Beautiful Writers Podcast

In this “What would they do?” episode, I ask Oscar-nominated screenwriter, actress, & bestselling author Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Instant Mom) and #1 NYT bestselling memoirist and Oprah book club pick Cheryl Strayed (Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things) writing & career questions that stump me (and maybe you, too!). Idols to the rescue! What a comfort to learn that they still struggle in many of the ways I do—and what a relief to hear their best workarounds.I don’t have to tell you we’re living in crazy times. If you're reading this with one ear tuned to news of the dumpster fires in Washington, and/or other noisy alerts, alarms, and amusements, stay close.I fell in love with Cheryl and Nia together after seeing the stage production of Tiny, Beautiful Things in Pasadena. Nia was playing the lead role of Sugar—Cheryl's advice columnist alter ego—and although Cheryl's book was one of my favorites, I was wholly unprepared for experiencing the material live. And, can you believ

Humor writer and journalist Joel Stein has kept me laughing for over twenty years with his brilliant columns in Time magazine, the LA Times, Entertainment Weekly, and more. With his hilarious and insightful new book, In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You are Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book, he's got me nerd-crushing on his battle to wrestle back honor to the intellectual elites from the populists.In it, Joel, a self-confessed elitist, travels to a conservative small town in Texas to find out what's going on in the minds and hearts of the county with the highest percentage of Trump voters to impart a little wisdom their populist way. Instead, he becomes a translator of sorts, for both sides. As Joel writes, "Populists believe our complex society is so secure that disaster is near impossible no matter who is in charge. Elites know it's not. Most of our [elitist] work is calculating risk and planning for contingencies. We invented reinsurance, and if yo

What's it take to make a story go viral? Global? To top the charts as word-of-mouth carries your tale far and wide—for days, months, or even years? There's no one formula. But certain things help stack the odds in your favor. Like novelty (a unique idea). Grabbiness (where your reader is instantly pulled in). Brevity (requiring no significant time commitment—at least not to get them hooked). Universality (people see themselves in your story). The urge to merge (large numbers want to share your work, and do!).Chart-topping is something my guests for today's Beautiful Writers Podcast episode know well. Kelly Noonan Gores is the director, writer, and star of the global phenomenon, the HEAL documentary, now out in book form this month. She's joined by Anita Moorjani, who you may know of from her gob-smacking miraculous healing story. (Riddled with cancerous tumors, Anita walked out of the hospital cancer-free following a near-death-experience.) Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Dying To B

Bestselling besties, Dani Shapiro & Gabby Bernstein, are all over the media with their current bestsellers, Inheritance and Super Attractor. Perhaps you’ve heard them here, on past episodes for prior books. But what you’ve never before witnessed is the two of them TOGETHER. Despite their close friendship and longtime desire to share a mic or stage, this is a first. (Happy dance!) The part of me that lives for literary matchmaking is in full swoon right now.That’s what these two New York Times bestselling authors (of 17+ combined books) do best—raise the bar on what’s possible. Each time I see them hit a new life or career goal, it’s not long before they seem to exceed it—permitting us to follow suit. That doesn’t mean life doesn’t have its hardship, but if you’re buoyed by grace, gratitude, and good cheer, they’re your people.I trust this conversation will make you feel all kinds of hopeful as Dani and Gabby reveal real-world writing strategies with out-of-this-world processes. Feel reassured as they talk

He’s authored 90 books. A Fellow of the American College of Physicians. Teaches meditation (with Oprah!). Been a husband for 49 years. A devoted father and grandfather. And he's beloved by Lady Gaga. So, other than his daily coffee, yoga, and more cushion time (“Om”) than a geriatric dog, what more could a guy want? Plenty, it turns out. Nothing short of enlightenment. And not just for himself, if humanity’s going to make it. Good thing he’s written the book on that.I feel ridiculously blessed to welcome Dr. Deepak Chopra on the Beautiful Writers Podcast today. It’s his FIRST tour stop for MetaHuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, which pubs next month via Harmony Books. Our mutual friend, Arielle Ford, is our special-sauce guest co-host. She’s widely credited with making Deepak a household name back in the day as his longtime book publicist. (Arielle helped facilitate the rapid growth of self-help, launching clients like Marianne Williamson, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsh, and her siste

Hello, beautiful writer! This is my favorite time of year—when I get to dive back into past episodes of the #BeautifulWritersPodcast and release our annual “Best-Of” show. (We’re on #3, in case you’ve been keeping track.) I’ve had a blast curating a wide variety of my favorite clips from summer 2018-19, and hope you enjoy revisiting excerpts you’ve already heard but may have forgotten, or meeting some of these bestsellers for the first time. (I’ve also pulled snippets from Marianne Williamson’s episode from our archives—since her presidential debate performances have her front-and-center in the news right now and likewise on my mind. God, she’s prolific—and generous with her writing wisdom.)Our line-up for today’s episode is, once again, jaw-dropping. I feel like the luckiest girl at the party. Curious to learn what motivates Lee Child to continue racing to finish the next installment of his billion-dollar Jack Reacher series year after year? Great. He’s about to get vulnerable. Or, details of how Catherine O

Guilty on all counts! For a mom fighting to take down a terrifying cult and free her daughter, India, there are no sweeter words. Just last week, mother, actress, royal, and first-time author Catherine Oxenberg saw the fulfillment of her years-long campaign to stop Keith Raniere and his organization, NXIVM (pronounced nexium). A New York jury took less than five hours to render Keith guilty of charges that include sex trafficking, conspiracy, racketeering, and possession of child pornography.This is not the norm, by the way—to bring down a cult leader, much less his entire world, before a mass type of Jim Jones tragedy unfolds. And it’s not the norm to pen a book in real time as it’s all happening. But what’s a mother to do when she's convinced her daughter is a victim of sex slavery and could be murdered or influenced to commit an “honor suicide” any day as the group's leader becomes increasingly erratic? Is she supposed to stand by idly as law enforcement fails to take her fears or evidence seriou

Acclaimed bestseller Meg Wolitzer joins me today on the Beautiful Writers Podcast! Her TWELFTH novel, The Female Persuasion, is now out in paperback—a story perhaps even more relevant today than when it was released in hardback. When Meg started writing the manuscript, she, like many of us, believed we were about to swear in our first female president. We all know how that turned out. But did you ever stop to think about how authors scripting characters in books at that time had to revisit their storylines following our election's unexpected outcome? Hmmm.Meg’s work is especially hot right now for several reasons. First, a book she wrote fifteen years ago, The Wife, garnered an Oscar nod and a 2019 Golden Globe win for Glenn Close (for Best Actress in a Drama). Glenn’s not-a-dry-eye-in-the-house, standing-ovation acceptance speech was a rallying cry to women everywhere to own their power and FOLLOW THEIR DREAMS. Something Meg saw her mother—also a critically acclaimed, bestselling novelist—model powerful

You know Abby Wambach as a soccer legend—a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist. But do you know how she makes all those countless travel hours on the road and in the air, less grueling and more grounded? You know Abby as a two-time New York Times bestseller. But do you know how she and her wife, bestselling author Glennon Doyle, hit the pause button and re-energize and reconnect after especially busy months giving us so much of themselves? Martha Beck (my guest co-host today) is unscripted here as well. This Harvard Ph.D. and former professor may surprise you with what she really thinks of the “need” to get your college degree. (Hint: cover your ears if you’re sensitive to swear words.)Welcome to a super fun, intimate conversation between friends, including key advice Martha gave to Abby and Glennon when they first started dating, and how this podcast was part of their love story! (Whaaaat? I know. I couldn’t have dreamed up that storyline.) Even though Abby’s new book, Wolfpack, is a New York Times bestseller and

Oscar-nominated and 5-time Emmy-winning star of Murphy Brown turned New York Times bestselling memoirist (twice!), Candice Bergen is in the house! And she is every bit as irreverent and funny and whip-smart as you’d hope.Joining us in today's guest co-host chair is someone we both adore, the legendary book editor Betsy Rapoport, who edited Candy’s second memoir, A Fine Romance, and who I’ve been lucky enough to call my mentor for the past eighteen years.Despite being the highest-paid actor on television for a long time, Candice is exceptionally humble. But Betsy and I manage to get her to share gold about her creative process. From her erratic work ethic; what it was like being the first female to wear the 5-timer jacket hosting for Saturday Night Live; and how she’s embraced Instagram, nearly “breaking the Internet” posing for an eclipse photo with her Book Club cast-mates Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, and Mary Steenburgen. Unlike many of our guests who became household names before the advent of social med

Bestselling thriller author of ten novels, including The Progeny, Firstborn, The Legend of Sheba, Iscariot, and the Books of Mortals trilogy (with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker), Tosca Lee is in the house! She’s representing this genre proud with The Line Between, a dystopian page-turner already optioned for television by Edward Burns and his Marlboro Road Gang Productions, in partnership with Radar Pictures (#cantwait). As you’ll hear, the female protagonist could be the little sister of one of my favorite Dean Koontz characters (Dean’s a former guest of this show)—bad-guy killing heroine, Jane Hawk.I’ve put the notorious night-owl Tosca together with my guest co-host today, Hayli Baez, because I adore them both. And, for the unique things they have in common—namely a past with pageantry, as in beauty, which has helped both of their current careers; an obsession with world-travel, fed in part by those pageants; and get this—late-night video-game playing! (Admission, I’ve never played a video game in m

75 million albums sold. 18 top ten hits recorded. Named in 2018 by Billboard as one of the top 60 female artists of all time (#35)! I’m guessing you are or have been, a Taylor Dayne fan (soundtrack of your life stuff, right here).I feel blessed to call Taylor a dear friend and can attest that she’s everything you’d hope a superstar to be—which you’ll soon experience as she opens up her heart and memories about the coolest details. Like what it was really like to open for Michael Jackson in a stadium of 60,000 people for his RAD tour. Or, what happened when Prince brought her on stage early in her career in a scene that will have you thinking, “Wait! Didn’t I just see Bradley Cooper do that with Lady Gaga in A Star is Born?!”Taylor’s memoir, Tell It To My Heart (named after one of her most popular ballads) pubs on Valentine’s Day and goes deep and vulnerable about topics you’d never guess by watching her career, starting with her tragic childhood in which her voice gave her the fire and inspiration to stay ali

Jack Reacher’s back at #1! But that’s no surprise to the millions of “Reacher’s Creatures” who anxiously await each installment of this thriller series—23 at present count. With PAST TENSE (Delacorte Press), author Lee Child once again puts us on the edge of our seats and leaves us there, ensuring that our journey with this ex-military policeman turned drifter continues to live up to the Forbes magazine label as the "strongest brand in publishing.”It’s not every day I get to talk shop with a writer who’s sold over 100 million books. But what makes today’s interview especially THRILLING for me was getting to share the mic with my guest co-host, Tom Bergeron. Lucky for me, Tom’s day job with Dancing with the Stars just wrapped for the year and he had time. Time to brainstorm his dream literary guest with me and then make the intro. #BestJobEver. The result is one of my favorite conversations to date, and I hope yours too! Lee and Tom have cult followings the world over, but for very different personas. Lee

After 18 international bestsellers, Seth Godin has released perhaps his most important book. His new title: This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See (Portfolio) just hit #1 on The Wall Street Journal list and was an immediate New York Times bestseller. But Seth could care less. What this master teacher knows (and wants us to know) is the joy of serving the smallest viable audience. The satisfaction that comes from making things better by making better things."The best-selling book in America this year will not be purchased by 99% of the population,” Seth tells me and my guest co-host Samantha Bennett. But that’s good news for us writers because “smallest is easy for us.” It’s this mindset, as you’ll hear, that keeps the infinite resource of creativity from shrinking away.Seth and Sam (bestselling author of Get It Done and Start Right Where You Are) are big admirers of each other’s work, and nothing thrills me more than being a literary matchmaker by putting people together on this show

This award-winning, bestselling American (and Nashvillian!) treasure is laying it down with straight talk about her charmed writing and publishing career. Instead of learning from our authors' struggles, as we often do on this show, today’s episode is about ABUNDANCE. Ann’s story is a unique one—published at twenty in The Paris Review, followed by one extraordinary success after another—where we get a rare glimpse of the writer’s dream life come true. "I didn't get into any trouble,” Ann tells us. "I didn't stray from the path. I didn't become a drug addict. I didn't become an alcoholic. There was just too much positive reinforcement for writing.”But that hasn’t kept her from acquiring a deep understanding of the human condition—and a fearless writing style for which she’s beloved. Bestsellers like Bel Canto, based on the Japanese hostage crisis (which won the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was recently made into a film), Truth and Beauty

There is an enemy. You are the enemy. Resistance will kill you. If you’re a Steven Pressfield or "The War of Art" fan (who isn’t?!), you already know that. You also know that you are not alone, and resistance can be beaten. But, good God, doesn’t it feel a little harder these days with the world seemingly going off the rails? I wasn’t sure Steven could ever write something as masterful as The War of Art. Despite selling millions of copies of books in both fiction and non-fiction—that book was tops in my eyes. But he’s done it again, with "The Artist’s Journey: The Wake of the Hero’s Journey and the Lifelong Pursuit of Meaning."If you’re wrestling with trying not to fall into the time suck of 24-hour news, you’re going to love this chat.Joining us is book marketing superstar Tim Grahl, who you may know from his past books, "Your First 1,000 Copies," and "Book Launch Blueprint." But today he’s here with Steve for "Running Down a Dream: Your Roadmap to Winning Creativ

On this annual birthday episode of the Beautiful Writers Podcast, my wish is to give the gift of conversations you haven’t heard before. Fresh and (hopefully) profoundly helpful content to uplevel your writing experience. Today’s show makes my heart happy. It’s a collection of excerpts from industry superstars conducted over several years for the Beautiful Writers Group (my membership community, where this podcast was born and writers get all sorts of support for $25 a month).I’m elated to finally share some of my most cherished snippets of advice from our expert series interviews, today, free of charge. We start this birthday party off with the author of "Get It Done" and "Start Right Where You Are," Samantha Bennett (who now joins me every month to answer questions in our monthly Q & A calls). Sam is a creative genius with an enviable bedside manner. Meaning, she gives our members soulful, tear-jerking, butt-kicking advice they can’t get enough of. I have no doubt she will get you mo

Auctions. Bidding wars. Squealing agents and champagne toasts. To some, this is the stuff writerly dreams are made of. Novelist Rosie Walsh is here from her home in Britain to humbly share details of her magic carpet ride as the author of one of the most anticipated global publications this year. GHOSTED, Rosie’s debut book in America, celebrated its birthday the day we taped this episode. Pub day in the states! For a book that has sold in thirty-one countries and topped several bestseller lists already, I feel like the luckiest girl at the dance here to have had so much time—over an hour!—with this very busy new mother and author.I had to ask Rosie the age-old question: what makes a page-turner? How do you write a story people, and that includes publishers, can’t put down? Because, cover to cover, I was swept away by this book. As an example, check out this marketing hook right on the back: "Seven perfect days. Then he disappeared. A love story with a secret at its heart.” Aren’t you dying to know the s

Memoirist and racial justice leader, Austin Channing Brown, is here to chat about her celebrated debut: I’M STILL HERE: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. From the book’s first line—“White people can be exhausting,” she had my undivided attention as I—like countless white women—am exasperated by white privilege and feel a great urgency to cease being exhausting. But where do we start? There is so much to learn!Thankfully, Austin is wise and patient, huge-hearted, and playful. As she masterfully lays out what we need to know, we can’t help but hang on her every written word. Because it’s time. Time to know better. Be better. Do better. My prediction is that upon hearing Austin read an excerpt from her chapter, “Why I love being a black girl” you'll instantly understand why Brené Brown, Glennon Doyle, and Jen Hatmaker are fans. By the close, when she shares part of a letter she wrote to her then unborn son, you will be too.Our guest co-host on this episode, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, is a dear frien

A veteran comedy writer for TV, film, and books, Nell Scovell (who also produces and directs!), is here to chat about her new memoir, JUST THE FUNNY PARTS… And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys’ Club.Who is Nell Scovell? You may not know the name, but if you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, NCIS, Murphy Brown, The Muppets, Newhart, Charmed, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Late Night with David Letterman, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or Sabrina the Teenage Witch—which she created—you’ve no doubt laughed at something Nell has written. And, if you're a fan of the monster bestselling book LEAN IN, by Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg (that Nell co-authored), you’ve already spent hours inside her head--which is a fun, heartfelt, intelligent place to hang out!I’m crazy about her and this book—a memoir VOGUE magazine calls: “The new Bossypants meets Lean In.” If you’re someone who writes, can you imagine a dreamier blurb? Listen in as Nell and I talk about navigating writing collaborations; wri