The best podcasts for engaging with other artists and creatives and game-changers

Daniel Paisner is a journalist, author and podcaster, with more than 80 books to his credit, including 17 New York Times best-sellers. He is the “voice” of Serena Williams, Steve Aoki, John Kasich, Whoopi Goldberg, Denzel Washington, Ray Lewis, Ron Darling, Gilbert Gottfried, Anthony Quinn and dozens of other name-above-the-title celebrities. He is the winner of two NAACP Image Awards for his work with Shark Tank panelist and serial entrepreneur Daymond John, and his novel “A Single Happened Thing” was named an Indies Finalist as best book of the year by the editors of Foreword Reviews. He has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, ESPN: The Magazine and on National Public Radio. New York magazine once called him “the world’s most prolific ghost,” which may or may not have been a compliment. Since 2021, he has been hosting "AS TOLD TO: The Ghostwriting Podcast," a series of deep-dive conversations with his fellow collaborators - songwriters, speechwriters, comedy writers and ghostwriters... basically anyone who puts his or her talents to work in service of someone else's voice and vision. The show is a production of the Writers Bone Podcast Network His latest novel, "Balloon Dog," the story of the bungled theft of a Jeff Koons sculpture, was published by Koehler Books in 2022. His 1992 fly-on-the-wall account of the bungled development of a CBS sitcom pilot, "Horizontal Hold," was reissued in a new edition by Cutting Edge Books in 2023. The book, now called "SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot," features a new introduction by the author, and an afterword by television writer and pop culture journalist Phoef Sutton. When I step away from my own work, I like to listen to intelligent conversations with writers, artists and creative thinkers, sharing their inspirations, frustrations and hesitations. (Oh, and it helps if they're in their hands of a gifted interviewer and committed conversationalist.)

On "AS TOLD TO," we seek to understand what it means to build and sustain a writing life, through conversations with some of publishing's top ghostwriters, as well as with artists and creatives committed to helping others share their stories.

Compelling conversations with compelling people who are interested in understanding how they've come to do what they do, why they choose to keep doing it, and how they might do it better.