As Told To

Daniel Paisner
  • 5.0 (33)
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Everybody's got a story to tell. Sometimes they need a little bit of help. Veteran ghostwriter Daniel Paisner talks shop with his fellow collaborators and shines a light on what it means to pursue a writing life on the back of someone else's story.

  1. Episode 112: E. Danielle Butler

    1D AGO

    Episode 112: E. Danielle Butler

    Narratives that matter. That's the lane currently occupied by "collaborative storyteller" E. Danielle Butler, co-author of more than two dozen books, many of them written with business executives, pioneering artists, and faith leaders, helping to translate lived experience into lasting legacy. It's a path she didn't know she was meant to walk. In fact, she didn't even know what a ghostwriter was until she became one. "But what I can trace throughout my life are threads of Black writers and storytellers weaving humanity and justice together," she writes. "Our words are creation. For centuries, we've used them to ignite movements, capture legacies, and cement ideas." Over the course of her ghostwriting career, Danielle has given voice to men and women who inspire her, and she has made it her mission to ensure that their lives and careers can inspire others—as she set out to do in the book she co-authored with the trailblazing camerawoman Jessie Maple. Her forthcoming collaboration, Finding God Every Day, written with child star and "Kid Pastor" Luke Tillman, will be published this fall by Zonderkids, the children's division of Zondervan Publishing. Join us for an inspiring conversation on what it takes to shine meaningful light on lives well and purposefully lived… through story.  Learn more about E. Danielle Butler: Website Instagram LinkedIn Facebook "The Maple Crew" Jessie Maple Collection on the Criterion Channel Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    1 hr
  2. Between the Lines: We the Women

    MAY 5

    Between the Lines: We the Women

    In our latest "Between the Lines" installment, we shine a light on the best-selling collection of inspirational profiles by former "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell – the New York Times best-seller We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America, written with journalist and author Kate Andersen Brower. Brower, our current podcast guest, a former White House reporter for Bloomberg News, has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, and The Washington Post. She is also the author of several books of her own, including the #1 New York Times best-seller The Residence, which was adapted into the hit Netflix series of the same name by producer Shonda Rhimes, as well as numerous other books, including First Women, First in Line, and Team of Five. As she shares in our As Told To conversation, We the Women is her first collaboration, but it is not so very far removed from her work as a political reporter, and as a seasoned chronicler of lives lived in and around our seats of power. Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    8 min
  3. Between the Lines: Arsenio

    MAY 1

    Between the Lines: Arsenio

    We're back with the second installment of our new "Between the Lines" feature here at the podcast factory—a bridge to take listeners from our current As Told To episode to our next installment.  Here's a passage from Arsenio: A Memoir, the latest collaboration from podcast guest Alan Eisenstock. The book, an immediate New York Times best-seller, chronicles the life and career of comedian and pioneering talk show host Arsenio Hall. In it, you'll hear ghostwriter and subject take a wistful look back to a time when the idea of hosting a talk show was "a crazy, ridiculous, impossible dream."   Why not double-back and listen to our conversation with Alan Eisenstock, for more on Arsenio Hall's unlikely journey, and more on what it takes to turn one successful writing career into an entirely other successful writing career?  Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    5 min
  4. Episode 111: Kate Andersen Brower

    APR 28

    Episode 111: Kate Andersen Brower

    What happens when a ghostwriter/collaborator looks on as the subject of her latest book becomes the lede of a story neither one of them set out to tell? That's the question at the heart of this conversation with journalist Kate Andersen Brower, co-author of the New York Times best-seller We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America, written with "60 Minutes" correspondent and former "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell. We the Women presents a vivid portrait of the unsung women throughout American history who have changed the ways we work and live—a book Melinda French Gates calls "a vital reminder of the importance of women's contributions to our history, and a call to action for anyone committed to carrying forward the work that they began." About that call to action: in the aftermath of the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 25, 2026, O'Donnell sat with President Trump for a lengthy "60 Minutes" interview, during which the president berated her for having the temerity to ask him to respond to the gunman's manifesto. The president called her "horrible" and "a disgrace." O'Donnell pushed back, and by the Monday morning of our podcast interview, the heated exchange was making headlines and filling social media feeds all over the world. "It was tremendous to watch," observes Brower, "and I hope that it inspired some younger women watching to want to become journalists, and to want to ask these tough questions." Kate Andersen Brower knows what it means to work the political beat. A former White House reporter for Bloomberg News during the Obama administration, she has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, and The Washington Post. She is the author of the #1 New York Times best-seller The Residence, which was adapted into the hit Netflix series of the same name by producer Shonda Rhimes, as well as numerous other books, including First Women, First in Line, and Team of Five. Join us for a candid conversation on what it takes to speak truth to power—and then, to find a way to write about it. Learn more about Kate Andersen Brower: Website Instagram  Facebook  Substack Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    1h 14m
  5. Episode 110: Alan Eisenstock

    APR 21

    Episode 110: Alan Eisenstock

    "Did I do that?" Yes, in fact, he did. After a successful career as a writer on hit sitcoms like "Mork and Mindy," "The Nanny," and "Married with Children," podcast guest Alan Eisenstock managed to step from television writing rooms and reinvent himself as one of the publishing industry's most sought-after collaborators.  His most recent books include New York Times best-selling memoir Life's Too Short, written with Darius Rucker; Hang Time: My Life in Basketball, with NBA legend Elgin Baylor; the crime novel Flipping Boxcars, with Cedric the Entertainer; and the just-published memoir Arsenio, with comedian and pioneering talk show host Arsenio Hall—an immediate New York Times best-seller. "It was great, it was lucrative," he writes of his television career, which included a memorable turn behind the scenes of the ABC sitcom "Family Ties," where he came up with one of the most famous catch-phrases in television history—delivered in almost every episode by the show's breakout character Urkel, played by Jaleel White. "But I longed to return to my first love, writing prose, seeing my words in print, full-time." Join us for a conversation on what it takes for a writer to leap from the top of the Nielsen ratings to the New Releases table at the local bookstore, and to give enduring voice to some of our leading artists, athletes, newsmakers, and influencers.  Learn more about Alan Eisenstock: Website Raiders: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    1h 5m
  6. Between the Lines: The Girl in the Green Sweater

    APR 14

    Between the Lines: The Girl in the Green Sweater

    We're trying something new here at the pod shop – a kind of palate cleanser to follow our latest full episode.   What gives? Well, we keep hearing from our listeners that they'd like to sample one or more of the books under discussion in each of our every-other-weekly conversations with writers and creatives who write and create in collaboration, so we thought we'd offer a brief reading in this space between episodes.   Here, in this inaugural installment of a segment we're calling "Between the Lines," we're pulling a book from the shelf and sharing a short passage that hopefully illuminates our most recent pod chat.   Our latest guest, Doron Keren, is the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. He's just out with a new English-language translation of a memoir written by his grandfather, Ignacy Chiger—which, as it happens, covers a lot of the same ground in the best-selling memoir As Told To host Daniel Paisner wrote with Doron's mother, Krystyna Chiger, in 2008.    Listen, and consider not only what it's like to grow up beneath the shadow of the Holocaust, but also what it means to reassemble the stories of your life in a way that honors the different points of view of those sharing these stories, and to find truth and meaning in those differences.   Links: The Girl in the Green Sweater Beneath the Lightless Sky Beneath the Lightless Sky Facebook page Beneath the Lightless Sky Instagram page "In Darkness" official trailer

    6 min
  7. Episode 109 Doron Keren

    APR 7

    Episode 109 Doron Keren

    "Memory without responsibility is just nostalgia," reflects podcast guest Doron Keren, the keeper of his family's harrowing Holocaust survival story. "Someone has to make sure that stories like this live and are experienced by future generations." Keren, a retired dentist, has determined to do just that, working tirelessly to help shepherd first his mother's story (The Girl in the Green Sweater, by Krystyna Chiger, co-written with podcast host Daniel Paisner), and now his grandfather's memoir, (Beneath the Lightless Sky, by Ignacy Chiger), to bookstore shelves. His grandfather's gripping, historically significant account, just published by Amsterdam Publishers, revisits Ignacy Chiger's desperate struggle to evade Nazi persecution in wartime Lvov, Poland, where he hid with his family for 14 months in the city's underground sewers, with the help of an unlikely hero. The book stands as a compelling companion piece to Krystyna Chiger's 2008 international best-seller, the inspiration behind the 2011 film "In Darkness," from acclaimed Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Time magazine film critic Richard Corliss called the movie "a thrilling adventure picture—as if Anne Frank had found an Inglourious Basterd to help her make 'The Great Escape.'" In his foreword to Beneath the Lightless Sky, Keren calls his grandfather "a real-life superhero"—a description that is well-earned. "[He] outwitted interrogators," Keren writes, "evaded deportation, engineered the survival of a small underground community, and kept alive the faintest flicker of hope in a place where even light could not enter." Join us as Keren shares what it was like to grow up beneath the shadow of the Holocaust, and what it means to keep sharing the stories that give our lives shape and meaning. Learn more about Beneath the Lightless Sky: Facebook page Instagram page Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    57 min
  8. Episode 108: John Rosengren

    MAR 24

    Episode 108: John Rosengren

    "It's a constant hustle," reflects podcast guest John Rosengren on the life of a freelance journalist. "Ginning up ideas, developing them into pitches, sending them around, facing rejection… sometimes it can wear me down." But sometimes, too, it can be endlessly rewarding, as we can hear as John looks back on a rich, wildly prolific journalism career. Over the years, John's articles have appeared in The Atavist, GQ, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Men's Health, and The Washington Post Magazine. His 2016 expose on the ways casinos enable gambling addicts, originally published in The Atlantic, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Magazine Award, and earned John the Donald Robinson Award from the American Society of Journalists & Authors. John is also the author of more than a dozen books, including a thoroughgoing account of an indelible moment in baseball history—The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal and John Roseboro Turned Baseball's Ugliest Brawl into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption. As a ghostwriter, he collaborated on the brutally honest memoir of former NFL player Esera Tuaolo—Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Man in the NFL. Join us for a compelling conversation on what it takes to make it as a freelancer always looking in out-of-the-way places for the next great untold story. Learn more about John Rosengren: Website Facebook LinkedIn Please support the sponsors who support our show: Surfers Healing Gotham Ghostwriters' Gathering of the Ghosts Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

    1h 11m
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5
out of 5
33 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Daniel Paisner
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    129
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    As Told To

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