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How I Write

Before book sales and PR buzz, your favorite writers began with two things: the blank page and an idea. Each week on How I Write, we go behind-the-scenes with today’s top writers to uncover the meta-mechanics of writing and the lifestyle behind it. You’ll be the first to hear writers deconstruct their creative process: from banging their head on the keyboard to marking the last period of their final draft. Victory. Come discover how great writing is made. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be next. New

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All Episodes

65:47

Patrick Radden Keefe: How to Write Captivating...

How I Write ·

2026/04/08

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comPatrick Radden Keefe is going to teach us how to write narrative nonfiction. It's something he's been doing for 20 years as a staff writer at the New Yorker. He's also written six full-length nonfiction books. Patrick is known for this style called Write Around Reporting. So you want to focus on somebody who's wealthy or

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63:42

Wright Thompson: Learn Storytelling in 63 Minutes |...

How I Write ·

2026/04/01

Wright Thompson is one of the best nonfiction storytellers in the world right now. He showed up to my place, and I immediately liked his vibe. We started talking, and it turns out we both love Guinness Zero. So we cracked open a beer, and we just talked about the writing process.How do you tell a great story? How do you nail an ending? How do you use details to bring a character to life? That's what this episode is all about, and it's a heck of a lot of fun, too. About the host Hey! I’m David

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79:35

Ocean Vuong: NYU Professor Teaches the Art of Writing...

How I Write ·

2026/03/25

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comOcean Vuong is a poet, a novelist, and a professor at NYU. He's just really good at writing in this fresh, enchanted, and imaginative way. He has this way of seeing and experiencing the world that's alive and filled with wonder. If you want to write prose that's lush, words that are vivid, and stories that pulse with

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85:10

Jon Yaged: How to Get Your Book Published | How I Write

How I Write ·

2026/03/18

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comDo you ever wonder how the book publishing industry works? How does the CEO of a top-five publishing house even think? That's what this episode is all about. My guest is John Yaged. He runs Macmillan, which is one of the top five publishing houses. I asked him to talk to me like I'm a young writer who has never

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71:37

Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable...

How I Write ·

2026/03/11

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comMichael Connelly is a crime novelist famous for series like 'Harry Bosch' and 'The Lincoln Lawyer'. Combined, his series have sold more than 100 million books, and they've become TV shows on Netflix, MGM, and Amazon Prime, where he's not just writing but is also the executive producer. His fingerprints are all over the

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70:30

Steven Pressfield: What All Great Stories Have in...

How I Write ·

2026/03/04

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comSteven Pressfield is a master in the art of storytelling. He spent decades studying what great stories have in common. So that's what we're going to talk about: the principles of storytelling and character building. I want to know the things that transcend genre and culture, and speak to the heart of the human condition

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62:03

Robert Mac: How to Write Comically Well | How I Write

How I Write ·

2026/02/26

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comRobert Mac is on the show today to teach us what he's learned from great comics like Jerry Seinfeld and Mitch Hedberg. Robert has been doing stand up for more than a decade, and I wanted to know what he's learned about how to be funny, how to tell a good story. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer,

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47:33

Bill Browder: How to Write Dangerously Well | How I...

How I Write ·

2026/02/18

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.comBill Browder has written two books, Freezing Order and Red Notice, which was everywhere when it came out in 2015. It’s a page-turner. I had to ask him how he thought about building character, bringing people into the story and keeping people engaged. Enjoy! About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher,

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45:38

Diarmaid MacCulloch: How to Write Rigorously Well |...

How I Write ·

2026/02/12

This episode is brought to you by Basecamp, the world’s simplest, most effective project management platform. Check them out at https://basecamp.com and tell them David Perell sent you.Diarmaid MacCulloch is an author, a professor at Oxford, and he's obsessed with history. A real expert who's been studying it for decades. In this episode, we talked about how to do history, the role of a historian in society, and how to take everything you learn in the research phase and turn it into clear, vivid,

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63:04

Lee Child: How to Write Strikingly Well | How I Write

How I Write ·

2026/02/04

This episode is brought to you by Basecamp, the world’s simplest, most effective project management platform. Check them out at https://basecamp.com and tell them David Perell sent you.Lee Child, the man behind the "Jack Reacher" series, has sold more than 200 million books. It is the best-selling series of all time on Amazon in the UK. More than Harry Potter, which is crazy! A new book is sold on average every nine seconds. So how does he do it? How does he write it? How does he come up with the

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75:43

Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar: How Train Dreams...

How I Write ·

2026/01/28

Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar are the two brilliant minds behind Train Dreams, the Oscar-nominated adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella. Their film is emotionally devastating in ways that stay with you long after the credits roll. In this interview, I wanted to understand how that kind of film actually gets made.We talk about how they taught themselves filmmaking by building a mental archive of films, how a single frame can unlock an entire scene, and why adapting a book spirit often requires

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69:57

Fareed Zakaria: How to Write Consistently Well | How...

How I Write ·

2026/01/21

This episode is brought to you by Basecamp, the world’s simplest, most effective project management platform. Check them out at https://basecamp.com and tell them David Perell sent you.Fareed Zakaria is one of the world’s leading journalists. Maybe you’ve seen him on CNN. Maybe you’ve read his books. Or maybe you’ve read his articles in the Washington Post. This conversation is a university-level seminar in the craft of writing, which builds upon the thousands of articles Fareed’s written over

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52:02

Daniel Pink: How to Write Something Truly Useful |...

How I Write ·

2026/01/14

Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perellDaniel Pink is one of the most successful nonfiction writers of the past 30 years. You've probably seen his books: "Drive," "The Power of Regret," or "To Sell Is Human." Maybe you've even seen his viral TED Talk about the science of motivation. In this conversation, we started by talking about his writing process, which he's been doing consistently for so many years. I wanted to know when, where, and how often he writes. I wanted to know all

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69:26

Tom Junod: How to Write Unapologetically Well | How I...

How I Write ·

2026/01/07

Tom Junod is famous for writing essays that have defined both people and events. He wrote a piece called "The Falling Man" for Esquire, which is the canonical piece about 9/11. Later on, he wrote the iconic "Can You Say...Hero?" about Fred Rogers, also for Esquire.What's unique about this conversation is that it's both practical and deep, but it all comes to a head at the end. In this climax, we get to talk about his bookshelf, and it fast becomes one of my favorite things that's ever happened on

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65:01

Adrian Tchaikovsky: How to Write Great Science...

How I Write ·

2025/12/31

Adrian Tchaikovsky came on the show to talk about how he writes fantasy and science fiction. He won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for his book, Children of Time, and has written more than 60 books and novellas.He spends his life thinking about how to make believable worlds and how to build characters that have weight to them. My favorite thing is how he writes a fight scene, how he thinks through the pacing and all the action. If you want to write imaginative stories filled with wonder and fantasy,

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80:56

Elif Shafak: How to Write a Novel | How I Write

How I Write ·

2025/12/26

Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perellElif Shafak has a way of writing that's lush and enchanted. She writes about real things in the world: water, houseboats, ordinary things that we stopped seeing. And she infuses them with life and wonder so that we can see the world fresh again. Elif has written more than 21 books, and she's the president of the Royal Society of Literature, which has had fellows like J. R. R. Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling, W.B. Yeats, and Margaret Atwood. You'll

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81:45

Henry Shukman: How to Tell Stories Through Poetry |...

How I Write ·

2025/12/17

Henry Shukman is a poet, author, mindfulness teacher and Zen master. He has studied meditation for 35 years, principally in the Sanbo Zen lineage. His most recent books are Original Love (HarperOne) and the Zen memoir, One Blade of Grass.He is also the co-founder of the acclaimed single-path meditation app, The Way. He has taught at Google, the New York Times, Harvard Business School, and the Institute of American Indian Arts. He has written several award-winning books of poetry and fiction, and

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61:57

Ward Farnsworth: 14 Ways To Make Your Writing...

How I Write ·

2025/12/10

Every so often, I'll re-publish some of my favorite How I Write interviews. This classic episode is with Ward Farnsworth, a law professor and former dean at the University of Texas School of Law who has written popular books about clear thinking, language, and philosophy. His books include Classical English Style and works on rhetoric and legal writing.Get 60 days free Readwise Reader at https://readwise.io/davidperell/ Check out Ward's website: http://wardfarnsworth.com/ 00:05:09 Example

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51:46

My Top 10 Writing Lessons from 2025

How I Write ·

2025/12/03

Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perellThis episode brings together the moments from How I Write in 2025 that have stayed with me the longest. These are the clips I revisit when I need to be reminded why writing matters. Robert Macfarlane talks about wonder as something you have to actively protect. Jayne Anne Phillips explains why the memories we keep from childhood reveal who we are. Paul Harding makes the case for aiming higher than feels comfortable and learning from the writers

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64:24

Jonathan Franzen: How to Write Truly Great Characters...

How I Write ·

2025/11/26

Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell Jonathan Franzen is one of the most influential novelists alive today. He sees fiction as the most fundamental human art, and in this conversation he explains how he actually makes it: the discipline, the daily grind, and the psychological spelunking required to write characters who feel startlingly alive. Franzen has always had an outsider’s eye. He questioned the hype of the Internet long before it was fashionable, and he’s been ruthless in

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