Episode 51: Rennie Dyball

11/07/23 • 68 min

1 Listener

Rennie Dyball is an award-winning journalist, ghostwriter, middle-grade novelist and children’s book author who’s found a way to marry her lifelong interest in horses with her many and varied talents as a writer. Together with her co-author Piper Klemm, she created the popular Show Strides series of equestrian-themed novels for middle grade readers—originally published by The Plaid Horse and soon to be reissued by Andrews McMeel Universal. Rennie’s standalone novel for children, Good Boy, Eddie, was published by The Plaid Horse earlier this year.

As a ghostwriter, Rennie has helped to give voice to a number of celebrity-driven autobiographies and memoirs, including the Audible Original memoir, Stronger Together, with Terry Crews and Rebecca King Crews; Full Circle, with Andrea Barber (Kimmy Gibler from “Full House”); A Famous Dog’s Life, with Hollywood animal trainer Sue Chipperton; and, Fierce Style, with fashion designer Christian Siriano. An accomplished equestrian, Rennie has also drawn on her love of horses to collaborate on With Purpose: The Balmoral Standard, with top trainers Carleton and Traci Brooks.

Her most recent book, B Is For Bellies, a picture book celebration of body positivity, with illustrations by Mia Saine, was published by Clarion Books in July.

Rennie was a reporter and writer at People for over 15 years, before retiring from the magazine in 2017, and she continues to write for People.com as a freelance book critic.

“People was the best training ground I could imagine,” she says of her development as a writer. “More than anything, I took away the importance of making every word count.”

Join us for a winning conversation on what it takes to build a life and career out of two abiding passions—in Rennie’s case, riding and writing.

Learn more about Rennie Dyball:

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Her most recent book, B Is For Bellies, a picture book celebration of body positivity, with illustrations by Mia Saine, was published by Clarion Books in July.

Rennie was a reporter and writer at People for over 15 years, before retiring from the magazine in 2017, and she continues to write for People.com as a freelance book critic.

“People was the best training ground I could imagine,” she says of her development as a writer. “More than anything, I took away the importance of making every word count.”

Join us for a winning conversation on what it takes to build a life and career out of two abiding passions—in Rennie’s case, riding and writing.

Learn more about Rennie Dyball:

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog & Horizontal Hold
Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network
Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

Previous Episode

Episode 50: Dani Shapiro

“I’ve been obsessed with the corrosive power of secrets since my first novel,” reflects the best-selling novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro, a writer who has been mining her own secrets since she first put pen to paper.

In a far-ranging, free-wheeling interview with host Daniel Paisner, pulled from a “Book & Author Luncheon” program sponsored by the Friends of the Port Washington (N.Y.) Library in May, 2023, she reflects on her inspirations for her most recent novel Signal Fires, New York Times best-seller and National Jewish Book Award-winner now out in paperback, and for her gripping 2019 memoir Inheritance, also a New York Times best-seller and National Jewish Book Award-winner.

Her fascination with secrets is at the heart of Dani’s wildly popular podcast Family Secrets, now in its ninth season, which invites guests to examine the secrets they choose to carry and the ones they choose to share, and it is at the heart of this conversation. “We all live in aftermath, all the time,” she tells Paisner. “Aftermath is the story of our lives, really. And the question is, What do we do in that aftermath? And how does an incident or a secret that is kept impact us over a long lifetime?”

Join us as Dani Shapiro looks to answer her own question—and in the process, sheds meaningful light on the stuff of all fiction and memoir.

Learn more about Dani Shapiro:

More resources mentioned in the episode:

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Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog & Horizontal Hold
Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network
Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

Next Episode

Episode 52: Adeena Sussman

“If I’m developing a recipe for a client, or for my own books, I’m all about people telling me what they think about it, what it invokes for them, what they would do differently,” notes New York Times best-selling cookbook author Adeena Sussman about the collaborative nature of preparing recipes for readers.

If there’s anybody who knows what it means work in partnership in the kitchen, it’s Adeena Sussman—the co-author of 15 books, including the best-selling Cravings series written in collaboration with model and television personality Chrissy Teigen. Adeena is also the co-author of The Sprinkles Baking Book, written with Candace Nelson, the noted pastry chef and founder of Sprinkles cupcakes.

Adeena’s latest solo book, Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals from My Table to Yours, celebrating (and reimagining!) the traditional foods that have long graced her family’s Shabbat table, became an immediate best-seller upon publication in September 2023. The book is a follow-up to Adeena’s 2019 cookbook Sababa, named one of the best cookbooks of the year by The New York Times, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine.

A lifelong visitor to Israel who has been writing about that country’s food culture for almost twenty years, Adeena lives, cooks, and writes in Tel Aviv, in the shadow of that city’s famed Carmel Market.

Learn more about Adeena Sussman:

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