I’m memoir crazy now!   And 2018 crazy!   I figured why not try another bestselling memoir from last year, but this time with an antipode...

So I assume we’re all enjoying the “Operation: Varsity Blues” scandal, where the rich and famous got arrested for various illegal schemes ...

Okay, guys, despite the fact that I’ve had several weeks, I don’t have another book ready to go. I don’t know if we’re going to move forwar...

Hi guys, I continue to dig through old posts looking for stuff for a new book and re-discovered this forgotten micro-series that  I like ...

Our first non-fiction book! The Annotation Project: Educated Storyteller’s Rulebook: A Different Type of Agency in “Educated”  Story...

(Spoilers ahead!) This year, The Favourite was my favorite (and wouldn’t it be nice if the Oscars picked it, just so that the headlines ...

Black Panther begins with an exhilarating scene: On the verge of becoming king of Wakanda, T’Challa invites anyone who wishes to challeng...

A lot of people were shocked this was nominated for Best Picture, because the reviews weren’t great, but if you look at my previous Best O...

On “The Secrets of Story Podcast”, James Kennedy and I just had a debate about passive protagonists. He argued that, as a story guru, I...

When I do these lists, I tend to go back and forth between having 5 and 10 movies, depending on how strong the year was …and some years I ...

Every few years a movie comes out that everybody absolutely loves, but I find I don’t love it, or even like it, and in fact I can’t imagin...

Okay, the Oscars are almost two weeks away, so we’d better get started on some year-end write-ups. I thought there were no capital-g Grea...

Okay guys, I’m starting to play around with the next book, and I’m considering the title, “Believe, Care, Invest: How to Get Everyone to L...

Hey guys, I’m going through old posts as I think about the next book, and something occurs to me: A few of you have asked for me to do som...

If you aren’t already famous, nobody wants to read your memoir ...unless it’s great. There are two types of book that everybody thinks th...

The Secrets of Story Podcast · Episode 9: Positive Passivity Hi guys! After a loooong gap between six and seven, we’re back to a good sch...

Tara Westover has every memoirist’s greatest treasure: She kept a journal starting from a young age (the only writing she ever did, becaus...

We already talked about personifying nature with “The God of Small Things”, but Tara Westover in “Educated” does it even more so, many tim...

Tara Westover had a problem.  She knew the hero of her memoir “Educated”, her own young self, would be very easy to believe in, because of...

Wow, could it be the case?  A non-fiction book?  Do such books obey the typical rules of concept, character, scene work, dialogue, tone a...