Hello Hello Storytellers!
A super quick episode today, keeping you in the loop about a few changes and updates to the show!
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Thank you for leaving me an honest review and rating!
This episode is proudly sponsored by SCRIVENER. Click on the link for your special 20% off discount code that's available specially for our storyteller tribe!
Hey Storytellers! I’m over-the-moon excited to share today’s episode featuring Jan Ellison, author of debut novel A SMALL INDISCRETION. Jan’s warmth and generosity is infectious and inspiring. Jan’s episode is an absolute must for all writers and artists!
“Ellison is a tantalizing storyteller, dropping delicious hints of foreshadowing and shifting back and forth in time…moving her story forward with cinematic verve.” — USA Today
At nineteen, Annie Black abandons California for a London winter of drinking to oblivion and looking for love in the wrong places. Twenty years later, she is a happily married mother of three living in San Francisco. Then one morning, a photograph arrives in her mailbox, and an old obsession is awakened.
After a return trip to London, Annie’s marriage falters, her store floods, and her son, Robbie, takes a night-time ride that nearly costs him his life. Now Annie must fight to save her family by untangling the mysteries of that reckless winter in Europe that drew an invisible map of her future.
With the brilliant pacing and emotional precision that won Jan Ellison an O. Henry Prize for her first published story, A Small Indiscretion announces a major new voice in suspense fiction as it unfolds a story of denial, obsession, love, forgiveness—and one woman’s reckoning with her own fateful mistakes.
“Every day I didn’t write, a little part of me just felt like it had died.”-Jan Ellison
“I trust the writer I am and know that my voice is my voice.”-Jan Ellison
Jan Ellison is a novelist, essayist and short-story writer. Her first book, A Small Indiscretion, (Random House 2015) was both an Oprah Editor’s Pick and a San Francisco Chronicle Book Club Pick. Jan’s essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Narrative Magazine and elsewhere, and she received an O. Henry Prize for her first short story to appear in print. She is a graduate of Stanford and San Francisco State’s MFA program. She grew up in L.A. and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband of twenty years and their four children.
Be sure to check out Jan's shownotes page here.
Thank you for leaving me an honest review and rating!
We have director-writer-producer Frank Hall Green on the show with us today! Frank’s directorial debut WILDLIKE is out in theaters and on-demand this Friday, September 25th. In his interview, we dive behind-the-scenes in the making of WILDLIKE, Frank’s screenwriting process, how he fleshed out an authentic heroine, why he chose Alaska as the location to film, approaching sensitive topics during the shoot, the film festival circuit and how its helped his movie, and so much more.
Mackenzie (ELLA PURNELL), a troubled but daring teenage girl, is sent to live with her uncle in Juneau, Alaska. She longs for her struggling, absent mother, but as her mom’s phone calls become less frequent and her uncle’s care is not what it seems, she must flee. Her only thoughts are to escape her uncle’s grasp and contact her mother somehow, but as she plunges deeper into the Alaskan interior she is suddenly helplessly alone. A chance connection with a loner backpacker, Rene Bartlett (BRUCE GREENWOOD), proves to be her only lifeline. As Mackenzie shadows Bartlett across the last frontier, she thwarts his efforts to cut her loose until Bart has no choice but to help her survive in the wilderness. Against the backdrop of a spectacular Alaska landscape, they discover the redemptive power of friendship. Mackenzie and Bartlett prove to be the unlikely salve for each other’s scars, until the damage Mackenzie carries with her threatens to destroy her newfound sanctuary. Returning to civilization, Mackenzie is once again at risk of capture by her uncle (BRIAN GERAGHTY) as he hounds with manipulative calls and messages. When Bartlett finally discovers her alarming secret, he must make a bold choice to take real responsibility for Mackenzie and help her escape her traumatic past and return home.
Frank Hall Green is a film producer, writer and director. His directorial debut feature WILDLIKE is produced by Christine Vachon/Killer Films, Tandem Pictures and Joseph Stephans. It was filmed on 35mm in Alaska and stars Ella Purnell, Bruce Greenwood, Brian Geraghty, Nolan Gerard Funk and Ann Dowd. He is currently producing the adaptation of BOY21 by Matthew Quick (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK) to be directed by Lasse Hallstrom (WHATS EATING GILBERT GRAPE, CIDER HOUSE RULES) and REMITTANCE, the sophomoric feature of writing/directing team Joel Fendelman and Patrick Daly (DAVID). Recently, he produced GHETTO KLOWN on HBO, the award-winning one-man show of John Leguizamo. He was a producer onALLEGIANCE starring Aiden Quinn, Bow Wow, Seth Gabel and Pablo Schreiber, and 1-900-TONIGHT starring John Turturro based on the film by Theo Van Gogh, among others. Frank cut his teeth producing far too many short films and has an MBA from NYU’s Tisch School of Film & Television. Before NYU’s graduate film program, Frank worked in Venture Capital and emerging technology. He is also an alumnus of NYU’s Gallatin School, an avid backpacker and a member of MENSA.
Be sure to visit Frank's shownotes page by clicking here!
“One of the main things was trying to write everyday and trying to plow through.” -Kate Barker-Froyland
Kate is a Brooklyn-based writer/director. Her first feature film SONG ONE (starring Anne Hathaway, Johnny Flynn, and Mary Steenburgen) premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Over the past several years, she has directed short films and videos and was selected for the IFP/Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Visions program. Her short film, MATCH, screened at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art as part of their New Directors/New Films series and was a semi-finalist for the Student Academy Awards. After directing the ‘making-of’ Merchant-Ivory’s The White Countess in Shanghai, she was the assistant to director David Frankel on The Devil Wears Prada. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Kate received her MFA degree in directing from Columbia University in 2011.
Hey Storytellers! I would appreciate it so much if you could leave an honest rating and review on my iTunes page. Your rating & review is a HUGE help in increasing the ranking of my show which helps to spread the word about the podcast so that more listeners can tune in and benefit from the interviews. You can click on this link to be taken directly to the rating&review page (don't forget to sign into your iTunes account when prompted). Thank you so much in advance for your time and your help!
I’m so excited to share today’s episode featuring writer Linda Formichelli. She goes over and beyond to share tips and advice for listeners who want to earn an income as a freelance writer. Linda has so much enthusiasm and her positive go-getter energy is absolutely contagious– you’ll walk away feeling like you chugged an espresso and ready to conquer the freelance-writing world.
This episode is proudly sponsored by SCRIVENER. Click on the link for your special 20% off discount code that's available specially for our storyteller tribe!
A SUMMARY OF ALINE OHANESIAN'S DEBUT NOVEL "ORHAN'S INHERITANCE":
When Orhan’s brilliant and eccentric grandfather Kemal—a man who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs—is found dead, submerged in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But Kemal’s will raises more questions than it answers. He has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan’s grandfather willed his home in Turkey to an unknown woman rather than to his own son or grandson.
Left with only Kemal’s ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There he will not only unearth the story that eighty-seven-year-old Seda so closely guards but discover that Seda’s past now threatens to unravel his future. Her story, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which his family has been built.
Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the1990s, Orhan’s Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that can haunt a family for generations.
LEARN MORE ABOUT ALINE OHANESIAN:
Aline Ohanesian was born in Kuwait and immigrated to So. Cal at the age of three. After getting her MA in History, she abandoned her PhD studies when she realized her heart belonged to the novel. Her writing was a finalist for the PEN Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction and the Glimmer Train Best New Writers Award. Orhan’s Inheritance is her first novel and has been long listed for the Flannery-Dunnan First Book Award. An international bestseller, it's has been translated into several languages. Aline is an alumni of the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley writer's conferences. She lives and writes in San Juan Capistrano, CA with her husband and two young sons.
Hey Guys! Happy Labor Day!
A super quick episode for a holiday special: I go behind-the-scenes of my podcast and talk about awesome things, and I also touch on what needs to be improved. Listen in to get a sneak peek of some of the guests that will be featured in the upcoming weeks!
This episode is proudly sponsored by SCRIVENER. Click on the link for your special 20% off discount code that's available specially for our storyteller tribe!
Joe Lazarov is well known as the producing director of the popular GOSSIP GIRL TV series in New York and more recently a producer of POWER on the Starz Network. He was fortunate to begin his career in television working on Emmy award winning series A YEAR IN THE LIFE, CHINA BEACH andNORTHERN EXPOSURE. Joe continues to be a sought after producer having recently finished the spinoff ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND for ABC, 5 seasons of GOSSIP GIRL, TOUCHING EVIL, PSYCH, INVASION, NCIS, and LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT. In 2008, Joe began a new phase of his career with his directorial debut of Gossip Girl with the emotional episode where Chuck Bass buries his father and subsequently directed 8 more episodes. Upon Joe’s return to Los Angeles from the Gossip Girl set, he directed several episodes of the stunt filled series NINE LIVES OF CHLOE KING. Joe followed up that effort with a fun romp in HART OF DIXIE and thriller episodes of THE LYING GAME and TWISTED. Joe currently commutes between Brooklyn and Los Angeles where he lives with his wife of 20 years, 13 year old daughter, and two standard poodles.