestled with your inner critic, or longed to tell the truth with a little more care—this conversation is for you. Thought-provoking Quotes: “I only have to do today, today.” – Anne Lamott “We write because we try to tell the truth. We try to share our experience, strength and hope.” – Anne Lamott “Say what you mean. Mean what you say. And don't say it mean.” – Anne Lamott Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott - https://amzn.to/4qLZRQR Anne Lamott on Faith, Writing, and Radical Self-Love - https://jenhatmaker.com/podcasts/bonus/anne-lamott-on-faith-writing-and-radical-self-love-2/ Neal Allen - https://www.shapesoftruth.com/ Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences by Neal Allen and Anne Lamott - https://amzn.to/3NMoKNP Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott - https://amzn.to/4t7FteL Somehow: Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott - https://amzn.to/3Z4Nd3r Stanley Tucci on the For the Love podcast - https://jenhatmaker.com/podcasts/series-64/stanley-tucci-food-memories-and-emotions/ Amy's Full of Microplastics and Existential Dread Sweatshirt - https://www.threadless.com/shop/@dinomike/design/full-of-microplastics/womens/sweatshirt Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker - https://amzn.to/4rlv3Gz Jessica Mitford - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Mitford Tyler Merritt - https://thetylermerrittproject.com/ I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America by Tyler Merritt - https://amzn.to/49N1ms8 Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic by Neal Allen - https://amzn.to/3LTEVs9 A Writing Room - https://awritingroom.com/ Guest's Links: Website - https://awritingroom.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/annelamott/ Twitter - https://x.com/ANNELAMOTT?lang=en Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AnneLamott/ Substack - https://annelamott.substack.com/ Connect with Jen!Jen's Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen's Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmakerJen's Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen's Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmakerJen's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker The For the Love Podcast is presented by Audacy.  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

Sebastian Spider is frustrated when rain ruins his usual jumping spot. What will he do? Narrator: Female Story Begins: 3:13 Slippery Spider Excerpt: Today, Sebastian set out on his usual morning route. His first stop was always the big green leaf. It was broad and strong and grew from a low plant near the fence. Sebastian had jumped from this leaf hundreds of times. It was his very favorite place to start his jumping practice. Sebastian climbed up the stem of the plant and made his way onto the leaf. As soon as Sebastian set his front feet down on it, he felt them slip around. “That doesn't usually happen,” thought Sebastian. “But it makes sense for things to be a little slippery after a rainfall,” he reasoned, so he didn't let it bother him. Today's Meditation: Relax as you imagine sunlight warming you as you lie in a grassy meadow. Creating the original bedtime stories and art for Be Calm on Ahway Island takes a lot of time and care. As a listener-supported podcast, we truly appreciate our members on Patreon. If you’re not already a member, please consider joining! Writing, recording, editing, and publishing episodes and managing digital platforms is an enormous endeavor. Our Patreon program will help continue to grow Ahway Island and we hope you will support us! You can choose from 2 different Membership Levels, all of which include access to our Archives and extra episodes every other month! Are you and your children enjoying our stories and self-soothing meditations? Looking for ways to help your child learn emotional regulation and how to self soothe? You’ll find them on Ahway Island®. Be Calm on Ahway Island® Podcast offers original bedtime stories, like “Happy Dragon,” paired with meditations for kids. We help them drift off to sleep with a guided relaxation and a calming story. Gently nestled within each podcast episode are mindfulness techniques and positive learning moments.  To learn more about our mission at Ahway Island and our team, please visit our website. In the press: Read about how and why we created Ahway Island in this feature from Global Comment! Zzz! The Boston Globe recommends “Be Calm on Ahway Island” as as one of “Eight Podcasts That Could Help You Get Some Sleep.” SheKnows recommends us as as a podcast you and your kids will love! Digital Trends warns listeners that “you may not make it through an entire episode fully conscious.” Yay! Thanks for relaxing with us on Ahway Island today. Come back soon!

In this episode, Bob and Kim welcome Anne Lamott and Neal Allen to talk about the beauty and burden of writing. From first drafts and writing routines to grief, voice, and the courage to say what is true, they explore what it means to find your voice, collaborate well, and say the things that matter most. It is a thoughtful, hope-filled conversation for writers at every stage and for anyone who wants to write words that sound like them and matter to someone else.Connect with Anne: @annelamottConnect with Neal: @nealfallenCheck out their new release: ⁠Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences⁠Connect with Bob: @bobgoffConnect with Kim: @kimberly.stuart.writes--Join Bob and Kim for the next Writer's Workshop at The Oaks: bobgoff.com/eventsLearn more about Writing Coaching with Bob and Kim here. 

Learn how to create an editing or proofreading portfolio that wins you clients.Listen to find out more aboutWhy Your Portfolio MattersWhat Makes a Portfolio ConvertWhat to Include in Each Portfolio EntryWhat If You Can't Show Client Work?Writing for Your Ideal ClientHow to Design and Structure Your Portfolio PageKeeping Your Portfolio FreshCommon Portfolio Mistakes to AvoidBook series: Notes from the PodcastWant to hone your editorial business skills? Our actionable guides and workbooks help you plan and implement a programme for business growth and development.Find out more here: https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/notes.htmlSupport The Editing PodcastTip your hosts: Support Louise and Denise with a one-off tip of your choosing.theeditingpodcast.captivate.fm/supportJoin our Patreon community: Our patrons benefit from access to PDF transcripts for episodes featuring just Louise and Denise, and for some of our guest episodes. Tier-2 patrons also receive bonus content for most episodes.patreon.com/editingpodcastDenise and LouiseDenise Cowle: denisecowleeditorial.comLouise Harnby: harnby.co/fiction-editingPost-productionLiv Cowle: livcowle.comMusic credit'Vivacity' by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/4593-vivacityLicence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Week 50 of Ted Gioia's Immersive Humanities List brings us to three mid-20th-century thinkers wrestling with art, media, and the modern world: Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, and José Ortega y Gasset.I begin with Susan Sontag's famous essay “In Plato's Cave” from On Photography. Writing in 1972, she asks how photography changes our relationship to memory and experience. At the time, photographs were printed objects. We saved them in albums, books, or wallets. Today we carry thousands in our pockets. If photographs once captured moments, now they seem to overwhelm them.Walter Benjamin's “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” pushes this further, asking what happens to art when it can be endlessly copied. Photography and film, he argues, transform not just art but perception itself.Finally, José Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses explores the rise of “mass-man”—a culture where opinions are everywhere but the pursuit of truth is optional.Taken together, these essays were more uncomfortable than I expected: the problems of our modern media world may have been visible long before smartphones, if only we'd paid attention.LINKTed Gioia/The Honest Broker's 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course (paywalled!)My Amazon Book List (NOT an affiliate link)CONNECTThe complete list of Crack the Book Episodes: https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2rTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ LISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bdApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm

We rescue Dustin Hoffman’s “Hero” and discuss: Cinematography, revelation shots, exposure; Story & Writing, news reporting, human nature; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.“ – Plato Notes & References: Supports us […] The post Ep 361: “Hero” (1992) appeared first on The Pestle.

Join this channel to get access to perks: EARLY Access, EXCLUSIVE Episodes & Much More! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpeD7roEp99UANH0HVZ3dOA/joinWhat's Your Story - Writer/Director Gus Van Sant? LIFE IN FILM PodcastOur guest today isn't just a 2 time Oscar Nominated Director, he's a writer, Photographer, an author & painter.Join us as we chat about directing Sean Penn towards his Oscar Winning performance in 'Milk', shooting 'Good Will Hunting' & and his new movie based on a crazy true story 'Dead Man's Wire'.Credits Include Good Will Hunting / Drugstore Cowboy / Psycho / Finding Forrester / My Own Private Idaho / To Die For / Elephant / Last Days / Milk / Promised Land / The Sea of Trees / Dead Man's Wire... etc-----------------------------Host - Actor/Writer ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Elliot James Langridge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Please contact (Scott Marshall Partners) -----------------------------Our SponsorsMoviePosters.com is the #1 place for movie posters old and new! use our affiliate link https://www.movieposters.com/?sca_ref=8773240.c977RvLKKpL& Get 10% off with code LIFEINFILM10⁠⁠⁠⁠BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ provides you with access to the largest online therapy service in the world. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get 10% off⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ your first month at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠betterhelp.com/lifeinfilm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----------------------------'Dead Man's Wire' is in cinemas March 20th-----------------------------Thank you to our guest Gus, Dominick & the team at 42Westas always thank you to our sponsors MoviePosters.com & BetterHelp-----------------------------If you enjoyed this episode, please review and follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You Tube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠etc and please share. It makes a huge difference. -----------------------------Join us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tik Tok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, @LIFEINFILMpod. Check out the ⁠Patreon⁠ at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Lifeinfilmpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & Join this channel to get access to perks: EARLY Access, EXCLUSIVE Episodes & Much More! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpeD7roEp99UANH0HVZ3dOA/join -----------------------------Please don't forget to⁠ LIKE & SUBSCRIBE⁠! ╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗ ║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ ╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ ╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝Thanks for watching this episode ... see you in the next video!0:00 - Get EARLY Access & EXCLUSIVE Episodes0:13 - Our Guest Gus Van Sant / How it all began?3:33 - Adapting 'Drugstore Cowboy' / Writing 'My Own Private Idaho'5:32 - We Didn't see 'Good Will Hunting' Being Successful8:20 - Directing Sean Penn to his Oscar Win for 'Milk9:25 - Support The Podcast / Movieposters.com / Betterhelp11:05 - How 'Dead Man's Wire' Came to Be / Casting15:35: - Based on a Mad True Story17:12 - Collaborations / Advice18:59 - Like, Subscribe & Join our YouTube Channel!

Watch Now: https://youtu.be/u0PgG1FHoygIn this episode, I sat down with Dr. Irishea Hilliard, and what she shared was honest, healing, wise, and needed.We talked about growing up as a PK. Getting pregnant at 19. The pressure that comes with church expectations. Walking through divorce in the public eye. Learning yourself after heartbreak. Why therapy matters. Why rest matters. And what it looks like to build a life that is true to who God is calling you to become.This conversation is for the person who has been trying to hold it all together.For the woman who has had to keep showing up while healing in private.For the person who has outgrown an old version of themselves.For those trying to figure out how to move forward without losing who they are.Dr. Irishea was real about the pressure. Real about the pain. Real about purpose. And be real about the work it takes to become whole again. There's healing in this one. There's truth in this one, and I really believe there's freedom in this one, too.Make sure you subscribe, like, and share this with somebody who needs it.And don't forget to Love Yourself Moore.Visit our Partner RX Outreach | Rx Outreach is a nonprofit, mail-order pharmacy that supports people in getting access to the medications they need at prices they can afford - with or without insurance.: https://rxoutreach.org/willie/Join The FLATOUT FAMILY: FLATOUTFAMILY.COM00:00 Growing up a PK and getting pregnant at 1900:24 Divorce, church scrutiny, and public judgment00:45 “We were young. I didn't know me.”01:58 Willie's welcome and why this conversation matters03:11 Meeting Dr. Irishea Hilliard04:33 The “Clock Work” icebreaker07:25 Counseling before the official uncoupling08:30 The backlash of being a bishop's daughter going through divorce10:30 Waiting 90 days before making a final decision10:39 Pregnancy at 19 and the pressure to “fix it”11:19 Choosing motherhood over adoption12:45 Dating young with a child13:35 Trying to fix a wrong with marriage13:49 When she realized it may have been the wrong decision14:05 Realizing it on the honeymoon17:17 “Who is this dude?”17:50 Why they stayed for 12 years18:48 “I used my faith… and I still didn't like him”19:17 The day he left and never came back19:31 What divorce did to her as a woman20:13 Crying in the background and still showing up20:56 Who taught her how to carry pressure22:14 Safe places, silence, and not bleeding everywhere24:54 Why her Mondays are non-negotiable26:11 Writing, entertainment, and the dreams still in her27:39 Carrying family through hard public seasons29:52 Who is Dr. Irishea when nobody's watching?31:34 Learning to prioritize herself33:19 Willie shares his own journey of rediscovering himself37:57 Food, fashion, and joy outside of ministry39:26 Why adversity reveals the real you39:47 Therapy as one of the best decisions she made41:31 The lie that hurt the most42:02 Refusing the label of failure43:22 Who speaks into her life45:03 What's next and making room for more48:35 What submission looks like for her now50:09 Why she can submit with ease to substance51:51 The heartbreak that taught her the hardest lesson52:45 “Your return on investment doesn't come from that place”53:29 What a healthy relationship looks like now54:16 Why marriage may not look traditional for her55:20 Letting both people stay called and connected57:42 Willie's closing word on discovering your next trunk and branches01:02:26 Dr. Irishea's final encouragement✨ Connect with us:Join Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32743148

Welcome to The DMF — Discovering Meaning in Film and Acting. I'm Justin Younts, and in this episode I continue my conversation with filmmaker, producer, and author Brent Lindstrom as we explore the intersection of filmmaking, technology, and creative storytelling.We dive into the real challenges filmmakers face during the editing process. Brent shares his experience spending hours editing every second of his short film while dealing with an unreliable computer that constantly crashed. After struggling through that process, he eventually built a powerful editing machine that transformed the way he works and dramatically improved his workflow.Our conversation also explores the growing role of artificial intelligence in filmmaking. While AI tools can streamline certain tasks and assist with production, Brent emphasizes that technology should enhance creativity — not replace it. The craft of storytelling, directing actors, and building meaningful narratives still depends on human insight and artistic vision.In this episode we discuss:• The realities of film editing and post-production• How technology is changing filmmaking workflows• The benefits and risks of AI in film production• Maintaining creativity in an age of automation• Writing and developing complex characters• The importance of feedback when refining storiesBrent also discusses his book “One for the Money, Two for the Soul,” which explores powerful themes through storytelling and examines how creative work can balance artistic purpose with financial realities.Whether you're an actor, filmmaker, writer, or creative professional, this episode offers insight into navigating new technologies while protecting the core principles of storytelling.Join us as we explore the future of filmmaking and how creators can use new tools without losing the heart of their craft.Visit Brent's website:https://lightmindedarts.comCheck out Brent Lindstrom's book One for the Money, Two for the Soul:

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussions of highly sensitive topics, specifically depictions of sexual violence in fiction. If you do not wish to hear this, please skip from 39:54-48:40.Join co-hosts Adrian M. Gibson & Greta Kelly as they delve into a writing masterclass on Writing Romantasy with bestselling author Carissa Broadbent. During the episode, Carissa opens the door to the heart of romantasy, including what the subgenre is and why it's so immensely popular, romantasy's target audience, organically interweaving romance and fantasy, the importance of characterization in romantasy, sex and the spectrum of spice levels, representations of sexual violence in romantasy and more.NOTE: This is part two of a two-part chat with Carissa. Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to check out part one.

Today's poem is Surety by Anna Zumbahlen. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Writing is a way of memorizing moments. I know this. I do this. Because a poem can act as a portal, taking me back to a specific time and place. So often, mid-experience, I start to sense the poetic possibility of the moment. I find myself making a metaphor or grasping for imagery and descriptive language. I'm half living in the present, half processing this moment's future on the page.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Allie meets Anora at the garden. There are just too many ripe vegetables for the sharing stand. They need a better plan… Narrator: Male Story Begins: 3:42 Plenty to Share Excerpt: With the wagon ready, Allie, Anora, Mr. O'Leary, Mrs. Lewis, and Daisy set off down the neighborhood streets. The girls took turns pulling the wagon's handle, feeling proud to share the garden's goodness. At the first house, Allie rang the doorbell and Anora waved. When a neighbor opened the door, the girls said, “We brought you some vegetables from the community garden!” The neighbor smiled, thanked them, and chose a few bell peppers. Today's Meditation: Imagine that you are a graceful willow tree in today’s meditation. Creating the original bedtime stories and art for Be Calm on Ahway Island takes a lot of time and care. As a listener-supported podcast, we truly appreciate our members on Patreon. If you’re not already a member, please consider joining! Writing, recording, editing, and publishing episodes and managing digital platforms is an enormous endeavor. Our Patreon program will help continue to grow Ahway Island and we hope you will support us! You can choose from 2 different Membership Levels, all of which include access to our Archives and extra episodes every other month! Are you and your children enjoying our stories and self-soothing meditations? Looking for stories with positive learning moments for your little one?  You’ll find them on Ahway Island®. Be Calm on Ahway Island® Podcast offers original bedtime stories, like “Mystery Jug,” paired with meditations for kids. We help them drift off to sleep with a guided relaxation and a calming story. Gently nestled within each podcast episode are mindfulness techniques and positive learning moments.  To learn more about our mission at Ahway Island and our team, please visit our website. In the press: Read about how and why we created Ahway Island in this feature from Global Comment! Zzz! The Boston Globe recommends “Be Calm on Ahway Island” as as one of “Eight Podcasts That Could Help You Get Some Sleep.” SheKnows recommends us as as a podcast you and your kids will love! Digital Trends warns listeners that “you may not make it through an entire episode fully conscious.” Yay! Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed today’s story!

Mark Divine reveals his strategies for forging mental clarity, focus, and resilience at an elite level.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) How to fix your broken attention span2) A simple 20-second breathing protocol for resetting your nervous system3) How to fuel extreme motivationSubscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1137 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT MARK — Mark Divine is a former Navy SEAL Commander, entrepreneur, and NYT Bestselling author with PhD in Global Leadership and Change who has dedicated his life to unlocking human potential through integrated training in mental toughness, leadership, and physical readiness.He owns and runs the SEALFIT Training Center in San Diego, California where he trains thousands of professional athletes, military professionals, SWAT, First Responders, SOF candidates and everyday people looking to build strength and character.• App: Unbeatable Mind Box Breathing• Book: Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level• Training Program: UnbeatableMind.com• Website: MarkDivine.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Book: Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship) by Paramahansa Yogananda• Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.• Vanguard. Give your clients consistent results year in and year out with vanguard.com/AUDIO• Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/betterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

Today I'm joined by returning guest Tiffany Hawk - author, book coach, and longtime collaborator - to talk about why sharing your story matters, especially when you don't feel ready.We explore how many accomplished professionals get stuck in what I call the “expert trap”, relying on expertise and credentials while holding back the personal stories that actually create connection.Tiffany shares insights from her work helping women write meaningful books, along with her own journey of returning to writing after years of self-doubt.We also talk about the messy reality of creativity, why the first draft is rarely pretty, and how community and accountability can make all the difference when you're working on a book, talk, or other thought leadership project.This conversation is especially meaningful during Women's History Month, as we reflect on the power of women using their voices to tell the stories that shape culture and create change. Tiffany and I talk about:Why expertise alone doesn't create connectionThe role of vulnerability in thought leadershipWhy you shouldn't wait until your ideas feel perfectHow storytelling helps audiences see themselves in your messageThe creative process behind writing a bookWe also share details about our Story to Spotlight writing and speaking retreat in Spain this Fall 2026, where we'll help women develop their ideas, stories, and thought leadership in a supportive environment. Learn more and apply at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/spain/ Links:Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/464/ Get the details and apply for our Story to Spotlight Writing & Speaking Retreat in Spain this Fall 2026: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/spain/ Tiffany's website: https://www.tiffanyhawk.com/intensive/ Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/Connect on LinkedIn:Carol Cox = https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolcoxTiffany Hawk (guest) = https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanyhawk/ Related Podcast Episodes:Episode 407: Building Your Speaking Platform as an Author (Even If You're an Introvert!) with Tiffany HawkEpisode 257: Writing a Book Gives Your Ideas Depth and Longevity with Tiffany HawkEpisode 461: Storytelling as Resistance: Finding and Using Your Voice with Janice Gassam AsareEpisode 378: The Power of Women's Voices and Stories to Change the World with Carol Cox

What happens when an Air Force officer, aerospace engineer, trauma chaplain, and Alzheimer's caregiver sits down to write thrillers? In this deeply moving episode of The Self Esteem and Confidence Mindset, we sit down with Larry Patzer—author of thrillers built on real people's lived situations, nationally certified Spiritual Director, former trauma chaplain, and nine-year Alzheimer's caregiver—to explore how facing life's hardest moments shapes storytelling, builds resilience, and teaches us how to live better.Larry shares wisdom from his unique journey: nineteen years designing high-stakes aerospace intelligence systems where failure wasn't an option, sitting with families in trauma as an on-call chaplain, caring for a loved one through Alzheimer's, and translating all of it into fiction that honors human stakes and the weight of choices. His perspective on consequences, suffering, resilience, and meaning will resonate whether you're a writer, caregiver, person of faith, or anyone navigating life's hardest chapters.You can find more from Larry here:Website: https://coffeecuppublishing.com/Amazon Book link: https://www.amazon.com/PAST-ALWAYS-COMES-BACK-help/dp/1970576243/

#40Do your students sometimes struggle to get their ideas down in writing because they aren't sure how to start or how to say exactly what they mean? Writing can feel overwhelming without the right support—but it doesn't have to be that way. In this episode, we'll explore how sentence frames and scaffolds can give students the structure they need to write confidently and accurately, while still expressing their own ideas. Whether you teach novices or more advanced learners, you'll get practical strategies you can use right away.  So, Let's jump in.Topics in this Episode: Writing is an effective and useful way for students to show what they know, who they are, and what they can communicate in the target language.But writing is also one of the most intimidating skills for learners. Why? Because writing asks students to juggle Vocabulary, Grammar, Word Order, Agreement, Spelling and Organization.That's where sentence frames and scaffolds come in. They provide just enough support to help students express meaningful ideas without feeling stuck or overwhelmed.Sentence frames and scaffolds are not about giving answers. They are about Reducing cognitive overload, Highlighting patterns, Modeling structure, Making expectations visibleSentence frames and scaffolds are like training wheels. We don't put training wheels on a bike because we expect students to use them forever. We use them so learners can experience success early and build balance gradually.Ready For Tomorrow Quick Win PD Course: Support Writing with Frames & ScaffoldsA Few Ways We Can Work Together:Ready For Tomorrow Quick Win PD for Individual TeachersOn-Site or Virtual Workshops for Language DepartmentsSelf-Paced Program for For Language DepartmentsConnect With Me & The World Language Classroom Community:Website: wlclassrom.comInstagram:  @wlclassroomFacebook Group: World Language ClassroomFacebook:  /wlclassroomLinkedIn: Joshua CabralBluesky: /wlclassroom.bsky.sociaX (Twitter):  @wlclassroomThreads: @wlclassroomSend me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie is serving up some real talk about IEP goal writing—and it might just change the way you look at your entire caseload. If you've ever stared at a goal and thought, wait, why am I even working on this? This one's for you. Hallie introduces the “so what?” test—the one question you should be asking before you write any goal—and breaks down what functional actually means for different students. She's covering how to write curriculum-linked goals without crossing into ELA territory, how to squeeze more mileage out of every session, and why our role as SLPs is way more powerful than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.Bullet Points to Discuss: Why not every language skill on an assessment is worth targeting in therapy.The “so what?” test: the one question that should guide every goal you write.How to define “functional” based on the individual student in front of you.Writing curriculum-linked goals the SLP way—without becoming the ELA teacher.How to use one resource across a mixed group and hit every student's goal at once.Here's what we learned: If you can't answer “so what?” clearly and confidently, that goal might be more fluff than function.Functional isn't one-size-fits-all—a college-bound student needs self-advocacy; a life-skills student needs to know how to tell the bus driver where they're going.Overlapping with academics is fine—just do it through a language lens, not a reteaching one.One good goal can target syntax, vocabulary, comprehension, and organization all at once. Therapy charcuterie board—one activity, all the skills, everyone eats.We're not tutors and we're not ELA teachers—we're the language experts. Writing functional goals is how we step into that power.Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

The 1990s are often looked back at fondly as a largely peaceful time. But for former Australian ambassador to Germany Ian Kemish, the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland featured largely in his job at the time. Now retired, he has chosen to set his debut thriller novel, Two Islands, during this timeframe. In this episode he shares his inspiration for the book, the real life characters and how to capture the nuances of the story and the decade. What do you do after you retire from a celebrated 25-year diplomatic career? Play golf? Take up birdwatching? No, you write your first novel. 00:00 Welcome07:26 Writing tip: Ask “why?” to being blocked10:31 WIN!: Aubrey Wants to Die by Pip Knight12:15 Word of the week: ‘Absquatulate’16:16 Writer in residence: Ian Kemish17:14 Ian describes what Two Islands is about19:34 What are the two islands in question?22:04 Remembering Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland23:30 Inspiration for the novel25:53 Why the Balkans?27:35 The inspiration for the Australian character, Anita30:01 Writing about the 1990s: distance before the internet31:22 How the story took shape34:07 Researching the book38:15 From bad poetry to diplomacy: finding his writing voice40:52 The challenges of writing fiction for the first time45:28 Landing the publishing deal47:54 What’s next?49:09 Ian’s tip for writers50:32 Final thoughts Read the show notes Connect with Valerie and listeners in the podcast community on Facebook Visit WritersCentre.com.au | ValerieKhoo.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Jeff sits down with author Emma Jane Heaton to talk about her writing and what she's been working on. They discuss the difference between writing screenplays and writing a novel and talk about what they've learned doing both.  Find Emma Jane's film work here: https://www.youtube.com/@EmHeatonFilm For more on the craft of writing, check out: https://dialoguedoctor.com/

A character who is dissatisfied in her own marriage will likely struggle to be a mother, says Thammika Songkaeo. Discussing her debut novel, Stamford Hospital, Thammika explores the complexity of womanhood, intimacy and relationships, the limitations of intersectionality as a framework, class analysis, colorism in Asia, and the international novel. We also bonded over our experiences in our respective MFA and PhD programs.

Ready to write off 2026 already because it didn't start perfectly? In this episode, Ryan talks about why the Stoics would say that impulse is not just unhelpful, it's arrogant. Writing off today, this week, or this year assumes you'll always have another chance later. The Stoics remind us the move is to get back to the work right now.

Go to www.LearningLeader.com  This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My Guest: Kat Cole is the CEO of AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens) and a renowned business leader known for a meteoric rise from Hooters waitress to Fortune 40 Under 40 executive. As former President/COO of Focus Brands (Cinnabon), she specializes in scaling global brands. Her career is defined by driving billions in sales, strategic innovation, and a strong, people-first leadership style. Key Learnings You can't market your way out of a bad product. AG1 has 3x'd the business in four years while being in only one channel (direct to consumer) for 15 years. 80% of retail is in brick and mortar, so they were doing that volume in less than 20% of where transactions happen. That only works when customers love the product, keep buying it for years, and tell their friends. Scale comes from trusted recommendations, not marketing spend. Real volume comes from people telling their friends, recommending it to their teams and companies. That's where real scale and sustainable growth comes from. Two questions guide every career decision. Is my work done here? Can someone else do what the company needs better than I can? If the answer to either is yes, that guides you toward pushing for change in your role, the way you show up, or finding the next opportunity. Sometimes the best move is the lesser-known role. Kat could have stayed running big franchise brands everyone knew (Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's), but becoming COO of the parent company, Focus Brands, was a bigger, more complex role. Lesser known, smaller team, bigger stretch, more learning. That bridged her into consumer packaged goods and got her ready for AG1. Consider financial needs, learning, and ego separately. Between financial needs, your ability to learn or contribute, and your ego or optics, there are questions you can ask yourself about a particular moment or opportunity that will help you be sharper in what you actually want versus what just looks like what's best next on the surface. The founder heard her on podcasts and asked for an introduction. AG1's founder heard Kat on a couple of podcasts, knew Sahil Bloom, and asked Sahil to make the intro. She just happened to be taking time off and had been a customer for two years. "You're interviewing for your next job every day." Whatever you do now, that choice of time, that tone of voice, that decision, how you show up or don't, creates an impact that leads to an experience and people's actions and then results. Eventually, it leads to the next thing. Showing kindness in the airport matters. A caring note to someone struggling, a teacher or stranger saying, "I see something in you," a compliment when someone's in a dark place. It helps people out of darkness. Or opportunistically, being the one who sent the email or made the ask means you're the one who got the opportunity. Don't burn bridges even when you feel wronged. When Kat was an executive at Hooters at 26, peers in their 50s and 60s would say things in meetings that weren't kind or appropriate. She would write letters expressing how it made her feel, but never sent them. She processed, reflected, and showed up professionally. Years later, those same people became advocates, partners, and references. Four key mindsets for senior leaders. Humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence. By the time candidates get to Kat, they've been vetted on technical capability. She spends time validating those four characteristics because leadership and style trickle far into the organization. Ask "if not for" questions to reveal humility. When someone tells you how they stood tall in tough moments, ask what enabled them to do those great things. They'll say, "I had access to this data, this team, this technical leader." Then ask: "If those people did not exist, if that resource did not exist, how would you have navigated that?" You peel back layers and see if they have the humility to acknowledge their success was due to critical factors. The best candidates do the job in the interview. When someone says, "If we're doing this, we'll absolutely need this person in this specific role," or they have people in mind they're bringing with them, that's a good sign. Hiring leaders who have people who are loyal to them shows something real. In reference checks, ask, "What does this person need to be successful?" It's a positive framing to get at what someone might lack or require around them to be effective. Help people answer "how should I think about this?" In a fully remote company, you have less context and fewer vibes. When you send a note about ending a product line or launching something you said you'd never launch, people's subconscious internal war is "how should I think about this?" Leaders should start communications with "here's how I think about this" or "here's how we should think about this." Sometimes the answer is to shut up and speak last. As teams get stronger, there's more weight on the few things the CEO says. Leave space for other leaders to lead. Kat removed herself from some meetings entirely because she has such great leaders and a strong culture. Pay attention to themes in criticism, not individual attacks. When competitors attack you, ask: Are there patterns? Is there something reflective of industry questions? Sometimes criticisms point to things you already do well but aren't communicating well enough. Comparison ads work short-term but don't build credibility long-term. Challenger brands use the playbook of "we're like the leader, but better/cheaper." Consumers see through it. People tell AG1, "I saw an ad comparing their product to yours, and they're clearly saying you're the leader." The rage bait is brief; the truth is long. Algorithms reward dopamine hits and rage bait. Something untrue or negatively spun can quickly become widely seen because the critique is brief and witty, but the explanation and truth are long. AG1 has more human trials on a single SKU than any other multi-ingredient product ever in the space, but that's harder to say in a sound bite. Don't criticize a car for not taking you to the moon. Someone criticized one of AG1's products for not doing something the product isn't supposed to do. When addressing criticism, clarify what the product is actually designed to do. Her husband will be the fourth person ever to row across three oceans. He's already rowed the Atlantic (set the US record as a pair) and the Caribbean. Now he's training for the Pacific. If he completes it, he'll be only the fourth person to have ever done it in the world.  It's about who you become while striving for the big thing. After her husband got rescued in the Caribbean, he questioned why he was doing this with two kids. But this pursuit is who he is, what drives him, it's inspiring for the kids, and it makes him a better person when he's home. It's about the journey and who you do it with. More Learning 476: Kat Cole - Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Voice 078: Kat Cole - Courage, Confidence, Curiosity, and Humility Reflection Questions Is your work done where you are? Can someone else do what the company needs better than you can? When interviewing someone, ask what enabled them to succeed in a tough moment. Then ask: if that team or resource didn't exist, how would you have done it differently? What communication this week needs context? Start with: here's what this means, what it's not about, and how we should think about it. Audio Timestamps 00:18 Meet Kat Cole  02:42 AG1's Growth Story: $160M to $500M+  03:28 Product-Led Growth Wins  05:57 Kat on Writing and Reflection  07:39 Two Questions for Every Career Move  12:25 How Kat Joined AG1  16:09 You're Always Interviewing  18:47 Neutralizing Opposition at Hooters  24:19 Hiring Great Leaders  27:43 Inside Executive Interviews  31:56 Reference Checks That Reveal Truth  32:52 CEO as the Storyteller  34:16 "How Should I Think About This?"  35:46 Speak Last, Empower Leaders  37:41 Handling Public Criticism  39:59 Separating Signal from Noise  44:49 Staying Focused Through Criticism 48:00 Champagne Question: Family First  48:45 Rowing Three Oceans  51:37 Who You Become on the Journey  56:14 EOPC

Subscribe to Greg Fitzsimmons: https://bit.ly/subGregFitz Oscar picks and Mike loses a bunch of money on the Iran war. An app to stop men from masturbating has leaked their identities and Uber is getting rid of male drivers. This show is produced by Gotham Production Studios and part of the Gotham Network. https://www.gothamproductionstudios.com/studios/ Follow Greg Fitzsimmons: Facebook: https://facebook.com/FitzdogRadio Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregfitzsimmons Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregfitzshow Official Website: http://gregfitzsimmons.com Tour Dates: https://bit.ly/GregFitzTour Merch: https://bit.ly/GregFitzMerch “Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons” Book: https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82 “Life on Stage” Comedy Special: https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial Listen to Greg Fitzsimmons: Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio Sunday Papers: http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod Childish: http://childishpod.com Watch more Greg Fitzsimmons: Latest Uploads: https://bit.ly/latestGregFitz Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/radioGregFitz Sunday Papers: https://bit.ly/sundayGregFitz Stand Up Comedy: https://bit.ly/comedyGregFitz Popular Videos: https://bit.ly/popGregFitz About Greg Fitzsimmons: Mixing an incisive wit with scathing sarcasm, Greg Fitzsimmons is an accomplished stand-up, an Emmy Award winning writer, and a host on TV, radio and his own podcasts. Greg is host of the popular “FitzDog Radio” podcast (https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio), as well as “Sunday Papers” with co-host Mike Gibbons (http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod) and “Childish” with co-host Alison Rosen (http://childishpod.com). A regular with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, Greg also frequents “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Lights Out with David Spade,” and has made more than 50 visits to “The Howard Stern Show.” Howard gave Greg his own show on Sirius/XM which lasted more than 10 years. Greg's one-hour standup special, “Life On Stage,” was named a Top 10 Comedy Release by LA Weekly. The special premiered on Comedy Central and is now available on Amazon Prime, as a DVD, or a download (https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial). Greg's 2011 book, Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons (https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82), climbed the best-seller charts and garnered outstanding reviews from NPR and Vanity Fair. Greg appeared in the Netflix series “Santa Clarita Diet,” the Emmy-winning FX series “Louie,” spent five years as a panelist on VH1's “Best Week Ever,” was a reoccurring panelist on “Chelsea Lately,” and starred in two half-hour stand-up specials on Comedy Central. Greg wrote and appeared on the Judd Apatow HBO series “Crashing.” Writing credits include HBO's “Lucky Louie,” “Cedric the Entertainer Presents,” “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Man Show” and many others. On his mantle beside the four Daytime Emmys he won as a writer and producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” sit “The Jury Award for Best Comedian” from The HBO Comedy Arts Festival and a Cable Ace Award for hosting the MTV game show "Idiot Savants." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The night the moon turns an eerie green, every living creature on Earth falls into a silent paralysis—except one scientist who stumbles onto the secret too late to warn the world. Now, with alien invaders already preparing to claim the planet, he must launch a desperate strike before the last free mind on Earth fades into the same living death. When the Moon Turned Green by Hal K. Wells. That's next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.Harold Kerton Wells was born in September 1899 in Little Hocking, Ohio. Writing under the name Hal K. Wells, he produced science fiction, fantasy, and adventure stories featuring alien worlds, strange creatures, and dangerous scientific discoveries. When the Moon Turned Green marks the first story by Wells featured on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.His stories often place human characters in direct conflict with strange creatures, alien settings, and dangerous scientific discoveries. About two dozen of his stories were published in magazines between 1929 and 1954.Let's turn to page 241 in the May 1931 issue of Astounding Stories, When the Moon Turned Green by Hal K. Wells…Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Human explorers believe they've conquered a fading Martian village and are reshaping its future. But inside one quiet back room, a different group studies the invaders and prepares to decide whether the colonists will ever leave Mars alive. The Crowded Colony by Jerome Bixby.☕ Buy Me a Coffee - https://lostscifi.com/coffee===========================

We're delighted to introduce Spade Robinson, a talented filmmaker, screenwriter, and story consultant. She runs the Atlanta Film Project, a consulting firm dedicated to helping storytellers polish their scripts and projects. Currently, Spade is working on her debut feature film, 'Late Bloomers,' set against the beautiful backdrop of the American Heartland.In our chat, we explore what a story consultant does, how Spade encourages hesitant writers to be honest and dig deeper for stronger screenplays, and she shares five of her best screenwriting tips. She also talks about her favorite clients—including housewives who are passionate screenwriters—how to handle rejection with resilience, and the step she believes offers the most democratic way for a writer to change their life.    Executive Producer Kristin OvernCreator/Executive Producer Sandy AdomaitisProducer Terry SampsonMusic by Ethan Stoller

Commentators are warning that Sarah Ferguson could pose a new risk to the British royal family if the former Duchess of York decides to publish another memoir.Writing in The Royalist, Tom Sykes argues that financial pressure and public scrutiny could tempt Ferguson to produce a revealing book about her decades inside royal circles. Her 1996 memoir My Story caused major tension within the family and reportedly damaged her friendship with Diana, Princess of Wales.Experts say Ferguson's long proximity to the royal household means she holds extensive knowledge about private events and relationships within the monarchy. One royal commentator warned that the family understands she “knows where the bodies are buried.”With Prince Harry's memoir Spare reportedly earning about $20 million, publishing insiders believe a similar tell-all from Ferguson could attract enormous interest — and potentially create another major challenge for the monarchy.Get episodes of Palace Intrigue by becommming a paid subscriber on Apple Podcasts. Click the button that says uninterrupted listening.  Just $5 a month, and that includes many ofther shows on the Caloroga Shark network.Royal Books:William and Catherine: The Monarchy's New Era: The Inside StoryThe Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, the King and Princess Diana

ALLIE CHANDLER is the founder of Upsell Health, where she helps functional medicine practitioners and wellness brands scale to $2-10M+ through marketing that feels as natural as the healing they provide.  Allie's path into wellness marketing began in the most unexpected way. In 2013, while teaching high school creative writing, she took what was supposed to be a liberating trip to Europe. Instead, she found herself mysteriously ill in Amsterdam, beginning an eight-year journey through chronic Lyme disease, mold toxicity, parasites, heart issues and the frustrating world of "everything looks normal" test results. Those years of being bedbound, losing 35 pounds in two months, and navigating complex health protocols taught her exactly what patients are looking for—and how to help practitioners reach them. This personal experience, combined with her Master's in Writing from California College of the Arts, gave her a unique perspective on wellness marketing. She understood both the science and the human story behind it. Her career includes leadership roles at some of the biggest names in functional medicine. Today, through Upsell Health, Allie offers her Practitioner Archetype Framework and done-for-you marketing services, helping healers build practices that thrive—without sacrificing their health or authenticity in the process. upsellhealth.com/archetype  

The future of space may be shaped by a coming scramble for off-world resources, the rise of humans born and raised beyond Earth, and the disruptive power of AI and robotics. Genetic engineering will redefine not only crops but humanity itself, transforming survival in stark new ways. And in time, contact with alien species could spark conflicts or alliances that alter our destiny. These are some of the elements explored in a new science-fiction series set just 40–80 years from now, written by Jeremy Clift, a former journalist with two decades of global reporting experience. His books – Born in Space and Space Vault -- have been praised heavily for their mesmerizing world-building, high-impact action, deep character development, philosophical explorations, and most of all, a realistic portrayal of what life in space could look like from the detailed eye of a reporter who has covered war zones, natural disasters, and economic crises. Clift has lived in China, Egypt, Great Britain, India, France, Philippines, Washington DC, and elsewhere. From his international experiences he was able to imagine universal struggles out in deep space.SOOOOO Interesting! Don't miss this one!This episode, like all episodes of If This Is True, brings forth what drives creatives to do what they do. For more of this content and interaction, you can also go to my substack, coolmite25.substack.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Donald Trump says the United States has carried out strikes against military targets on Kharg island, Iran's main export terminal for oil in the Gulf. Writing on social media, he said he'd decided not to destroy the oil infrastructure on the island. US media report that amphibious ships carrying 2,000 Marines are being sent to the Gulf, but the Pentagon has declined to comment. There have been explosions in the capital Tehran, as thousands of Iranians took part in a rally in support of the regime. And in Lebanon the health ministry says an Israeli strike has hit a health centre in the south of the country. Also: Cuba confirms talks with Trump officials amid US blockade; how spider silk has been used to repair broken nerves; and a school videographer turned Oscar nominee who took great risks to smuggle footage out of Russia.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk

From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2023. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL's in these archive episodes are still relevant. Barbara Schreihans is the founder and CEO of Your Tax Coach. She's a tax strategist who aids business owners in saving millions of dollars in taxes while also growing their profits. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Stay consistent in working your business. 2. Spot process gaps and continuously improve them. 3. Know your numbers, track income, expenses, and profits to lower taxes strategically. Stop giving the government all your money. Save thousands of dollars on your taxes.  Easily. Legally. Quickly. - Your Tax Coach Website Sponsors HighLevel - The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies. Learn more at HighLevelFire.com. Cape - A privacy-first mobile carrier, built from the ground up with security as the priority. If you care about protecting your digital life without giving up your smartphone, Cape makes that possible. Visit Cape.co/fire and use code FIRE for 33% off cape for 6 months today! Quo - The #1-rated business phone system on G2 with over 3,000 reviews! Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to Quo.com/fire! Quo — no missed calls, no missed customers.

Send a textI often feel we take communication for granted, assuming it's just about relaying information. Yet, in my latest conversation, I sat down with Sage Hobbs—author of Naked Communication—to explore how communication rooted in authenticity and curiosity can radically alter our relationships at work, at home, and within ourselves. Our talk was a candid look at what it really takes to write a book, launch it (twice), and confront your own vulnerabilities.Timestamp:00:00 Writing to connect authentically05:28 Reflections on teaching and growth08:18 Writing reveals self-discovery11:30 Loss, reflection, and renewal14:01 Reflections on growth and change17:02 Curiosity can transform the world22:17 Facing fear through writing24:13 Merging grief and professional growth28:57 Connection over job titles30:13 Who is this not for?33:56 Connecting with the authorFull show notesCOMMUNITY PROGRAMS

The Erasable Podcast turns 12! As of March 12, we've officially been doing this podcast for 12 years. 279 hours of audio — that's more than 11.5 straight days of Erasable! Tim is out today, but Johnny grills Andy about his trip to Hong Kong and Japan, including some of the cool pencils he found at a stationery shop in Kyoto that's been in business since the 1600s. Have a listen!For this episode, we recorded video, available to Patreon subscribers! If you're a patron, head over to see our faces and visual examples of many of the things we discuss. And if you're not a patron, join us at any level and you can see this and other supplemental content at any time!Show Notes & LinksErasable PatreonErasable Podcast Discord inviteGestalt App — join the beta!Pencil & Paper's custom Field NotesJ Herbin Vert Pre inkIroshizuku chiku-rin inkKyukyodoYour HostsJohnny GamberPencil Revolution@pencilutionAndy WelfleWoodclinched@awelfleTim Wasem@TimWasem

Welcome to Whiskey Ginger a Wave series. Andrew Santino sits down with comedian Fiona Cauley for a hilarious and honest conversation about stand-up, confidence on stage, and turning life's challenges into great comedy. They talk about Fiona's rise in the stand-up world, developing her voice as a comic, navigating the industry, and how authenticity and perspective can make jokes hit even harder. It's a sharp, funny, comic-to-comic conversation full of laughs and insight. In this episode: • Fiona's journey into stand-up comedy • Writing jokes that come from real life • Santino and Fiona talk touring, bombing, and building confidence • Why perspective is everything in comedy Drop a comment with your favorite moment from the episode. #whiskeyginger #AndrewSantino #FionaCauley #ComedyPodcast #StandUpComedy #PodcastClips #Comedians Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the publication of her first novel, “Love Medicine,” in 1984, Louise Erdrich has written fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children's books. Her work has earned multiple awards, including the National Book Award (“The Round House”) and the Pulitzer Prize (“The Night Watchman”). On this week's episode, Erdrich talks with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, about her new short story collection, “Python's Kiss.” She reflects on some of the formative experiences that shaped her as a writer, including watching “Planet of the Apes” and growing up in North Dakota, a state that housed hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles. She says that writing has been her “only real way of processing” her experiences and that her creative process is full of mystery. “There's really no way to control everything that happens in a piece of art. Some of these stories — I wasn't sure that I had written it,” she said, adding: “And yet, obviously, it was in my handwriting.” Plus, Erdrich recommends the one book that always puts her to sleep. Books discussed on this episode: “Animal Farm,” by George Orwell “Brawler,” by Lauren Groff “Winter in the Blood,” by James Welch “The Pillow Book,” by Sei Shōnagon “The Death of the Heart,” by Elizabeth Bowen “Save Me, Stranger,” by Erika Krouse “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison “Austerlitz,” by W.G. Sebald “The Rings of Saturn,” by W.G. Sebald “Whistler,” by Ann Patchett “Make the Golf Course a Public Sex Forest,” published by Maitland Systems Engineering Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kian Koala learns that it’s more fun to share and play with others when new toys arrive at the Ahway Island Animal Sanctuary. Hello everyone!  We hope you enjoyed our new stories this week. Now, welcome to Favorite Friday! Sometimes we like to listen to our favorites again. Please enjoy “Sharing at the Sanctuary,” and we'll be back with a new story on Monday! Narrator: Female Story Begins: 3:26 Sharing at the Sanctuary Excerpt: Kian Koala yawned as he lay on a branch of the tree opposite of Kiera. He felt sleepy today and even the promise of new toys couldn't get him to leave his cozy branch – not at first, anyway! But he looked over to where Kiera was pointing and gazed down into the big open box. He saw a big duck-shaped floatie first. Henrietta Hippo would probably enjoy that, Kian thought. He could also see scratching posts, squeaky toys, and frisbees of all colors. There was even a huge beach ball. Today's Meditation: Imagine floating on a cloud, and relax into the feeling of lightness. Looking for stories with positive learning moments for your little one?  You’ll find them on Ahway Island®. Be Calm on Ahway Island® Podcast offers original bedtime stories, like “Mystery Jug,” paired with meditations for kids. We help them drift off to sleep with a guided relaxation and a calming story. Gently nestled within each podcast episode are mindfulness techniques and positive learning moments. You can search for stories by Learning Message, Character Type, or Narrator Type on our Episodes page. To learn more about our mission at Ahway Island and our team, please visit our About page, or check out our FAQs. Creating the original bedtime stories and art for Be Calm on Ahway Island takes a lot of time and care. As a listener-supported podcast, we truly appreciate our members on Patreon. If you’re not already a member, please consider joining! Writing, recording, editing, and publishing episodes and managing digital platforms is an enormous endeavor. Our Patreon program will help continue to grow Ahway Island and we hope you will support us! You can choose from 2 different Membership Levels, all of which include access to our Archives and an extra episode each week! Are you and your children enjoying our stories and self-soothing meditations? We hope your child loved “Sharing at the Sanctuary.” We ask for your positive reviews to help others find us, too! Please leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast app (such as Apple Podcasts). And, please follow, like, and/or share our social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ) to help us bring our original stories with positive messages to even more listeners! In the press: Digital Trends warns listeners that “you may not make it through an entire episode fully conscious.” Yay! We're honored that the website of Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems includes us on their list of Technology to Boost Mental Health. Jooki recommends us as an outstanding podcast for preschoolers. We're reaching listeners internationally! Sassy Mama Hong Kong included us in their article on transitioning into the new year, Sassy Mama Singapore recommends us for limiting screen-time while sheltering at home, and Haven Magazine Australia included us in their tips for getting through the school holidays. Thank you to Anne Bensfield and Pamela Rogers of School Library Journal for listing us as one of “8 Podcasts To Encourage Mindfulness!” We're glad you joined us at  the animal sanctuary today. Visit again soon!

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- AI has become so embedded in how I work that I can no longer cleanly separate it from my thinking. That raises a question I find genuinely unsettling: is intensive AI use making me a sharper thinker, or quietly doing the opposite? In this episode I pull back the curtain on my full research and writing process — the custom tools, the friction points, and the places where I'm still not sure I've got it right. For Ezra Klein, having AI summarize material is a disaster for original thought. But my AI systems are designed to protect the cognitive work that has to stay human, while they handle everything else. Knowing where to draw that line turns out to be the hardest and most important question. I covered: 00:00 - Is AI worsening our thinking? 02:35 - Ezra Klein on AI and the death of original thought 04:02 - Cognitive offloading vs cognitive surrender 09:20 - Signal detection at scale 11:06 - Why I use several AI personas to scan for different insights 13:37 - AI tells me what NOT to think about 16:25 - The value of quietness 19:07 - Small notebooks, small ideas 20:01 - Writing reveals what you don't yet know 23:24 - The golden thread 25:20 - Speaking drafts aloud 28:05 - How I stress-test my arguments before publishing 29:35 - Using AI to stress-test my own house views 31:44 - Stylometer: my AI style and grammar tool 33:10 - Did AI make the thinking better? For more on this week's topics, subscribe to my newsletter https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Writing my book has been one of the most personal and challenging experiences of my life. When editing, the scariest part was opening myself up to feedback from editors, advanced readers, and even my husband. This vulnerability pushed me out of the perfectionism I used to hide behind, teaching me that true growth comes from allowing others to see our true selves and accepting their insights without personalizing the criticism. It's not just about the book—it's a metaphor for life. When we let the right people in, those we love and respect, we open ourselves to deeper, more meaningful relationships. This openness is how we refine not just our projects but ourselves. I invite you to embrace the discomfort of vulnerability and let trusted loved ones provide feedback, because that's how we truly grow and connect. Sign up as a Supporter to get access to our private, premium, ad-free podcast, More Personal. Episodes air each Friday! More for Moms Conference use code “LISTENER” for $20 off Leave a rating and review Check out my ⁠workshops⁠! Follow About Progress on YOUTUBE! Book Launch Committee Full Show Notes  Transform your space now. Go to https://www.quince.com/monica for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns; Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for WAY less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home; Join Masterclass for 15% off at masterclass.com/progress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff Kaplan is a legendary Blizzard game designer of World of Warcraft and Overwatch, now preparing to launch a new game, The Legend of California, from his new studio Kintsugiyama – available to wishlist on Steam today, with alpha later in March. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep493-sc See below for timestamps, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. CONTACT LEX: Feedback – give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA – submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring – join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other – other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: The Legend of California (Steam Page): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2550530/The_Legend_of_California Jeff’s Game Studio: https://www.kintsugiyama.com/ SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Fin: AI agent for customer service. Go to https://fin.ai/lex Blitzy: AI agent for large enterprise codebases. Go to https://blitzy.com/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex CodeRabbit: AI-powered code reviews. Go to https://coderabbit.ai/lex Perplexity: AI-powered answer engine. Go to https://perplexity.ai/ OUTLINE: (00:00) – Introduction (02:24) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections (10:47) – Early games: Pac-Man, Zork, Doom, Quake (25:12) – Writing career – 170 rejection letters (40:45) – EverQuest obsession (53:43) – Getting hired at Blizzard (1:09:11) – Lowest point in Jeff’s life (1:15:16) – One of Us (1:19:33) – Early Blizzard culture (1:39:15) – Building World of Warcraft (1:56:59) – How WoW changed video games (2:14:21) – Single-player vs Multi-player (2:35:15) – How Blizzard made great video games (3:01:04) – Online toxicity (3:08:38) – Why Titan failed (3:25:48) – Overwatch in six weeks (3:52:46) – Best Overwatch heroes (4:01:16) – The challenge of matchmaking (4:04:40) – Rust (4:15:01) – Why Jeff left Blizzard (4:37:14) – Diablo IV (4:38:42) – Getting back to making video games (4:47:38) – The Legend of California (5:01:23) – Greatest video game of all time (5:09:30) – AI and future of video games PODCAST LINKS: – Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast – Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr – Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 – RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ – Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 – Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips

Subscribe to Greg Fitzsimmons: https://bit.ly/subGregFitz Greg Fitzsimmons sits down with longtime friend and comedy powerhouse Neil Brennan (co-creator of Chappelle's Show and host of Blocks). What starts as a conversation about stand-up quickly turns into a deeper discussion about purpose, aging, and the strange psychology of comedy. They talk about life on the road, jealousy in the business, why success never feels the way you think it will, and what happens when the things that used to drive you stop working. Greg opens up about starting therapy again as he approaches 60, while Neil questions the entire idea of ambition and meaning in comedy. Along the way they get into family, mortality, the loneliness of stand-up, and one moment Greg had performing for his son that still haunts him.A funny, thoughtful, and surprisingly vulnerable conversation between two comics who have been doing this long enough to start asking what it's all really for. This show is produced by Gotham Production Studios and part of the Gotham Network. https://www.gothamproductionstudios.com/studios/ Follow Greg Fitzsimmons: Facebook: https://facebook.com/FitzdogRadio Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregfitzsimmons Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregfitzshow Official Website: http://gregfitzsimmons.com Tour Dates: https://bit.ly/GregFitzTour Merch: https://bit.ly/GregFitzMerch “Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons” Book: https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82 “Life on Stage” Comedy Special: https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial Listen to Greg Fitzsimmons: Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio Sunday Papers: http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod Childish: http://childishpod.com Watch more Greg Fitzsimmons: Latest Uploads: https://bit.ly/latestGregFitz Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/radioGregFitz Sunday Papers: https://bit.ly/sundayGregFitz Stand Up Comedy: https://bit.ly/comedyGregFitz Popular Videos: https://bit.ly/popGregFitz About Greg Fitzsimmons: Mixing an incisive wit with scathing sarcasm, Greg Fitzsimmons is an accomplished stand-up, an Emmy Award winning writer, and a host on TV, radio and his own podcasts. Greg is host of the popular “FitzDog Radio” podcast (https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio), as well as “Sunday Papers” with co-host Mike Gibbons (http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod) and “Childish” with co-host Alison Rosen (http://childishpod.com). A regular with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, Greg also frequents “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Lights Out with David Spade,” and has made more than 50 visits to “The Howard Stern Show.” Howard gave Greg his own show on Sirius/XM which lasted more than 10 years. Greg's one-hour standup special, “Life On Stage,” was named a Top 10 Comedy Release by LA Weekly. The special premiered on Comedy Central and is now available on Amazon Prime, as a DVD, or a download (https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial). Greg's 2011 book, Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons (https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82), climbed the best-seller charts and garnered outstanding reviews from NPR and Vanity Fair. Greg appeared in the Netflix series “Santa Clarita Diet,” the Emmy-winning FX series “Louie,” spent five years as a panelist on VH1's “Best Week Ever,” was a reoccurring panelist on “Chelsea Lately,” and starred in two half-hour stand-up specials on Comedy Central. Greg wrote and appeared on the Judd Apatow HBO series “Crashing.” Writing credits include HBO's “Lucky Louie,” “Cedric the Entertainer Presents,” “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Man Show” and many others. On his mantle beside the four Daytime Emmys he won as a writer and producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” sit “The Jury Award for Best Comedian” from The HBO Comedy Arts Festival and a Cable Ace Award for hosting the MTV game show "Idiot Savants." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices