Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Ellen Schrader Stutts asks: How do you assign which one of you guys is responsible for each topic? I know Joel is a history teacher, but sometimes Olivia covers history topics as well. At the end of each episode, I like to guess who did it.

For the most part, episodes aren’t assigned. We have a weekly meeting online where we talk about what topics we are all interested in writing about. I keep a master list of show ideas that I’ve talked about before that anyone can pick from, or if they have their own ideas, the writers are open to pursuing those ideas as well.

I will often suggest categories that we haven’t covered in a while. If we haven’t done a profile on a country or a WWII episode in a while, I’ll mention that we are due. Likewise, I’ll throw ideas out during the meeting that anyone is welcome to take if they find them interesting.

I don’t assign specific episodes because if the writer doesn’t find it interesting, they probably won’t be motivated to write it.

I should also note that, even though I don’t credit myself, I’m the editor of every single episode. I often change words to sound more natural when spoken, and I often rewrite the introduction and the concluding paragraph. I might add or change sections to make it make more sense. In a few rare cases, I’ve had to do major surgery on a script, but that doesn’t happen very often anymore.

I have noticed, and I think both Joel and Olivia would agree, that it becomes much easier once you’ve gotten some episodes under your belt. In fact, now that I do more editing, I’ve decided I’m not going to accept any one-off script submissions, just because it takes time to get the format of the show down.