Category Archives for Writers’ Rough Drafts

Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #54 With Tucker Max

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Tucker Max is a New York Times best-selling author, producer and screenwriter, entrepreneur and publisher, and occasional blogger. His first book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, not only hit No. 1 on the Times list, but was also made into a major motion picture; it, and Max himself, are also credited with founding the modern literary genre known as “fratire.” 

But in 2012, Max retired publicly from telling tales of drunken debauchery, in his book Hilarity Ensues. Since then, he has gone on to found the wildly successful publishing company Scribe Writing (formerly Book in a Box)—which helps entrepreneurs and authors write, self-publish, and market their own best-sellers (their tagline is brilliantly “we turn ideas into books”)—and ghostwrite Tiffany Haddish’s best-selling memoir The Last Black Unicorn. 

The 4 Biggest Takeaways from Season 4 of Writers’ Rough Drafts

Season 5 of Writers’ Rough Drafts is right around the corner (coming Tuesday, September 3rd), and we can’t wait to share more exciting conversations with writers, entrepreneurs, and creatives from so many different industries. 

But before we dive into our next round of guests, we wanted to look back at Season 4 and revisit the biggest takeaways of the season. 

Whether it was breaking down the mysteries of how to write a book or sharing why you need to get feedback from people you trust, all of our guests had invaluable words of advice for aspiring professional writers and entrepreneurs that can directly apply to their lives. 

Here are some of the most common themes that popped up throughout Season 4.

Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #53 With Scott Barry Kaufman

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Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is a cognitive scientist interested in the development of intelligence, creativity, and personality. He is an author with multiple titles on his bookshelf, including Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined; Twice Exceptional: Supporting and Educating Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties; Mating Intelligence Unleashed: The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love; The Psychology of Creative Writing; and my personal favorite, Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind. In addition to conducting research, lecturing as a professor, and writing or editing over half a dozen books in the past decade, he is also a prolific essayist at publications and websites like Scientific American, Psychology Today, The Atlantic, and Neurohacker Collective.

Though much of his work is often characterized by redefining and understanding intelligence, he staunchly advocates for doing this in a way that also celebrates the creative and innovative. Through his work as the scientific director of The Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and his leadership in co-founding The Creativity Post, among the many projects he advises on or leads, he is constantly looking for new and interesting ways that intelligence, creativity, and personality complement and align in ways that can lead to meaning and even some happiness.

Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #52 With Shakira Pressley

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Shakira Pressley is a screenwriter, producer, and actress with a specialty in and love for all things animated. With a bachelor’s degree in digital filmmaking and video, she has written for such television shows as “Keller Nation” and Cartoon Network’s “Craig of the Creek.” In addition to TV work, she has also worked on CMF at Cannes’ award-winning short films like “4H,” “Margaret Mage,” and “Rainbow Roller Rink.”

Like most writers in Hollywood, when she isn’t creating storylines and plot twists, she’s acting or providing voice talent to get her work out to audiences. As she notes on her website, she’s “just a person attempting to do adult things so that I can have a job that allows me to do kid things.”