Episode 64 — Noah Hawley

Summary: Noah Hawley is the guest. He's the author of several books, the most recent of which is a novel called THE GOOD FATHER, now available from Doubleday. He's also an accomplished writer and producer in film and television. He wrote and produced the television show 'Bones,' and created the shows 'The Unusuals' and 'My Generation.' He also wrote the screenplay for the feature film 'Lies and Alibis.' Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, has this to say about THE GOOD FATHER: "The father of a man who assassinates a presidential candidate tries to make sense of his son’s crime in Hawley’s gripping new novel…With great skill, Hawley renders Dr. Allen’s treacherous emotional geography, from his shock and guilt to his growing sense that he knows far less about his son than he thought…Hawley’s complicated protagonist is a fully fathomed and beautifully realized character whose emotional growth never slows a narrative that races toward a satisfying and touching conclusion." Great to have Noah on the program. Topics of conversation include: San Francisco, screenwriting, pitch meetings, getting to yes, speakerphones, being good in a room, sales, storytelling, segues, humor, efficiency, character, universality, commercial fiction, Mark Leyner, Hollywood, New York, My Generation, cancellation, adversity, fear, risk, conformity, bitterness, industriousness, Austin, ABC, BBC, studios, networks, notes, collaboration, show runners, Mississippi, specificity, break-ins, Stripes, anti-heroes, Bill Murray, age, teaching, exit strategies, fickleness, and selling fruit on the side of the road. Monologue topics: neurotic thinking, second-guessing, elevators, conversation, and micro-expressions of pain. This episode of Other People is brought to you by the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, the largest open-enrollment creative writing and screenwriting program in the nation. For more info, please visit www.uclaextension.edu/writers.