Storybeat with Steve Cuden

Art Bell is a writer and former television executive. While at HBO, Art became known for developing and launching the Comedy Channel, which later became Comedy Central. As President of Court TV, he oversaw daily live courtroom coverage and the production of hundreds of hours of original true-crime TV series, documentaries, and movies.

Art’s memoir, Constant Comedy: "How I Started Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor",...

Rusty Austin was a reality TV show producer for over three decades and is now the author of six published books, including an illustrated children’s book series.

Rusty broke into Hollywood as a freelance electrician on dozens of movies, including Terminator 2. After a few years, he decided to give up movies because everything in the lighting and grip department weighed no less than 50 pounds.

He then spent 35 years producing reality ...

Brad Oscar is a two-time Tony Award nominee for his performances on Broadway as Franz Liebkind in Mel Brooks’ The Producers and as Thomas Nostradamus in Something Rotten!

Brad has performed in more than 15 shows on Broadway, including being in the original casts of the stage version of Schmigadoon, Mrs. Doubtfire, Big Fish, Aspects of Love, and a show I know a little bit about called Jekyll & Hyde. He’s performed in Wicked, Nice...

JJ Nelson is a Michigan native who, as a kid, made schlocky home movies with his best friend. He then built his comedic chops as an editor of his high school newspaper, writing irreverent Onion-inspired articles mocking the establishment. Somehow, he got away with all of it, diploma in hand. 

JJ honed his writing skills as an undergrad at the University of Michigan before earning an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA’s renowned School o...

Virginia DeLuca is a writer and psychotherapist. She’s the author of the award-winning novel, As If Women Mattered. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Modern Love, The Boston Globe, Vulture, The Huffington Post, the Iowa Review, and The Writer. 

Virginia’s also a graduate of GrubStreet’s 2020 Memoir Incubator.

Her most recent book is If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets, a candid, funny, and emotionally rich memoir about her...

Haris Orkin is a prolific novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and game writer.  His play Dada premiered at The La Jolla Playhouse. His feature film, A Saintly Switch, was produced by Disney and directed by the great Peter Bogdanovich. Haris has written screenplays for Universal, Sony, Fox, and Paramount.  

He’s also has written numerous video games, many of which have been nominated for the WGA and BAFTA Film Awards. Games he’s work...

Debi Derryberry is one of the most in-demand voiceover actresses in Hollywood. She’s perhaps best known for voicing Jimmy Neutron in both the Academy Award-nominated film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and in the TV series The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. Debi’s also played dozens of memorable characters in features like the original Toy Story in which she’s one of the aliens, The Boy and the Heron, Despicable Me 2, Kiki’s D...

The highly renowned classical clarinetist, David Singer, has performed many times at Carnegie Hall. He was a principal member and soloist with the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for 36 years and is featured on many of the group’s 70 CDs on Deutsche Grammophon. 

David began with Orpheus when the group was playing for free. He has played with many of the world’s greatest classical musicians, including legends like Yehu...

Mark Mangini is a six-time Oscar-nominated, two-time Oscar-winning Sound Designer. He won his Oscars for Dune and Mad Max Fury Road. Mark’s also well known for designing sound for numerous films, including: Blade Runner 2049, Star Treks I, IV and V, Beauty and the Beast, TheFifthElement, Space Jam, Poltergeist,Gremlins, Aladdin, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, among many more.

Mark has spent his 49-year career in Hollywood imagining an...

Christopher Fryer is the co-author of the books Jack Nicholson: The Early Years; Bruce Dern: Things I Said, but Probably Shouldn’t Have, and Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father’s Unsolved Murder.

Chris’s non-fiction work has also appeared in Conde-Nast Traveler, Playboy, and the New York Times.

I’ve read Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father’s Unsolved Murder, and have chatted about it once before on StoryBeat with Chris’s writing pa...

Joe Wos is the 6-time Emmy Award-winning creator and host of “Cartoon Academy” as seen on PBS affiliates nationwide.

Joe’s been a professional cartoonist since the age of 14. Over the past 35 years, as he’s sought new and innovative ways to pursue his passion for the cartoon arts, his career path has taken as many twists and turns as one of his wonderful mazes. For example, he spent 30 years touring the U.S. as a performer, illustra...

The award-winning author, TEDx speaker, screenwriter, Gestalt practitioner, and patient advocate, Risa August, has been living with a pituitary tumor and the rare disease acromegaly for over a decade.  From being a girl with sparkles in her hair to an Ironman athlete, Risa still has a passion for her bike and barbells. With genuine curiosity and a love for trying new (and old) things, you may find Risa taking Bollywood or Hip-Hop d...

The rock and roll legend, Billy J. Kramer, grew up in Bootle, a Liverpool suburb.  Upon leaving school, he became a trainee engineer by day and aspiring singer by night, performing under the stage name Billy Kramer. Billy’s performances at local rock clubs around Liverpool soon brought him to the attention of the one and only John Lennon.  John urged Brian Epstein to sign Billy to an exclusive management contract.  Billy jumped at ...

Charlie Adlard has been a veteran of the comics industry for over 25 years. From 2003 to 2019 he spent the majority of his time drawing The Walking Dead through the conclusion of its run as a comic book series. He received many industry awards for his work on the series, culminating in winning the 2019 Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art.

In his time as a cartoonist, Charlie has worked on many other proje...

Lorie Kleiner Eckert thinks of herself as a cheerleader with the message: life is difficult, but you can handle it!

For ten years, she worked as a motivational speaker, addressing more than 22,000 people during more than 250 appearances in 11 states. She’s spoken to every sort of group from PTAs to Procter & Gamble. What makes her programs unique is that they’re illustrated by her artwork, quilts with words and symbols pieced in...

Pia Mailhot-Leichter is a creative partner, published author, certified coach, and entrepreneur. Her path has been anything but ordinary: a recovering nomad, she’s reported as a journalist in Sri Lanka, graduated summa cum laude from NYU, and worked as an award-winning creative director for some of the biggest brands in the world. Now, as the founder of Kollektiv Studio, through creative partnership, from storytelling to coaching, ...

Barry Greenfield began his musical ride in 1965 when he was just 15 years old. Over the subsequent decades, Barry has become a greatly appreciated, old-school, singer songwriter, with three number one records, twenty-five plus covers, and life as a touring musician and storyteller. 

He actually walked away from the music business in the mid-70s saying, “it’s not for me,” and yet he remained a dedicated songwriter and performer, rele...

Paul Chitlik is appearing on StoryBeat for the third time. Paul is a truly gifted storyteller and teacher who has written screenplays, novels, and non-fiction, including writing for all the major networks and studios in both English and in Spanish.   

Paul’s been a story editor, director, and producer in both TV and features. He was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for "The Twilight Zone" and a GLAAD Media Aw...