As Told To

“It’s a weird job, isn’t it?”

So says veteran ghostwriter Stephanie Krikorian, who started in on her ghostwriting career after a long run as a television news producer. In fact, she sees a through-line from the work she used to do as a producer to the work she’s doing now as a writer, especially in her many collaborations with some of our leading health and wellness experts. For her very first book—Urban Skinny:Live the Fabulous Life and Still Zip Up Your Favorite Jeans,written with nutritionist Danielle Schupp—Stephanie reports that she leaned on what she knew about building a series of compelling news segments in order to help tell a much larger story.

That book led to others, many of them in the self-improvement and empowerment space, includingYou Are Why You Eat, with Dr. Ramani Durvasula; andThe Comeback:How Today’s Moms Reenter the Workplace, with career expert Cheryl Casone. Eventually, Stephanie found herself doing so many deep dives, into this new diet or that new meditation practice, that she was moved to write a book about her own experiences as a self-help-ghostwriter-turned-self-help-user—Zen Bender:A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything.

Alongside her work as a collaborator, Stephanie has contributed to a variety of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vanity Fair Hive, and the New York Post, writing about wine, pop culture and wellness. Among her many books are The New York Times best-seller The Promise: A Tragic Accident, a Paralyzed Bride, and the Power of Love, Loyalty, and Friendship, with Rachelle Friedman;Straight Walk, with supermodel Patricia Velasquez; and,Play Big:Lessons in Being Limitless from the First Woman to Coach in the NFL, with Dr. Jen Welter.

Learn more about Stephanie Krikorian:

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Peter Golenbock has written more books about baseball than just about anybody. He’s also written about basketball, football, stock car racing and popular culture. His account of the New York Yankees’ 1978 World Championship season, The Bronx Zoo, written with Sparky Lyle, was a runaway best-seller. Coming on the heels of his own history of the Yankees, Dynasty, that book helped to establish Peter as one of the leading chroniclers of our national pastime.

He would go on to collaborate on books with Yankee legends Graig Nettles (Balls), Billy Martin (Number 1) and Ron Guidry (Guidry), and to write comprehensive team histories of the Chicago Cubs (Wrigleyville), the New York Mets (Amazin’), the Brooklyn Dodgers (Bums) and the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns (The Spirit of St. Louis). His latest book, Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball’s Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It, collects the musings and reminiscences of some of the game’s near-greats, and forgotten greats, in the tradition of Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times.

Peter is also the co-author of a new memoir from former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine (Valentine’s Way), as well as books written with Hollywood legend Tony Curtis (American Prince) and noted criminal defense attorney Jose Baez (Presumed Guilty), who successfully defended Casey Anthony in a sensation murder trial that captured worldwide attention. Join us as we talk with Peter about his unlikely path to collaborative writing, his lifelong fascination with the game of baseball, and his determination to get to the heart of every story he sets out to cover.

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If there’s anyone who knows what it’s like to be invited into “the kingdom of knowing,” to borrow a phrase from journalist Richard Ben Cramer, it’s podcast guest Barbara Feinman Todd, who graduated from The Washington Post Style desk to work as a researcher, book doctor, editor and spirit guide on books with Bob Woodward (Veil) and Carl Bernstein (Loyalties), and Ben Bradlee (A Good Life), leaving her uniquely positioned to reflect on the mind and mindsets of the three journalists who were perhaps most responsible for uncovering the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Indeed, as Barbara writes in her compelling memoir Pretend I’m Not Here, there are a hundred different ways to know and to be known, as she would go on to discover for herself in her work as a ghostwriter for such leading Washington personalities as Bob Kerry, then a U.S. senator from Nebraska (When I Was a Young Man); Marjorie Margolies-Mazvinsky, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania (A Woman’s Place); and, ultimately, Hillary Clinton. In what she had thought might be her most attention-getting assignment, Barbara signed on to collaborate with the First Lady on It Takes a Village, coming up with the title and structure of the book, and helping to shape the narrative into a coherent hole. Trouble was, Barbara was “disappeared” from the book’s “Acknowledgements” page, and her contributions whitewashed by the Clinton White House, and so the attention-getting was not at all as she had imagined.

Barbara would go on to teach journalism at Georgetown University for 25 years, and as she leaned away from ghostwriting she reflected on her work as a ghostwriter, and on her years-long relationships with her clients and subjects, with a shifting perspective. Her conclusion? “Writing other people’s lives is a bit silly,” she writes in her memoir, “like playing dress-up, clomping around in your mother’s pumps that don’t quite fit, but it also lets you have a momentary sense of what it’s like to be someone else.” That momentary sense is at the heart of our conversation.

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Two-time Emmy Award-winner Bruce Vilanch has written jokes for Bob Hope, Lily Tomlin, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and virtually every Hollywood star to grace the Academy Awards stage from 1989 – 2014.

As one of the entertainment industry’s most sought-after joke writers, the actor, comedian and songwriter was perhaps best-known to audiences for his work behind-the-scenes at the Oscars, supplying one-liners to hosts and presenters. (Oscar-watchers are still talking about the year Jack Palance did push-ups on the stage, and the time Rob Lowe went rolling down the river with Snow White – two moments that left Bruce and his fellow writers scrambling backstage to help viewers make sense of it all.)

Over the years, Bruce became a familiar face to television audiences, when he stepped from behind the curtain for a long-running stint as a celebrity panelist on “Hollywood Squares,” where he also served as head writer. As such, he is uniquely positioned to offer note and comment on what it takes to craft topical material for some of our leading personalities – honing his own voice as a comedian and performer while honoring the voices of his famous clients. Bruce was the subject of the 1999 documentary “Get Bruce!”, and he has played himself in the movies and on television, including a memorable turn in an episode of “The Simpsons.”

Join us for an outrageous discussion on Bruce’s adventures (and, misadventures) in Hollywood, including the inside story behind one of the most notorious flops in the history of prime-time network television (1978’s “‘Star Wars’ Holiday Special”), the infamous Friars Club roast that featured Ted Danson in blackface, and a cameo turn from Ira Gershwin who was brought in to rewrite the lyrics to a song called “Treat Me Rough” for Marie Osmond, in hopes of slipping the number past the Morman elders who handled censorship duties on the “Donny & Marie” variety show.

Learn more about Bruce Vilanch:

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“I look in the mirror and I see a storyteller trying to make a living,” says Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, founder and editor-in-chief of StoryMade, a boutique storytelling studio, when asked if she sees herself as a journalist, an editor, a ghostwriter, or a content strategist. As the author of In Her Own Sweet Time: Egg Freezing and the New Frontiers of Family, Rachel established herself as a leading voice on the future of family life and women’s health issues. She has written for The New York Times, New York, O Magazine, Self, Wired, and Vogue, and she was recently honored with an award for excellence in feature writing by the Association of Healthcare Journalists for an article she wrote for Neo.Life entitled “Portrait of a Professional Babymaker.”

Rachel joins us on the podcast to discuss her life and career, including note and comment on what it was like to grow up in a house surrounded by books (her father was the senior daily book review editor at The New York Times for over twenty-five years; her paternal grandfather was a noted bibliographer and the curator of rare books at Columbia University), but mostly to shine a light on her work helping individuals and organizations tell stories of their lives and initiatives in compelling new ways.

You can find Rachel at www.lehmannhaupt.com, or on Instagram at @rlehmannhaupt.

You can find StoryMade Studio at www.storymadestudio.com, or on Facebook and Instagram.

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George Vecsey has been writing about sports for the past 60 years—mostly about baseball, and soccer, and tennis, but also about hockey, and basketball, and football, and boxing. (Have we missed anything?) He wrote the Sports of the Times column for The New York Times for nearly 30 years, until his "retirement" in 2011, although he continues to contribute to the newspaper on a regular basis.

Like many of his sportswriter colleagues, he started "ghostwriting" on behalf of celebrated personalities as a kind of sideline pursuit. Perhaps his most successful collaboration was his work with country music icon Loretta Lynn. Coal Miner's Daughter, which was later turned into a movie starring Sissy Spacek. (There's a terrific audio version of the book, read by the actress you can find at Libro.fm) Among his other collaborations are books with tennis great Martina Navratilova (Martina), Cy Young-award winner Bob Welch (Five O'Clock Comes Early), country singer Barbara Mandrell (Get to the Heart) and Chinese dissident Harry Wu (Troublemaker).

He's also written several books of his own, including a distillation of the life and times of Baseball HOFer Stan Musial (Stan Musial: An American Life), and a compelling appreciation of the World Cup (Eight World Cups: My Journey Through the Beauty and Dark Side of Soccer). Oh, and he's also the author of Joy in Mudville: Being a Complete Account of the Unparalleled History of the New York Mets from Their most Perturbed Beginnings to Their Amazing Rise to Glory and Renown, which in addition to boasting one of the best subtitles on the sports bookshelf was also the very first hardcover book owned by podcast host Daniel Paisner, who counts his (now signed!) first edition copy as one of his most treasured literary keepsakes. So, you know, there's that...

Learn more about George Vecsey:

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“Nobody should ever take a band for granted,” writes the justly-celebrated rocker, songwriter, actor, producer, activist and music impresario Steven Van Zandt in his wild ride of a memoir, Unrequited Infatuations: Odyssey of a Rock and Roll Consigliere (A Cautionary Tale). “Bands are miracles. They’re rarely perfect, but if a band has that magical chemistry, it should not be fucked with… Every great band is a matter of individual eccentricities blending in different ways with unpredictable, inconsistent, occasionally glorious results.”

Here at the As Told To office, we believe the same could be said for the pairing of subject and collaborator, and at the risk of putting our host and our guests out of business we humbly suggest that there are some artists who are meant to go it alone in the memoir-writing department. Little Steven, the shape-shifting guitarist of Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes who helped to stamp the Jersey shore sound, is one of those artists. His memoir—published in September 2021 and due out in paperback in September 2022—puts a brilliant exclamation point on a singular career, and he does so in a deeply personal way.

“If this book was a song, you’d want to crank up the volume,” writes the noted film critic and screenwriter Jay Cocks. “It’s one of the best rock memoirs ever. It’s got soul, it’s got humor, it’s got some tough truths and some wild stories all wrapped up in battle scars and telling memories you’d usually need a backstage pass to catch… It’s so much fun you can dance to it.”

Indeed you can. We know. We tried. We suggest you do as well, but tune in to this episode first as a kind of palate cleanser and walk around in Little Steven’s shoes for a bit, as he talks about what it was like to roll up his sleeves and sit down to write about his coming of age in the music business, his political activism, his unlikely star turn in “The Sopranos,” his leap of faith in producing and starring in “Lilyhammer” (the first-ever show to stream on Netflix), his pioneering work as programming director and rock ‘n roll curator, and an activist streak that has lately led him to launch his Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and TeachRock, which seeks to re-imagine a new K-12 national curriculum that makes room in our schools for an interdisciplinary focus on the arts.

Oh, and by the way, check out Stevie’s late-career renaissance and the kick-ass new music he’s been putting out with Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul, including last year’s “Summer of Sorcery” live album and the expanded edition of “Soulfire Live!”—we’ve been playing those babies on repeat since Stevie agreed to this interview.

Chef’s recommendation: listen to author read his memoir in the audio edition of the book, available from our sponsor Libro.fm (code: ASTOLDTO).

Learn more about Stevie Van Zandt:

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• Twitter: @StevieVanZandt
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• Instagram: @Stevievanzandt | @littlesteven_ug

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"Basically, if there is a book in you that just has to come out, I'm your surgeon? Mid-wife? Sorcerer? Shrink?" notes prolific ghostwriter Valerie Frankel. "Whichever metaphor works for you, that's the best one ever."

Val knows what it takes to discover the story in a life well-lived—and, how to reach for just the right metaphor to ensure that the story lands in just the right way. As the author or co-author of over 50 books, including dozens written in collaboration with some of our leading performers, personalities, and change agents, she's emerged as one of publishing's leading ghostwriters, with five New York Times best-sellers to her credit.

She's also an accomplished novelist, memoirist and book-doctor—a writer who's been helping to shape our national conversation for the past twenty years.

That conversation started with a decade-long stint at Mademoiselle, where Val worked as articles editor, while building her freelance career as a contributor to Good Housekeeping, Self, Allure, Glamour, Parenting, and pretty much every major woman's magazine on U.S. newsstands. On the side, she found time to launch her career as a novelist, publishing her first novel, A Deadline for Murder, and a series of popular YA novels, including Fringe Girl and Fringe Girl in Love, as well as the critically-acclaimed memoirs It's Hard Not to Hate You and Thin is the New Happy.

One of Val's very first celebrity collaborations was with the iconic Joan Rivers—an outrageously funny primer on the ins and outs and nips and tucks of plastic surgery called Men Are Stupid... and They Like Big Boobs. (Such a great title!) She also helped to write two novels with Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, who burst onto the pop culture scene with the MTV's ground-breaking (and head-scratching) "Jersey Shore" reality series (A Shore Thing, Gorilla Beach), as well as books with comedian Sebastian Maniscalco (Stay Hungry), "Dallas" star Linda Gray (The Road to Happiness is Always Under Construction) and "Real Housewife" Aviva Drescher (Leggy Blonde).

Most recently, Val made a bunch of noise with a series of books that shined meaningful light on what it meant to live and work in the orbit of our former president: Ivana Trump's Raising Trump, Omarosa Manigault Newman's Unhinged, and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's Melania and Me—all national best-sellers.

Learn more about Valerie Frankel:

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Eugene Pack knows a thing or two about what it takes to write a compelling celebrity memoir – and yet he’s never actually written one. As the creator and co-producer of the hit theatrical revue “Celebrity Autobiography,” developed with Dayle Reyfel, he has pushed audiences to consider what it means to live a book-worthy life and how it is that readers have come to accept the wit and wisdom and worldviews of our most celebrated personalities when they are presented on the page.

The show has been staged in theaters all over the country, including runs on Broadway, on London’s West End, and at the Sydney Opera House, with guest performers such as Kristen Wiig, Lily Tomlin, Mandy Patinkin, Paul Rudd, Billy Crystal, Maya Rudoph, Whoopi Goldberg and Martin Short helping to give hilarious voice to the so-called insights and dubious reflections of the famous and infamous. “Celebrity Autobiography” was awarded a Drama Desk Award for “Unique Theatrical Experience” when it debuted in New York to rave reviews, and it continues to delight audiences all over the world, drawing on an ever-changing slush pile of source material and an ever-evolving cast.

An accomplished playwright, Pack’s short original comedies are featured on his uniquely-imagined and endlessly-entertaining podcast, “The Pack Podcast,” performed by an assortment of talented actors, with proceeds going to the Actor’s Fund, an organization that provides a safety net for performing artists and entertainment professionals. His full-length plays include “Columbus and Amsterdam,” “Sharpies” and “The Poets of Amityville,” as well as the autobiographical musical “To Be Loved,” written in collaboration with Motown founder Berry Gordy. Pack is also an Emmy-nominated writer and producer, and the creator and executive producer of CMT’s longest-running series, “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team.”

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Andrew Neiderman is perhaps the world’s most prolific ghostwriter, and, the most widely-read. Since 1987, he’s been writing under the pen name of V.C. Andrews, helping to sustain one of publishing’s most successful franchises, following the death of Cleo Virginia Andrews in 1986. Andrews is best-known to millions of readers as the author of Flowers in the Attic, a surprisingly dark family saga that was first published in 1979—a book that now features prominently in many discussions on book banning and cancel culture for its graphic content and its focus on death and imprisonment and incest…not exactly the stuff of school libraries, despite the fact that the book has appealed to young readers for generations.

Neiderman, already an established and widely-published novelist in his own right, was hired by the V.C. Andrews estate to keep writing under name, and he went on to publish over 90 additional titles (including 2021’s The Umbrella Lady and Out of the Rain) with no end in sight. He’s also written nearly 50 books of his own, including The Devil’s Advocate, the basis for the 1997 Taylor Hackford film of the same name, starring Al Pacino, as well as the stage adaptation of “Flowers in the Attic” and numerous screenplays. He is the author of the just-published The Woman Beyond the Attic: The V.C. Andrews Story, a celebration of the life and career of the woman who has been his muse for more than 35 years.

Learn more about Andrew Neiderman:

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