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Celebrity Interviews & Bios with Glenn Plaskin · WriterCon

0:00
Speaker 1: This week on the writer Con podcast.
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Speaker 2: Well, the first piece of advice I'd say is if
0:06
Speaker 2: you can avoid doing it, I would do so.
0:09
Speaker 1: Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
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Speaker 1: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
0:15
Speaker 1: hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
0:18
Speaker 1: the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, award
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Speaker 1: winning author the want Ln Files book series.
0:25
Speaker 3: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us, Lara,
0:31
Speaker 3: good to see you again. Lara has raced back from
0:34
Speaker 3: the Greek festival just so she can be here today.
0:38
Speaker 3: How was the festival?
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Speaker 4: It was so fun. We had a great time. We
0:42
Speaker 4: had simple, delicious food made right there on site. We
0:47
Speaker 4: heard music, we saw some Dan saying, we toured beautiful church,
0:52
Speaker 4: got a little history lesson it was. It was fun,
0:55
Speaker 4: but I didn't want to miss the podcast, so no, ame.
0:58
Speaker 3: I'm back home and staying busy. I'm working on a
1:02
Speaker 3: new book, but it's way too soon for me to
1:05
Speaker 3: talk about that because I really don't have a fix
1:08
Speaker 3: on what I'm doing yet. Is a little early, Jesse,
1:11
Speaker 3: are you staying busy?
1:12
Speaker 5: I am staying very busy.
1:13
Speaker 1: I keep getting more clients, which is great, except it
1:16
Speaker 1: is a elimited amount of time in my day.
1:18
Speaker 5: So h Jesse's team is.
1:20
Speaker 3: Growing, relatable, fantastic, Yes, so well. Our interview today is
1:27
Speaker 3: with author and celebrity interviewer Glenn Plaskin. He's the author
1:32
Speaker 3: of numerous New York Times bestseller including a biography of
1:37
Speaker 3: Vladimir Horowitz and a beautiful book I highly recommend called
1:42
Speaker 3: Katie Up and Down the Hall. You'll hear him talk
1:45
Speaker 3: about that during the interview. He has profiled so many
1:49
Speaker 3: interview subjects I don't even know where to begin, Meryl Streep,
1:53
Speaker 3: Paul Newman, Robert de Niro, Carol Burnett, Dolly Parton, Who
1:58
Speaker 3: am I'm forgetting? Laura Elizabeth Taylor, Yes, and Katherine.
2:04
Speaker 1: Hepburn Hepburn both Aurey Audrey and Katherine Hepburn right.
2:11
Speaker 3: His interviews have appeared in The New York Times, The
2:13
Speaker 3: San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times, million other places. He's a
2:18
Speaker 3: terrific guy and a fascinating storyteller, and I'm looking forward
2:22
Speaker 3: to talking to him. But first the news. Our first
2:43
Speaker 3: story concerns Brandon Sanderson, who the guy what my boy
2:49
Speaker 3: oh right has pronounced his name or something that.
2:53
Speaker 4: He's just really excited.
2:55
Speaker 3: I picked this for you, Jesse. He's still making waves
2:59
Speaker 3: in the published world. You may remember an earlier story
3:03
Speaker 3: when we talked about his Kickstarter in which he raised
3:07
Speaker 3: over forty million bucks to publish several books that he's written.
3:12
Speaker 3: And with those funds, he's now started his own publishing
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Speaker 3: and I don't mean just technically owns one. He's like
3:19
Speaker 3: created a facility for publishing and distributing books near his home.
3:25
Speaker 3: He's got his own conference that he does every year,
3:29
Speaker 3: and that's where this new announcement, which shouldn't surprise us
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Speaker 3: at all, came about. He's going to start his own bookstore.
3:39
Speaker 3: He's purchased land next to the former Evermore Park in
3:43
Speaker 3: Pleasant Grove, Utah, which is designated for a book bookstore.
3:50
Speaker 3: He also revealed that Dragon Steele that's what he's called
3:55
Speaker 3: in the whole area. It's Dragon Steel Plaza. That's a
3:59
Speaker 3: word that come that's book series, right, Jesse.
4:02
Speaker 1: No, it's it's like a reference to it. That's the
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Speaker 1: name of his company that he made after the forty
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Speaker 1: million dollars. And I think I think the I think
4:10
Speaker 1: his conference is also called Dragon's Deal.
4:12
Speaker 3: But I thought it came from the books.
4:13
Speaker 5: No, yes, yes, it's not. It's not a name of
4:17
Speaker 5: one of his books. It comes from one of his books.
4:19
Speaker 3: Is that the name of the series because they're talking
4:20
Speaker 3: about the fifth whatever? It doesn't matter.
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Speaker 1: Listen, listeners, listen, I want you to know that I
4:26
Speaker 1: know the name of the book series is the storm
4:28
Speaker 1: Light Chronicles. Okay, no way, the storm Light Archives. Oh
4:31
Speaker 1: my god, storm Light Archives. And the fifth book comes
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Speaker 1: down December.
4:34
Speaker 3: Okay. And he had a pop up store at the conference, right,
4:37
Speaker 3: but now he's going for a real bookstore. So Jesse,
4:40
Speaker 3: I probably don't really even need to ask this, but
4:43
Speaker 3: would you shop at the Sanderson bookstore? Are they gonna
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Speaker 3: stock everybody's books? Or just zillions of copies of his?
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Speaker 3: I don't know five's fantasy novel? How many is he got?
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Speaker 5: U three?
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Speaker 1: He's got like ten to twelve now in total. I
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Speaker 1: imagine he's gonna have other authors there, Knowing just the
5:09
Speaker 1: way he likes to do things, I imagine he will.
5:12
Speaker 5: He will sell other peoples.
5:14
Speaker 1: And I have no doubt his publishing armble Party start
5:17
Speaker 1: publishing other people too well.
5:19
Speaker 3: And that's the next question for this. The bookstore given
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Speaker 3: the way this guy rolls, could this be the first
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Speaker 3: bookstore in a chain? Could we have fantasy focused national
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Speaker 3: bookstore chain? Because I think a lot of people would
5:34
Speaker 3: welcome that.
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Speaker 1: I know love industry insiders watch this podcast. I want
5:38
Speaker 1: to be very clear, themed bookstores is a great idea,
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Speaker 1: like a science fiction only bookstore. One hundred thousand percent
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Speaker 1: fantasy only one thousand percent.
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Speaker 3: Love it right? And we're seeing a lot of romance
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Speaker 3: focused or romanticy focused bookstores opening, but not so much
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Speaker 3: with fantasy. So maybe this will fill a niche.
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Speaker 1: Why is there not a bookstore that feels like the
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Speaker 1: Green Dragon and hobbiton where I can buy fancy books?
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Speaker 5: Why does that not exist?
6:06
Speaker 4: Well? But do we think is he thinking of expanding
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Speaker 4: into the former Evermore Park? Do we think maybe there's
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Speaker 4: going to be a transition that he'll have his bookstore
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Speaker 4: there and then maybe there will be a he'll theme
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Speaker 4: that park to his Dragon Parkers theme park.
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Speaker 5: That would be incredible. Was he thinking, you know, for
6:28
Speaker 5: probably when he.
6:29
Speaker 4: Bought that land.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I know he's been what I'm wondering.
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Speaker 1: Like, he's very I mean, he's written for video games,
6:36
Speaker 1: he's done sort of the sort of cinematic side of storytelling.
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Speaker 5: I think he would love to hire a.
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Speaker 1: Team to make a themed theme park for History's a
6:46
Speaker 1: tactical land purchase.
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Speaker 5: I believe we'll be watching if I remember this correctly.
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Speaker 1: I think like he grew up in the area and
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Speaker 1: used to go to that park, and so he's got
6:54
Speaker 1: like real, you know, nostalgic memories for it. And now
6:56
Speaker 1: he's rich, so you know, just like the South Park guys,
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Speaker 1: he's like redoing his childhood.
7:02
Speaker 3: That's all right, Okay, Well, New Story number two then
7:06
Speaker 3: is semi related because it's about romanticy, not so much fantasy,
7:11
Speaker 3: but romanticy, the combination of romance and fantasy storming Hollywood. Specifically,
7:17
Speaker 3: Entangled is launching its own production company Entangled again. If
7:22
Speaker 3: you've listened to previous writer Con podcast, you know that's
7:26
Speaker 3: the publisher of a lot of different things in the
7:29
Speaker 3: fantasy and romance and romanticy genre. But they're big hit
7:33
Speaker 3: right now. Of course, would be Rebecca Yaris's books like
7:37
Speaker 3: the First the Fourth Wing, the first book in a
7:40
Speaker 3: new series, which I believe is the best selling book
7:42
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three, and it's doing even better this year.
7:46
Speaker 3: So their CEO and founder Liz Platier has partnered with
7:51
Speaker 3: Cheryl Clark to launch this new company called Premeditated Productions,
7:57
Speaker 3: which has a three year first Looked TV and film
8:01
Speaker 3: deal with Amazon, which of course now calls its movie
8:05
Speaker 3: branch Amazon MGM Studios, because they bought MGM, and you know,
8:13
Speaker 3: there have been other attempts to do things like that.
8:16
Speaker 3: I mean, they're not necessarily going to be limited to
8:21
Speaker 3: Rebecca Yarros. I know a lot of people, including our
8:24
Speaker 3: daughter Katie, who would love to see a series based
8:26
Speaker 3: on Sarah J. Moss's books. But other than fantasy books
8:34
Speaker 3: that have the phrase Lord of the Rings in them somewhere,
8:39
Speaker 3: we haven't seen so much of that of the movies,
8:41
Speaker 3: have we, Jesse. We've seen it on television, The Witcher,
8:44
Speaker 3: the Wheel of Time and all those things, but not
8:47
Speaker 3: so much of the theaters. Why is that? Or am
8:49
Speaker 3: I No?
8:51
Speaker 1: I think it's fantasy stories are usually too long and
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Speaker 1: too tense to be to be put into films, you know.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the Lord of the Rings works because it's
8:59
Speaker 1: actually not that long of a fantasy series. It's three
9:03
Speaker 1: five hundred page books, where like Brandon Samson's books, of
9:06
Speaker 1: which there are four published ones. Each one's at least
9:08
Speaker 1: a thousand pages. I can't you can't compressing that to
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Speaker 1: a two to two and a half hour movie.
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Speaker 5: It's just going to cut out so much.
9:16
Speaker 4: I would be so disappointing.
9:18
Speaker 3: Yes, what do you think, j Lar, are you on
9:21
Speaker 3: board to watch the Fourth Wing film? I assume at
9:28
Speaker 3: this point, Uh, yeah, I can.
9:31
Speaker 4: Put a try. Yeah, I would. I think that could
9:34
Speaker 4: be that would be interesting. Is that the idea there?
9:37
Speaker 4: They're hoping to turn that into something with a direct connection.
9:42
Speaker 3: Yes, I think they want to do several things. But
9:44
Speaker 3: since the Fourth Wing is flying high right now, that's
9:47
Speaker 3: in fact, I would think that deal was initiated before
9:50
Speaker 3: they even formed this company. That might be where they
9:53
Speaker 3: got the seed money. Who knows, but I think I
9:56
Speaker 3: think that's the idea. You know, I read that book too,
9:59
Speaker 3: and and there's a lot in it, but it's only
10:03
Speaker 3: I'm going to guess, maybe four hundred or so pages.
10:05
Speaker 3: It's not Lord of the Rings length, so maybe.
10:09
Speaker 4: It's a little longer than that, but the second one
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Speaker 4: definitely jumps by a lot.
10:14
Speaker 3: Yes, right, okay, all right, well enough with the news.
10:19
Speaker 3: Let's move to craft corner. Our craft Corner segment comes
10:23
Speaker 3: from John Myers, a screenwriter and longtime friend of Writer Con. John,
10:29
Speaker 3: also with his friend Emily Brooks, hosts the terrific podcast
10:34
Speaker 3: Write Better Together, and they've co authored a book called
10:38
Speaker 3: I Love This, Write Anyway, giving yourself permission to write
10:43
Speaker 3: no matter what. Today, he's going to address nonfiction, although
10:47
Speaker 3: I think fiction writers may very well find it useful,
10:51
Speaker 3: as he discusses the challenge of balancing authenticity and storytelling
10:57
Speaker 3: in nonfiction and memoir. Take it away, Craft Corner.
11:06
Speaker 6: Welcome everybody to writer CON's Craft Corner. I'm John Myers
11:09
Speaker 6: from Write Better Together. Hey, look everybody ass Emily Brooks,
11:12
Speaker 6: Hello John Myers. How do you balance authenticity and storytelling
11:16
Speaker 6: and memoir?
11:17
Speaker 7: The first thing that we do is we want to
11:18
Speaker 7: focus on the small moments. So William Zincer says, look
11:23
Speaker 7: for small, self contained incidents that are still vivid in
11:26
Speaker 7: your memory. If you still remember them, it's because they
11:29
Speaker 7: contain a universal truth your readers will recognize from their
11:32
Speaker 7: own life.
11:33
Speaker 6: Larry David talks about when you're packing a suitcase right
11:36
Speaker 6: and you're getting ready to go on a trip. It's
11:37
Speaker 6: a moment that everyone can relate to. Everyone's packed for
11:41
Speaker 6: a trip in anticipation of something.
11:43
Speaker 7: And even if it's not completely universal, your emotions are
11:46
Speaker 7: going to be universal. If you remember those moments vividly,
11:49
Speaker 7: that means that there is something important about those moments
11:52
Speaker 7: where you learned something and grew in some way. The
11:55
Speaker 7: second thing we do is connecting with our reader emotionally
11:58
Speaker 7: through authenticity.
11:59
Speaker 6: We just had on our podcast Renee Gutteridge from writer Con.
12:03
Speaker 6: After all of these years, she still has a very
12:07
Speaker 6: specific emotion about when you hit send on a script
12:09
Speaker 6: or on a query. She's totally honest about it.
12:12
Speaker 7: The third thing is what can you fabricate?
12:16
Speaker 6: In a paper orchestra by Michael JamMan, there's a story
12:19
Speaker 6: in there called the Yellow Belt. As a child, JamMan
12:21
Speaker 6: would build these little structures out of twigs, and then
12:26
Speaker 6: some bullies came by and crushed them all. His dad's
12:29
Speaker 6: solution was to go to karate. Jammin passes the class.
12:33
Speaker 6: He's in the first version of the story, he ends
12:36
Speaker 6: it with sitting in the car and his dad's proud
12:38
Speaker 6: of him and he passed the class. That's true, but
12:41
Speaker 6: in this version that's actually in the book, it ends
12:43
Speaker 6: with jam and going back home building the structures again,
12:47
Speaker 6: and so that's a more compelling, more emotionally satisfying ending.
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Speaker 7: Being honest doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be
12:54
Speaker 7: accurate all the time. It may mean that you compress
12:58
Speaker 7: timelines or you move dialogue from one moment to another
13:01
Speaker 7: moment that the emotional impact is true to that story.
13:07
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, John, that was terrific. Now let's
13:10
Speaker 3: cut to this interview with celebrity interviewer and author Glenn Plaskin.
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Speaker 3: Glenn Plaskin, Welcome to the podcast.
13:31
Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for having me. I'm honored because
13:35
Speaker 2: you're both such prolific authors yourselves.
13:37
Speaker 5: Wow.
13:38
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. Okay, we have a traditional first question.
13:42
Speaker 3: If you could offer writers one piece of advice, what
13:45
Speaker 3: would it be.
13:47
Speaker 2: Well, the first piece of advice I'd say is if
13:50
Speaker 2: you can avoid doing it, I would do so. If
13:53
Speaker 2: you've got it, if you've got any other marketable talent,
13:59
Speaker 2: use it. Because I don't think being a writer is
14:03
Speaker 2: a necessarily easy thing to do, and I view it
14:07
Speaker 2: not so much as an art but as a business.
14:11
Speaker 2: But also most of my projects have been tied to
14:15
Speaker 2: a passion of mine. So what I'm saying is, if
14:17
Speaker 2: you feel passionate about it, and you feel that you
14:20
Speaker 2: just must do it and you can't think of anything
14:22
Speaker 2: else to do. Then you know, but the chances of
14:26
Speaker 2: success in this world as a writer are difficult.
14:29
Speaker 3: I think, well, I'm glad you added that last part,
14:33
Speaker 3: because I was, you know, being an amateur ivory tickler
14:37
Speaker 3: myself before we started this. I showed you by grand
14:40
Speaker 3: piano right to my left. So I was totally impressed
14:43
Speaker 3: to learn that you actually trained as a classical pianist. Right. Yes.
14:48
Speaker 2: In fact, my aspiration was never to be a writer.
14:51
Speaker 2: I have no training as a writer. I never went
14:53
Speaker 2: to college. I went to nine years of college to
14:57
Speaker 2: become a concert pianist myself. And when I was around
15:00
Speaker 2: twenty five or twenty six, I realized that I actually
15:04
Speaker 2: didn't want to do that. Performing made me extremely nervous,
15:09
Speaker 2: and so I was going to wind up being a teacher.
15:11
Speaker 2: Didn't want to do that either. So I had an
15:13
Speaker 2: idea for a book. I had never written a book.
15:16
Speaker 2: I had never even written a college paper. In music school,
15:20
Speaker 2: you don't write, and so I have this idea for
15:23
Speaker 2: a book. I wanted to write a book about the
15:25
Speaker 2: most famous pianist in the world. It had never been done,
15:29
Speaker 2: and it just came to my mind. So I came
15:31
Speaker 2: to New York and I went to fifteen publishers and
15:34
Speaker 2: I got their interest, not because of me. I always
15:36
Speaker 2: tell people, you're not selling yourself, you're selling your idea.
15:40
Speaker 2: And then I went to the William Morris Agency and
15:42
Speaker 2: I met with the chief agent, this guy who handled
15:44
Speaker 2: James Mishner and all these and Presidents Nixon and all
15:48
Speaker 2: these people. And he said, well, what have you written?
15:51
Speaker 2: I said nothing. He said, well, what if you had published?
15:54
Speaker 2: I just said, didn't it? I said nothing. He said,
15:57
Speaker 2: then what are you doing here? And I said, here's
16:00
Speaker 2: my idea, and I handed him a piece of paper
16:02
Speaker 2: and on the paper were fifteen publishers, including Jacqueline Onassis,
16:07
Speaker 2: who was a Double Day, an editor at Double Day. So,
16:10
Speaker 2: to make a long story short, he said, where's your
16:12
Speaker 2: book proposal. I didn't know what a book proposal was,
16:15
Speaker 2: so I don't know how I did it. To this day,
16:18
Speaker 2: I don't know how I did it. But I went
16:19
Speaker 2: and wrote a book proposal, came back, and he sold
16:23
Speaker 2: the book, and three years later, oh you can't stay here.
16:26
Speaker 2: But the book came out and it was the first
16:29
Speaker 2: book ever written about this person. And so what I
16:32
Speaker 2: had basically done is take my passion and knowledge about music,
16:37
Speaker 2: and I had used it in another medium, which was
16:40
Speaker 2: writing a book. And when the book was published, it
16:43
Speaker 2: was literally on the front page of the New York
16:46
Speaker 2: Times and the Washington Post.
16:48
Speaker 4: And.
16:49
Speaker 2: It was all over the world. And because no book
16:54
Speaker 2: had ever been written about him, and because it had
16:56
Speaker 2: a lot of information in it that had never been known,
16:59
Speaker 2: so suddenly I found myself quote an author, which I
17:03
Speaker 2: found very amusing because I never.
17:06
Speaker 3: Thought of myself that way.
17:07
Speaker 2: And then when the book was published, the agent said, well,
17:10
Speaker 2: you'd like to write another book. I said, no, no,
17:13
Speaker 2: I do.
17:13
Speaker 5: Not want to write another book.
17:15
Speaker 2: I had no interest in writing another book. I said,
17:18
Speaker 2: I want to interview celebrities, because I had this weird
17:21
Speaker 2: talent talking to famous people and getting them to open
17:24
Speaker 2: up to me. So that's what I did for the
17:27
Speaker 2: next ten years. The first one was Carol Burnett, then
17:30
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Taylor, then Calvin Klein and Nancy Reagan and on
17:33
Speaker 2: and on and on. And this turned out to be
17:36
Speaker 2: my real talent, which was writing magazine and newspaper profiles
17:42
Speaker 2: and a syndicated column that eventually came out of that,
17:46
Speaker 2: and the collection of my interviews was ultimately in another
17:50
Speaker 2: book that Oprah Winfrey did a whole show on. So
17:52
Speaker 2: if you asked somebody, well, could you have planned this out?
17:56
Speaker 2: Oh yes, Let's go to music school for nine years
17:59
Speaker 2: only to quit, you know what I mean? And then
18:02
Speaker 2: we'll write a book even though you've never written one.
18:04
Speaker 2: Who would want you to write a book? And then
18:07
Speaker 2: after the book, we'll interview celebrities for ten years. I
18:10
Speaker 2: don't think you could have ever gone to school to
18:14
Speaker 2: learn that if And honestly, my greatest talent was not writing,
18:21
Speaker 2: even though I was good. My greatest talent is I
18:24
Speaker 2: believe the greatest asset you have as a writer is
18:28
Speaker 2: your tenacity.
18:30
Speaker 3: Right, I agree.
18:32
Speaker 2: I think you have to be determined. I think in
18:35
Speaker 2: life you have to be determined about anything that you
18:38
Speaker 2: want to do. You have to focus. And so I
18:42
Speaker 2: was able to just drill down, almost obsessively, and focus
18:46
Speaker 2: on this. So it wasn't like I wanted to be
18:49
Speaker 2: a writer. That was never my dream. My dream was
18:53
Speaker 2: more based in fame. As a child, I used to
18:58
Speaker 2: sit at a newspaper Stan and look at Life magazine.
19:01
Speaker 2: I liked looking at movie stars, and I liked looking
19:04
Speaker 2: at the first lady and stuff. And so I never
19:08
Speaker 2: thought ever in my life that years later I would
19:11
Speaker 2: meet Jacqueline of Nassas and have lunch with her, or
19:14
Speaker 2: I would meet Nancy Reagan at the White House twice
19:17
Speaker 2: once after Reagan's assassination and attempt and meet her. So
19:24
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say is, I'm a firm believer
19:27
Speaker 2: in visualization. I honestly believe that if you can do
19:31
Speaker 2: a dry rehearsal in your mind and run and run
19:34
Speaker 2: it over and over again, as I did, dreaming literally
19:38
Speaker 2: dreaming of what you think you could make true, It's
19:42
Speaker 2: been proven that if you can visualize it, you have
19:46
Speaker 2: a much better chance of making it happen.
19:50
Speaker 4: I think that our younger generation calls that manifesting it
19:55
Speaker 4: into existence, Like you stay focused on something and believe
19:59
Speaker 4: in it long time, and eventually it will actually come
20:03
Speaker 4: to pass. I'd like to talk some more about You
20:08
Speaker 4: did more than just meet Jacqueline Annassis. Didn't you? I
20:13
Speaker 4: understand that you worked with her. She was an editor
20:17
Speaker 4: at Doubleday.
20:18
Speaker 2: Well, yes, when we first met, we were trying to
20:21
Speaker 2: talk Calvin Klein, the designer into writing a book. He
20:25
Speaker 2: ultimately never did it, but she and I teamed up
20:29
Speaker 2: to try to sign famous people up to write books.
20:31
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson was another one, and he ultimately did write
20:35
Speaker 2: a book, But more important to me, I didn't actually
20:39
Speaker 2: work with her.
20:41
Speaker 3: Ever.
20:42
Speaker 2: Our relationship was more social, and I would connect. I
20:48
Speaker 2: was a good connector. For example, Calvin Klein wanted to
20:51
Speaker 2: meet the great actress Katherine Heppron now Katherine Heppron. I
20:55
Speaker 2: had sent my first book as a gift to in
20:57
Speaker 2: the mail, and one day the phone rang and I
21:00
Speaker 2: heard something like this, Oh, oh, is this Missedublask And
21:03
Speaker 2: I said yes, She said this this Catharine Hepron and
21:07
Speaker 2: I said no, it isn't.
21:09
Speaker 5: You're a kidding.
21:11
Speaker 2: I thought it was a friend of mine playing a
21:13
Speaker 2: joke on remember this in a legendary film actress which
21:18
Speaker 2: a lot of people may not even remember today. Oh,
21:21
Speaker 2: surely not the younger generation. If you ask them, they
21:24
Speaker 2: won't know who she is. But she invited me to
21:28
Speaker 2: lunch Wow, and I went there for lunch, and then
21:32
Speaker 2: we became very friendly. So for the next eight years
21:36
Speaker 2: I interviewed her like four or five times, and one
21:39
Speaker 2: day I said to her, would you like to meet
21:41
Speaker 2: Calvin Klein? Because of all the famous people that he
21:44
Speaker 2: could meet, he had.
21:45
Speaker 3: Never met her.
21:47
Speaker 2: And she really, honestly didn't care that much about meeting him,
21:51
Speaker 2: but he really cared about meeting her. So I brought
21:54
Speaker 2: him over there for lunch and it was a fascinating time.
21:57
Speaker 2: And that was one of the funnest things about my
21:59
Speaker 2: job is that I could meet these people, get to
22:03
Speaker 2: know them, and then introduce them to each other. So
22:07
Speaker 2: that was a memorable afternoon. And another afternoon, Peter Jennings.
22:10
Speaker 2: I brought him over for lunch with her, and I
22:13
Speaker 2: just loved her. She was so funny and sarcastic. The
22:17
Speaker 2: last time I ever saw her, she looked up at
22:20
Speaker 2: me after lunch and she said, you know, you look
22:23
Speaker 2: better than you used to. And I said to her, oh,
22:29
Speaker 2: I said, miss Hepburn, Is that a compliment? And she
22:34
Speaker 2: and she said to me and she said, you can
22:37
Speaker 2: take it however you like. That's great, which I thought
22:42
Speaker 2: was funny. So I have to tell you I had
22:45
Speaker 2: just a ton of fun, you know, with all these
22:49
Speaker 2: celebrities that I interviewed. One of my favorite, one of
22:51
Speaker 2: my favorites was Leona Helmsley. If you remember her, I
22:54
Speaker 2: do known as the Queen of mean, but she was
22:57
Speaker 2: never mean to me. She and I had a un
23:00
Speaker 2: niaque connection. I did a cover story interview with her
23:03
Speaker 2: in Playboy magazine and she was just absolutely riveting, one
23:11
Speaker 2: of my most favorite.
23:13
Speaker 3: Okay, now I want to fill in a few blanks
23:16
Speaker 3: because I think you're being modest several times overs you
23:20
Speaker 3: just you interviewed Katherine Hepburn, And in fact, there's some
23:23
Speaker 3: footage from that in the Catherine Hepburn documentary that's streaming
23:29
Speaker 3: right now. Correct, Yes, thank you.
23:32
Speaker 2: There's a new documentary called is it called Call Me Kate?
23:38
Speaker 3: Let's go with that.
23:38
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, okay, but anyway, there is a new
23:41
Speaker 2: documentary on Netflix. And yes, they came here to use
23:46
Speaker 2: me as the main journalist for the documentary because I
23:49
Speaker 2: had known her well and I told a lot of
23:52
Speaker 2: fun stories about her. And in fact, right above my
23:56
Speaker 2: head you can see her sitting on the wall here.
23:59
Speaker 2: That was one of the stories I did with her.
24:02
Speaker 2: And there's another article up here. There's a story that
24:05
Speaker 2: was once done about me. When I was younger, I
24:08
Speaker 2: got all d's and f's in elementary school, and the
24:12
Speaker 2: principal told my mom that she shouldn't feel bad because
24:17
Speaker 2: garbage collectors can be happy too. Oh no, And he
24:24
Speaker 2: told my mom I had a very low IQ. And
24:27
Speaker 2: it's true that I tested badly, and it's true that
24:29
Speaker 2: I got all d's and f's. And it wasn't until
24:33
Speaker 2: years later I didn't have low self esteem. I had
24:37
Speaker 2: no self esteem. And they you know that you should
24:41
Speaker 2: never tell a child something so horrible, even if they
24:44
Speaker 2: did have a low IQ. You should never tell them this.
24:48
Speaker 2: And so years later I wrote an article that was
24:52
Speaker 2: syndicated all around the country and it was called eighty
24:54
Speaker 2: eight Keys to Confidence and there's a picture of me
24:57
Speaker 2: at the piano and I talk about how you must
24:59
Speaker 2: never let anyone define you. And after the article was published,
25:06
Speaker 2: Catherine Hepburn wrote me a note and it's framed right
25:09
Speaker 2: above here and it and it only has three words
25:12
Speaker 2: on it. It says good for you.
25:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it.
25:16
Speaker 4: That's so inspirational. I mean, what a what a wonderful
25:20
Speaker 4: example of believing in yourself and having that tenacity that
25:24
Speaker 4: you mentioned leading to wonderful path.
25:28
Speaker 3: Now you also mentioned go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, sure,
25:31
Speaker 3: go ahead, Well, I was going to say, you said
25:33
Speaker 3: your relationship with Jackie and Assas was mostly casual, and
25:37
Speaker 3: yet right here, I've got a quote she said about you.
25:40
Speaker 3: Glenn is witty, articulate, and has this uncanny ability to
25:45
Speaker 3: draw people out and gain their confidence. So she clearly
25:49
Speaker 3: had some respect for your work as well. Oh.
25:53
Speaker 2: Yes, she was wonderful.
25:55
Speaker 1: You know.
25:56
Speaker 2: She was one of my idols. And I don't know
25:59
Speaker 2: where I would ever have found the nerve to call
26:02
Speaker 2: her on the phone, but she gave me all her
26:04
Speaker 2: phone numbers, and I very rarely called her, but we
26:08
Speaker 2: did talk, and we did have wonderful lunches sometimes, and
26:14
Speaker 2: with all the pain and suffering that she experienced in
26:17
Speaker 2: her life, when she was with you, you know, you
26:19
Speaker 2: felt as if she was only talking to you. She
26:23
Speaker 2: used to call me on the phone and you'd hear
26:24
Speaker 2: something like, hello, Glenn, this is Jackie. Oh my lord,
26:32
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, hello, Jackie, how you doing. But
26:36
Speaker 2: it was a little It was one of the few
26:38
Speaker 2: times in my life I was very intimidated, although I
26:43
Speaker 2: must say I was intimidated by pretty much all of
26:45
Speaker 2: them at the beginning, whether I was interviewing Meryl Streep
26:49
Speaker 2: or Donald Trump, or Robert de Niro or Elizabeth Taylor.
26:55
Speaker 2: I found Elizabeth Taylor was one of my most favorite.
27:00
Speaker 2: Came down the stairs of this hotel suite looking just
27:02
Speaker 2: as you would hope she would look. And the first
27:06
Speaker 2: thing I noticed about her I said, oh, I said,
27:09
Speaker 2: you have beautiful skin, and she said oh. She said,
27:12
Speaker 2: would you like to know my secret? And I said okay.
27:15
Speaker 2: She said sesame oil. She put sesame oil all over
27:18
Speaker 2: her face, so she said, would you like to touch it?
27:21
Speaker 2: I put my hands on her face and I thought,
27:24
Speaker 2: g I'm touching Elizabeth Taylor's face. And then she showed
27:28
Speaker 2: me a ring, this thirty three carrot Crupp diamond, and
27:30
Speaker 2: she took it off her finger and threw it over.
27:32
Speaker 6: To me to hold.
27:33
Speaker 2: I thought this was But then we got we got
27:36
Speaker 2: down to business. And by the way, there's a brand
27:38
Speaker 2: new documentary about Elizabeth Taylor that just came out. It's
27:41
Speaker 2: produced by the BBC, and I'm in this particular documentary
27:47
Speaker 2: and it opens with Elizabeth Taylor putting her makeup on,
27:52
Speaker 2: and as a voice over under the picture is what
27:57
Speaker 2: she said to me in the interview, which you can
28:00
Speaker 2: listen to. It's kind of interesting, but she said that
28:03
Speaker 2: if you want to hear from me, it's not going
28:06
Speaker 2: to be about how to apply lipstick. I'm going to
28:10
Speaker 2: thunder through your brain. And then she went into a
28:13
Speaker 2: whole thing about the AIDS epidemic and how she felt
28:17
Speaker 2: as if people were wrongly being blamed for something that
28:21
Speaker 2: no one should be blamed for. So it was a
28:24
Speaker 2: very emotional interview. And so it's this interview of mine
28:27
Speaker 2: wound up now in two documentaries. One is on HBO
28:30
Speaker 2: currently it's called The Lost Tapes, and the other one
28:35
Speaker 2: is The BBC, which won't come out in the US
28:39
Speaker 2: until next year. But for me, this has just been
28:42
Speaker 2: so peculiarly surreal, because who am I? Nobody? And yet
28:50
Speaker 2: I felt as if I somehow had this weird ability,
28:54
Speaker 2: maybe because they didn't view me as intimidating, though I
29:01
Speaker 2: could be quite strong in the interviews. People for some
29:07
Speaker 2: reason just you know, warmed up to me, but they
29:11
Speaker 2: didn't come to me. I always went to them, and
29:15
Speaker 2: I found that it was fun for me to meet
29:19
Speaker 2: these legends that I otherwise never could have met.
29:24
Speaker 4: Well, to talk a little bit more about that, actually,
29:28
Speaker 4: because you've mentioned Meryl Streep, you've mentioned Robert de Niro,
29:31
Speaker 4: Katherine Hatburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and I've got on my list
29:34
Speaker 4: that you interviewed Paul Newman as well. Oh my, arrange
29:40
Speaker 4: interviews with these as you call them, legends, these these big,
29:44
Speaker 4: major celebrities. How do you even start that process? By
29:49
Speaker 4: your own admission, you're saying, who am I? I'm nobody,
29:51
Speaker 4: And yet here you've managed to be involved in the
29:55
Speaker 4: lives of all these people. And I have to know
29:58
Speaker 4: how'd you do it?
30:00
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll tell you. I interviewed literally hundreds of them,
30:06
Speaker 2: all famous ones, including Dolly Parton and Meryl Streep and
30:10
Speaker 2: you know many others. And the way I did it
30:14
Speaker 2: was a variety of ways. Oftentimes I would go directly
30:19
Speaker 2: through the publicist, but as I became more known as
30:22
Speaker 2: a celebrity interviewer, one would lead to another. For example,
30:27
Speaker 2: Calvin Klein, who knew me extremely well, picked up the
30:30
Speaker 2: phone and called Diana Ross and told her about me
30:35
Speaker 2: and said you should do the interview with him. So
30:37
Speaker 2: I had lunch with Diana Ross or he called the
30:40
Speaker 2: White House and literally spoke to missus Reagan. And when
30:44
Speaker 2: she came up to me, the first thing she said
30:46
Speaker 2: to me is she put out her hand. There were
30:48
Speaker 2: Secret Service people all over the place and all these
30:52
Speaker 2: people near us, and she looked right at my face
30:56
Speaker 2: and she said, you have a great friend in Calvin Klein.
31:01
Speaker 2: She was transmitting to me that she wouldn't have done
31:03
Speaker 2: it otherwise. And same thing with Senator Kennedy. I knew
31:09
Speaker 2: Jacqueline Kennedy. Same thing with Joan Kennedy. I got the
31:13
Speaker 2: interview through a former husband and so oftentimes, but most
31:18
Speaker 2: of the time it was through my own personal notes.
31:21
Speaker 2: I'm a firm believer in writing notes, sending flowers, making
31:29
Speaker 2: phone calls. I called Donald Trump and I said, I
31:31
Speaker 2: want to interview your wife at the time, which was
31:35
Speaker 2: Avonna Trump. I did two interviews with Havanna. Then after
31:38
Speaker 2: he left Havanna, I said, I want to do the
31:40
Speaker 2: first exclusive interview with Marlon Maples. And he said to
31:44
Speaker 2: me on the phone, well, I'll make the introduction, but
31:47
Speaker 2: it's up to her. If she likes you, she'll do it.
31:50
Speaker 2: If she doesn't, she won't. So he said, well, arrange
31:54
Speaker 2: a rendezvous for you at a restaurant with her. So
31:57
Speaker 2: I just went and met her. And I never or
32:01
Speaker 2: in any way pretentious about anything. I just come right
32:06
Speaker 2: to the point, you know. And I often would give
32:08
Speaker 2: my books as a gift. That was another thing that
32:11
Speaker 2: people like when you give them a book. But the
32:14
Speaker 2: most important thing, I think is that you need a
32:17
Speaker 2: heart to heart connection. And I was known for doing
32:21
Speaker 2: interviews that would be revealing, but not depositions. Yeah, I mean,
32:29
Speaker 2: I'm not there to you know, to I'm there to
32:34
Speaker 2: understand you better. I remember there was once an actor
32:37
Speaker 2: who said to me, I didn't know we were doing
32:39
Speaker 2: therapy today, and it's.
32:43
Speaker 4: Like you were just very good at it, that it
32:46
Speaker 4: was something that you wanted to do, you stayed focused
32:49
Speaker 4: on it, and then you were very good at it.
32:51
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. You mentioned Paul Newman, so I must
32:54
Speaker 2: give you my Paul Newman story. I was invited up
32:57
Speaker 2: to his apartment in Manhattan for an interview at his apartment.
33:01
Speaker 2: So when I got there, it was a place on
33:03
Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue, the door opened and there he is standing.
33:08
Speaker 2: Usually the stars have a public sister of Mary Tyler
33:11
Speaker 2: Moore had a butler or somebody answers the door, but
33:14
Speaker 2: usually not the person. But he was just standing there
33:18
Speaker 2: with those big blue eyes, and he looked at me
33:21
Speaker 2: and he said, would you like to help me make
33:23
Speaker 2: some ice cubes. Now I thought, what the hell is
33:29
Speaker 2: he talking about? So I said to him, well, what
33:32
Speaker 2: do you mean. He said, well, my daughter's birthdays tonight
33:35
Speaker 2: and we're getting ready for the party, and I'm filling
33:38
Speaker 2: up the trays in the kitchen. So there I stood
33:41
Speaker 2: in Paul Newman's kitchen passing him ice cube trays. I
33:46
Speaker 2: thought that was very sunny. And then I told him, listen,
33:48
Speaker 2: mister Newman, I have a gift for you. My grandmother
33:51
Speaker 2: has her own line of cookies at Bloomingdale's, which he did,
33:54
Speaker 2: and I said, I brought you some of her favorite
33:59
Speaker 2: Marie squares. They were called with apricot in them. Oh
34:04
Speaker 2: my god. He grabbed those out of my hands so fast.
34:07
Speaker 2: I said, I want you to taste it. So he
34:10
Speaker 2: opened up the box. And this is the guy who
34:11
Speaker 2: you know make the popcorn and the salad dress. What
34:15
Speaker 2: nerve would I have to bring him some cookies? But
34:18
Speaker 2: you see, I believe all the stars like cookies or candy,
34:22
Speaker 2: so I would bring almost everybody chocolate or something. So
34:26
Speaker 2: he ate the cookie and he really liked it. And
34:28
Speaker 2: then guess who walked in the room. Joeanne Woodward she said,
34:32
Speaker 2: I'm going to Bloomingdale's now to pick up a gift,
34:35
Speaker 2: and she just kissed her husband and walked out of
34:37
Speaker 2: the room. She never even said alone to me. She
34:39
Speaker 2: was just saying goodbye to her husband. So I would
34:42
Speaker 2: often have these surreal moments with these people where it's
34:46
Speaker 2: like it just seems so odd to me, But there
34:51
Speaker 2: I was. And then we Paul Newman and I eventually
34:54
Speaker 2: sat at his kitchen table, and mostly what we talked
34:58
Speaker 2: about was his summer camp for just for children who
35:01
Speaker 2: have serious illnesses. It's called the Hole in the Wall Camp,
35:04
Speaker 2: I believe, And that was what the interview was about.
35:07
Speaker 2: That wasn't you ask how do I get interviews? Oftentimes
35:10
Speaker 2: I would do interviews.
35:11
Speaker 5: About a cause.
35:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, if there was something that interested me, I would
35:18
Speaker 2: find That's how I would get interviews with people who
35:21
Speaker 2: ordinarly wouldn't do interviews because it wasn't about them, it
35:25
Speaker 2: was about something else.
35:28
Speaker 4: Okay, good idea.
35:29
Speaker 3: Two gaps I feel like we have to fill in here.
35:32
Speaker 3: First of all, when you got that first contract book
35:35
Speaker 3: contract you were talking about and I probably shouldn't even
35:41
Speaker 3: bring this up because now some people who are aspiring
35:43
Speaker 3: to write are just going to be bitter. But you
35:45
Speaker 3: were twenty six, right, you're at twenty six years old.
35:49
Speaker 2: I think I was twenty five. And when better and
35:54
Speaker 2: when I got what would be equivalent to one hundred
35:57
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars advance and today's money, I remember
36:02
Speaker 2: I had no money I had, I had very little.
36:08
Speaker 2: So when the agent got me the advance and sold
36:11
Speaker 2: it in the US and England, I honestly was quite
36:16
Speaker 2: nervous because remember I was going to do something that
36:20
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to do exactly. I did figure
36:23
Speaker 2: it out. I did get a wonderful editor who was
36:27
Speaker 2: the editor for the New York Philharmonic and Columbia Records,
36:32
Speaker 2: and I did put together a team. But back then, yes,
36:37
Speaker 2: I was intimidated. But I always tell writers, you know,
36:40
Speaker 2: you have to remember you're worth a lot. I believe
36:44
Speaker 2: that you have to know inside yourself that you're worth something.
36:48
Speaker 2: And you know, you probably know that. I've written many
36:53
Speaker 2: collaboration books now, you know, either ghost written or collaboration
36:57
Speaker 2: with all kinds of mostly CEOs and net worth individuals
37:01
Speaker 2: and some cause related books and some doctors. And I
37:07
Speaker 2: think you just have to as a writer. One great
37:11
Speaker 2: thing is that you could research and know about anything.
37:15
Speaker 2: It's not like you have to specialize in anything. I mean,
37:18
Speaker 2: it's true that I specialized in celebrity interviews, but then
37:21
Speaker 2: I broadened out quite a lot because I found it
37:25
Speaker 2: interesting to learn about, you know, other things, but human psychology, inspiration,
37:30
Speaker 2: and motivation were my favorite topics.
37:34
Speaker 7: And so.
37:36
Speaker 2: I liked the idea of that actualization or visualization thing
37:40
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier, because I do believe that you
37:44
Speaker 2: have to at least have a dream. Everybody's got a dream.
37:48
Speaker 3: Should And that other detail that I think we still
37:53
Speaker 3: haven't said aloud is the subject of this book. We're
37:56
Speaker 3: talking about Vladimir Horowitz, right, probably the certainly the most famous,
38:01
Speaker 3: probably the most accomplished pianist of the time, right right.
38:07
Speaker 2: And this is what the book looks like. It's a
38:10
Speaker 2: six hundred page book with two thousand footnotes. And this
38:14
Speaker 2: is the first one that came out. But I must
38:16
Speaker 2: tell you my favorite book of all time is this one.
38:19
Speaker 2: This is aw I wrote about my dog in the
38:23
Speaker 2: process of getting this turned into a TV movie hopefully,
38:27
Speaker 2: and it's not about the dog. People always misunderstand. They think, oh,
38:31
Speaker 2: that must be a cute little story about a dog.
38:33
Speaker 2: It isn't. It's about the concept of family and that
38:38
Speaker 2: a family is anything you want it to be, young
38:41
Speaker 2: and old, you know, human and canine. And it's about
38:45
Speaker 2: what happened over a series of years between a little
38:48
Speaker 2: three year old kid who had no mom, an eighty
38:51
Speaker 2: five year old woman who had no children, and me
38:54
Speaker 2: and my dog. And it takes place before, during, and
38:58
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven. And it's a very emotional story
39:02
Speaker 2: about how beautiful a little kid could find the grandmother
39:07
Speaker 2: that he otherwise never would have had.
39:10
Speaker 3: Sweet. Okay, you've mentioned you're on Oprah, and you've mentioned
39:13
Speaker 3: a lot of interviews. Do you have one that stands
39:18
Speaker 3: out in memory as a particularly happy or memorable one,
39:23
Speaker 3: that one that you haven't already told a particularly favorite interview?
39:28
Speaker 2: Well, I have a situation that comes to mind, but
39:31
Speaker 2: I wasn't too happy. I was interviewing Leona Helmsley and
39:36
Speaker 2: she had just it was tape recorded on a you know,
39:39
Speaker 2: a real to reel tape recorder, not real to reel,
39:43
Speaker 2: I mean a cassette tape recorder, and the red light
39:46
Speaker 2: was on it was recording, and she was absolutely fantastic.
39:50
Speaker 2: She went on for forty five minutes. Brilliantly, I discovered
39:54
Speaker 2: the tape recorder hadn't recorded anything. It was the only
40:00
Speaker 2: time in my entire career that I think I had
40:03
Speaker 2: what could be called a panic attack. I started sweatings,
40:08
Speaker 2: and I said to her, I have some bad news,
40:11
Speaker 2: and I explained what happened to her. Remember she's supposedly
40:14
Speaker 2: the queen of mean, right, you know what she said
40:17
Speaker 2: to me. She said, let's get up, let's take a
40:20
Speaker 2: walk around the terrace, and then we'll go back in
40:22
Speaker 2: and record the whole thing all over again.
40:25
Speaker 3: Wow, awesome, not the Queen of mean. Okay, flip side question.
40:30
Speaker 3: Do you have any and if you don't want to say,
40:33
Speaker 3: that's fine, but any interview subjects who were particularly difficult
40:38
Speaker 3: or not forthcoming or whatever.
40:42
Speaker 2: You know, most of the people I met I really liked,
40:46
Speaker 2: and nobody was rude or anything, but of course they
40:49
Speaker 2: never would be. I've been thinking lately about Christopher Reed
40:54
Speaker 2: because I interviewed him once before, yeah, once before his
40:58
Speaker 2: accident when he it was fine, and then twice after
41:02
Speaker 2: he was paralyzed. And I only mentioned him because I
41:07
Speaker 2: thought he was so inspirational as a person. Yes, and
41:12
Speaker 2: imagine you know, taking the time to do interview with
41:17
Speaker 2: me when he couldn't walk, or you know, he was
41:21
Speaker 2: tragically died far too young. So I something. Anyway, He's
41:30
Speaker 2: someone that comes to mind. But if somebody said to me,
41:33
Speaker 2: was there anybody you interviewed that you didn't like? I
41:36
Speaker 2: couldn't even think of anybody, honestly.
41:39
Speaker 3: Now you mentioned that you talked to two of Donald
41:42
Speaker 3: Trump's wives. Did you ever interview Trump himself?
41:45
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, I interviewed him more than anybody. I interviewed
41:50
Speaker 2: him for twelve twelve hours for one playboy interview. In fact,
41:54
Speaker 2: my interview with Donald Trump is it's on the wall
41:58
Speaker 2: behind me and he he hangs it in his office
42:02
Speaker 2: at Trump Tower. It was an interview done many years ago.
42:07
Speaker 2: But all the positions that he talks about in that
42:10
Speaker 2: interview are ones that very consistently are reflected in a
42:14
Speaker 2: lot of his positions today, especially about China and Japan
42:18
Speaker 2: and the economy and stuff. So I've known Trump since
42:23
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight and did a number of interviews with him,
42:27
Speaker 2: and you know, that's all I can say. But I
42:31
Speaker 2: have known him, and you know, obviously he's changed as
42:35
Speaker 2: a person. When I first met him. He was really
42:38
Speaker 2: just a rich, real estate charismatic New Yorker, you know,
42:42
Speaker 2: but I never dreamed that he would one day be president.
42:48
Speaker 4: Wow, when the interview is over, what is your writing process?
42:55
Speaker 4: How do you turn that interview into an article, a book,
42:58
Speaker 4: whatever the end result is.
43:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, what I always used
43:03
Speaker 2: to do is I would type the transcripts myself because
43:06
Speaker 2: I wanted to listen again. And by the way, I
43:09
Speaker 2: have all the original recorded interviews in here. That's why
43:15
Speaker 2: these documentaries call me sometimes because even if the tape
43:18
Speaker 2: is thirty years old, believe it or not, I like
43:20
Speaker 2: Audrey Heppern, I did this in Switzerland. I still have it.
43:24
Speaker 2: So I would I listen to the tape and I
43:27
Speaker 2: like to type it as I'm listening, and then I
43:30
Speaker 2: chunk it chunking for a writer's of important skill for
43:35
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. And then I would put a
43:37
Speaker 2: subject category with an underline. It doesn't necessarily mean I'll
43:41
Speaker 2: use the material in the order they said it, but
43:43
Speaker 2: I have to know where it is. And then then
43:46
Speaker 2: the hardest part for magazine or a newspaper article is
43:51
Speaker 2: writing a lead, like how are we going to begin
43:53
Speaker 2: this thing? So I got to the point where when
43:56
Speaker 2: I was on deadlines, I would tell myself, the first
43:58
Speaker 2: thing that comes into my mind, that's the lead. I
44:02
Speaker 2: used to be more perfectionistic about it, like, oh, what
44:04
Speaker 2: am I going to do? I decided, and this is
44:07
Speaker 2: a good tip for writers. There's no such thing as
44:11
Speaker 2: writer's block, as long as you're willing to settle for mediocrity.
44:19
Speaker 3: In the first draft at least, right, get something down
44:23
Speaker 3: on paper.
44:24
Speaker 2: Settle for whatever you can get. Just get something down
44:28
Speaker 2: and then and then. I didn't mean you should ultimately
44:31
Speaker 2: settle for mediocrity, but I would. I think you have
44:34
Speaker 2: to trust some of your instincts. So I would first
44:36
Speaker 2: do the lead, and then once I got into it,
44:39
Speaker 2: it would start to flow, and somehow it would I
44:44
Speaker 2: would instinctively know what to put where. But you know,
44:49
Speaker 2: there's a certain art to it, and it varies. If
44:52
Speaker 2: you're writing a book, it's different than if you're writing,
44:55
Speaker 2: you know, a magazine article, but or a newspaper column.
44:59
Speaker 2: But honestly, I admire people who say I went to
45:03
Speaker 2: the school of journalism at such and such university. I thought,
45:07
Speaker 2: aren't you lucky? Because I learned the whole thing literally
45:12
Speaker 2: on the job. I never had anybody teach me, really,
45:17
Speaker 2: so I apologize that I'm not better trained.
45:21
Speaker 3: I think sometimes amateurs if you use that the root
45:25
Speaker 3: word of which is m o meaning love. Right.
45:27
Speaker 2: So, well, you guys do something that I could never do,
45:32
Speaker 2: which is I only do nonfiction, but you do fiction.
45:36
Speaker 2: You make up stories and legal thrillers and novels. And
45:41
Speaker 2: you know, the closest I ever came to that is
45:44
Speaker 2: in this book. This is rather novelistic, even though it's
45:48
Speaker 2: all true. But you know, one thing that we have
45:53
Speaker 2: in common is you have to paint a picture. Anybody
45:56
Speaker 2: can just write some sentences. But the thing is, how
45:59
Speaker 2: could you write some sentences that would convey some emotion?
46:04
Speaker 2: I mean, what would draw someone in where they would
46:06
Speaker 2: want to literally, you know, they lose themselves in your
46:11
Speaker 2: world that you, as novelists have created. That's a really
46:15
Speaker 2: big skill.
46:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you. But you know what, it's all storytelling,
46:20
Speaker 3: whether it's true or you're making it up. And when
46:24
Speaker 3: you can't make it up, meaning you've got to have
46:27
Speaker 3: sources and research that I think is challenging to Okay,
46:33
Speaker 3: after this fabulous, all this illustrious work, what are you
46:36
Speaker 3: working on? Now or what should be we be watching
46:39
Speaker 3: for next?
46:41
Speaker 2: Well, I am in the midst of working on getting
46:44
Speaker 2: this book made into a movie because I think it
46:47
Speaker 2: could be inspiring for people because it has a message
46:51
Speaker 2: about family connection and loss too, because you know, we
46:57
Speaker 2: live through a series of losses throughout our lives. Eventually
47:01
Speaker 2: we lose many things, and the idea of the book
47:05
Speaker 2: was to give people hope. But that I'm also working
47:09
Speaker 2: on a I have three new books coming out. One
47:13
Speaker 2: of them is with a what would you call him,
47:18
Speaker 2: a TV cable entrepreneur. He at one time owned r CN,
47:24
Speaker 2: the big cable company, and so it's kind of like
47:28
Speaker 2: a business memoir. And then I have another book coming
47:31
Speaker 2: out that is How a successful entrepreneur Recovered from Addiction,
47:39
Speaker 2: So it's about recovery from addiction and also about his
47:43
Speaker 2: autistic son, so it has some big themes about survival.
47:49
Speaker 2: And now there's a new one coming out with a
47:54
Speaker 2: woman executive who had a rather difficult childhood. And it
48:00
Speaker 2: seems like at a certain point in life, people want
48:02
Speaker 2: to share their you know, their stories, right.
48:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Well, Glenn, this has been a real pleasure
48:10
Speaker 3: and a delight talking to you, and I hope maybe
48:13
Speaker 3: we can do it again sometime in the future.
48:16
Speaker 2: Oh, it was great talking to both of you, and
48:18
Speaker 2: thanks for having me on your show.
48:21
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Bye bye, now bye. Just a
48:31
Speaker 3: few parting words. The writer Con Cruise is fairly far
48:36
Speaker 3: in the future. It's at the end of the end
48:38
Speaker 3: of May. We're going to Alaska this year, and the
48:41
Speaker 3: writer conor Retreat is in the middle of July. But
48:44
Speaker 3: if you're interested in and you cannot book too early
48:47
Speaker 3: because they tend to sell out, there's more information on
48:50
Speaker 3: our website, which is writercon dot com. Let me also
48:54
Speaker 3: remind you we've got our own newsletter. In fact, just
48:57
Speaker 3: today as we record this, we sent out the latest
49:02
Speaker 3: issue of writer Con magazine. But whether there's a magazine
49:05
Speaker 3: or not, the newsletter comes out regularly and it's free
49:09
Speaker 3: and you don't want to miss it because it's got
49:12
Speaker 3: all kinds of cool stuff in it that's directed specifically
49:16
Speaker 3: for writers. So go to sub stack and search for
49:20
Speaker 3: writer Con. And if you haven't joined the writer Con
49:23
Speaker 3: Facebook group, please do. We've got a wonderful, thriving online community,
49:28
Speaker 3: very positive, very supportive, and that's the best way to
49:33
Speaker 3: get day to day information about what's going on in
49:36
Speaker 3: the publishing world. Okay, until next time, keep writing and
49:41
Speaker 3: remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit. See
49:47
Speaker 3: you next time.
50:00
Speaker 1: Spens By first the