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On the show
From 11 epsHost
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Recent episodes
Anne Lamott Teaches Unforgettable Writing | How I Write
Apr 29, 2026
1h 18m 12s
Tish Rabe: How to Write Children’s Books | How I Write
Apr 22, 2026
1h 26m 06s
David Gelb: How to Write Cinematically | How I Write
Apr 15, 2026
1h 08m 11s
Patrick Radden Keefe: How to Write Captivating Stories | How I Write
Apr 8, 2026
1h 05m 47s
Wright Thompson: Learn Storytelling in 63 Minutes | How I Write
Apr 1, 2026
1h 03m 42s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/29/26 | ![]() Anne Lamott Teaches Unforgettable Writing | How I Write✨ | writingcreativity+3 | Anne Lamott | Bird by Bird36 rules for writing | — | writingAnne Lamott+5 | — | 1h 18m 12s | |
| 4/22/26 | Tish Rabe: How to Write Children’s Books | How I Write✨ | children's bookswriting techniques+4 | Tish Rabe | DisneySesame Street+1 | — | children's bookswriting+5 | Mercury | 1h 26m 06s | |
| 4/15/26 | David Gelb: How to Write Cinematically | How I Write✨ | writingdocumentaries+3 | David Gelb | Jiro Dreams of SushiChef's Table | — | cinematic writingdocumentary+5 | Mercury | 1h 08m 11s | |
| 4/8/26 | Patrick Radden Keefe: How to Write Captivating Stories | How I Write✨ | narrative nonfictionwriting techniques+3 | Patrick Radden Keefe | New Yorkerbook about the Sackler family | — | narrative nonfictionwriting+5 | Mercury | 1h 05m 47s | |
| 4/1/26 | Wright Thompson: Learn Storytelling in 63 Minutes | How I Write✨ | storytellingwriting process+3 | Wright Thompson | Guinness Zero | — | storytellingwriting+5 | — | 1h 03m 42s | |
| 3/25/26 | Ocean Vuong: NYU Professor Teaches the Art of Writing | How I Write✨ | writingpoetry+3 | Ocean Vuong | NYU | — | writingpoetry+5 | Mercury | 1h 19m 35s | |
| 3/18/26 | Jon Yaged: How Book Publishing Works | How I Write✨ | book publishingwriting+3 | John Yaged | Macmillan | — | book publishingwriting advice+3 | Mercury | 1h 25m 10s | |
| 3/11/26 | Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters | How I Write✨ | writingcharacter development+3 | Michael Connelly | NetflixMGM+3 | — | Michael Connellywriting characters+5 | Mercury | 1h 11m 37s | |
| 3/4/26 | Steven Pressfield: 21 Proven Methods for Writing Great Stories | How I Write✨ | storytellingcharacter building+3 | Steven Pressfield | — | — | writingstories+3 | Mercury | 1h 10m 30s | |
| 2/26/26 | Robert Mac: Master Comedian Breaks Down 13 Jokes | How I Write✨ | comedystorytelling+3 | Robert Mac | — | — | comedyjokes+5 | Mercury | 1h 02m 03s | |
Want analysis for the episodes below?Free for Pro Submit a request, we'll have your selected episodes analyzed within an hour. Free, at no cost to you, for Pro users. | |||||||||
| 2/18/26 | Bill Browder: How to Write a Book People Can’t Put Down | How I Write✨ | writingbook publishing+3 | Bill Browder | Freezing OrderRed Notice | — | writingbooks+3 | Mercury | 47m 33s | |
| 2/12/26 | ![]() Diarmaid MacCulloch: Oxford Professor Breaks Down His Writing Process | How I Write | 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, and entertaining writing. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 45m 38s | ||||||
| 2/4/26 | ![]() Lee Child: How to Write Strikingly Well | How I Write | 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 ideas? That's what we're going to find out. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 03m 04s | ||||||
| 1/28/26 | ![]() Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar: How Train Dreams Became a Film | How I Write | 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. 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 stepping away from its words. This How I Write episode is an exploration into how two directors think together, and how a deeply human story becomes something monumental. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 15m 43s | ||||||
| 1/21/26 | ![]() Fareed Zakaria: How to Write Consistently Well | How I Write | 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 his career. It’s a guidepost for anybody who wants to write non-fiction. How do you develop expertise? How should you structure your days? What kinds of deadlines should you set? We also talked about how The Great Gatsby shaped his perspective on America, when to rely on anecdotes vs. data, and the skills that’ll remain scarce as AI breaks through the Turing Test and becomes a hyper-competent writer. The through-line of Fareed’s work is a philosophy of purposeful practice: watching all his TV performances to see how he can improve, reading great writing to absorb what excellence looks like, and using the deadlines of TV and newspaper columns to write consistently. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 09m 57s | ||||||
| 1/14/26 | ![]() Daniel Pink: How to Write Something Truly Useful | How I Write | Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell Daniel 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 about it. At the very end, Dan goes: "I've got one more thing to share with you." And then he shares is the most important question that any writer can ask before they take on a new project. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 52m 02s | ||||||
| 1/7/26 | ![]() Tom Junod: How to Write Unapologetically Well | How I Write | 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 How I Write. Enjoy! About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 09m 26s | ||||||
| 12/31/25 | ![]() Adrian Tchaikovsky: How to Write Absurdly Well | How I Write | 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, you're going to like this episode. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 05m 01s | ||||||
| 12/26/25 | ![]() Elif Shafak: How to Write a Novel | How I Write | Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell Elif 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 notice that her writing advice is different from what you normally hear. She wants to help you splash your personality onto the page, how to write with soul, and how to unlock your wild imagination to do it day in and day out until you're left with a finished piece of writing. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:02 Making small things feel enchanted 00:04:39 How to avoid fake wonder 00:07:22 Elif’s writing routine 00:09:13 Writing at night 00:11:11 How heavy metal helps writing 00:18:07 What makes characters feel real 00:19:55 Fixing a story 00:22:15 Writing like children 00:26:09 Which senses matter most 00:32:32 Taking risks after being successful 00:34:12 Soft vs hard writing 00:38:59 Elif’s editing process 00:43:27 How poetry influences her writing 00:48:30 What English can’t express 00:51:46 Writing as if you’re “drunk” 00:55:04 Why freedom comes first 00:57:04 Lessons from favorite writers 01:06:44 Rumi’s influence 01:10:22 Spirituality vs religion 01:15:07 How cities shape writers 01:17:11 James Baldwin’s influence 01:18:22 Melancholy and humor About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 20m 56s | ||||||
| 12/17/25 | ![]() Henry Shukman: How to Tell Stories Through Poetry | How I Write | 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 his poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Guardian and Sunday Times. He has a degree from Cambridge and an MLitt from St Andrews. Learn more about Henry's latest book, Original Love: https://henryshukman.com/writing/original-love Deepen your meditation with The Way: https://www.thewayapp.com/howiwrite About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 21m 45s | ||||||
| 12/10/25 | ![]() Ward Farnsworth: 14 Ways To Make Your Writing Memorable | How I Write Classic Episode | 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 1 (King James Bible) 00:07:25 Example 2 (Winston Churchill) 00:12:01 Example 3 (Winston Churchill) 00:15:35 Example 4 (King James Bible) 00:18:34 Example 5 (Abraham Lincoln) 00:23:13 Example 6 (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) 00:26:56 Classical English Rhetoric 00:27:56 Example 7 (Abraham Lincoln) 00:30:15 Example 8 (Abraham Lincoln) 00:32:04 The only app I use to read articles [Readwise Reader] 00:33:31 Example 9 (Winston Churchill) 00:36:09 Example 10 (Lloyd Bentsen) 00:38:50 Example 11 (JFK) 00:42:16 Example 12 (Abraham Lincoln) 00:43:56 Example 13 (Henry Fielding, Tom Jones) 00:45:48 Example 14 (King James Bible) 00:47:58 The 3 Techniques, explained 00:52:40 Practical advice for everyone 00:56:24 The ideal writing curriculum About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 01m 57s | ||||||
| 12/3/25 | ![]() My Top 10 Writing Lessons from 2025 | Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell This 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 who shaped you.Henrik Karlsson shows what it means to really look at the world instead of getting trapped in your own words. Alain de Botton reveals how the news narrows our thinking. Lulu Cheng Meservey talks about writing that feels alive rather than polished to death and Mitch Albom tells a story that shows why storytelling is a craft of emotion as much as technique. And then there is poetry. Dana Gioia and David Whyte both treat poems as part of a life, something to memorize, perform, and return to when everything feels confusing or heavy. This episode is a reminder that writing is not just about words. It is about attention, courage, honesty, and the way we make sense of being alive. Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 51m 46s | ||||||
| 11/26/25 | ![]() Jonathan Franzen: How to Write Truly Great Characters | How I Write | 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 diagnosing the spiritual emptiness of modern consumer life. Practically, more than anything else, this episode is about how he develops rich characters. For Franzen, the people are the story. When they’re real and true, fiction has a way of getting to the core of the human experience in a way that gives people a visceral experience, as if they’ve lived the story firsthand. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 04m 24s | ||||||
| 11/19/25 | ![]() Atul Gawande: How to Use Writing to Improve Your Thinking | How I Write | Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell Atul Gawande has written four books and countless articles for The New Yorker. When you think about doctors who write well, he's going to be the first person who comes to mind. What's unique about him is that this isn't something that came naturally. The work of research, writing, editing, shaping sentences, telling stories: those are all things that he taught himself. He's a surgeon, and he's still been able to write as much as he has. How has he done it? What has the discipline of writing for him been? That's what this episode is all about. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 04m 08s | ||||||
| 11/12/25 | ![]() Brandon Stanton: Meet The Creator of “Humans of New York” | How I Write | Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York, came on the show to talk about how he wrote his way to five published books and 13 million Instagram followers. Along the way, the man basically invented his own genre of biography. There are short stories, there are long stories. What he would do every single day is he'd walk out onto the streets of New York, photograph people, and interview them. He would say, "How do I tell this person's story?" What he discovered is that these people's stories were stories about the human condition itself. It went completely viral. So if you're interested in thinking about how to tell better stories about people, how to find your voice as a writer, then you're going to like this conversation. About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel X: https://x.com/david_perell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices | 1h 08m 33s | ||||||
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