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 episodes of the How I Write show go live every week on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.com/DavidPerellChannel.

Episodes

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

March 18, 2026 • 85 mins

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.com Do 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 a...

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Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters | How I Write

March 11, 2026 • 71 mins

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.com Michael 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 ...

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Steven Pressfield: What All Great Stories Have in Common | How I Write

March 4, 2026 • 70 mins

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.com Steven 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 transc...

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

February 26, 2026 • 62 mins

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.com Robert 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...

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

February 18, 2026 • 47 mins

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.com Bill 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. Enj...

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

February 12, 2026 • 45 mins

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 ever...

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

February 4, 2026 • 63 mins

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 h...

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Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar: How Train Dreams Became a Film | How I Write

January 28, 2026 • 75 mins

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...

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

January 21, 2026 • 69 mins

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,...

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

January 14, 2026 • 52 mins

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...

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

January 7, 2026 • 69 mins

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, a...

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Adrian Tchaikovsky: How to Write Absurdly Well | How I Write

December 31, 2025 • 65 mins

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 yo...

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

December 26, 2025 • 80 mins

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....

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Henry Shukman: How to Tell Stories Through Poetry | How I Write

December 17, 2025 • 81 mins

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...

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Ward Farnsworth: 14 Ways To Make Your Writing Memorable | How I Write Classic Episode

December 10, 2025 • 61 mins

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/ Chec...

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My Top 10 Writing Lessons from 2025

December 3, 2025 • 51 mins

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 fo...

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Jonathan Franzen: How to Write Truly Great Characters | How I Write

November 26, 2025 • 64 mins

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 ...

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Atul Gawande: How to Use Writing to Improve Your Thinking | How I Write

November 19, 2025 • 64 mins

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 sur...

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Brandon Stanton: Meet The Creator of “Humans of New York” | How I Write

November 12, 2025 • 68 mins

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 peopl...

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David Grann: How to Write Non-Fiction That Reads Like Fiction | How I Write

November 5, 2025 • 84 mins

Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell David Grann: one of the best storytellers alive today and an absolute master at narrative nonfiction. You might know him from "Killers of the Flower Moon", which Martin Scorsese turned into a film. And then there's "The Wager"; I can't think of a single book that more people I know have said that they just read the entire thing, from start to finish, in one sitting. So what is...

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How I Write

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jon Yaged: How to Get Your Book Published | How I Write

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters | How I Write

Steven Pressfield: What All Great Stories Have in Common | How I Write

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

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

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

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

Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar: How Train Dreams Became a Film | How I Write

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

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

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

Adrian Tchaikovsky: How to Write Absurdly Well | How I Write

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

Henry Shukman: How to Tell Stories Through Poetry | How I Write

Ward Farnsworth: 14 Ways To Make Your Writing Memorable | How I Write Classic Episode

My Top 10 Writing Lessons from 2025

Jonathan Franzen: How to Write Truly Great Characters | How I Write

Atul Gawande: How to Use Writing to Improve Your Thinking | How I Write

Brandon Stanton: Meet The Creator of “Humans of New York” | How I Write

David Grann: How to Write Non-Fiction That Reads Like Fiction | How I Write

Popular Podcasts

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

Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters | How I Write