Home > For Writers > ASJA Direct Podcast > ASJA Direct - Michael Zam

ASJA Direct - Michael Zam

Michael Zam is co-creator, writer, and producer on FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan, the smash 8-part limited series that Zam and writing partner Jaffe Cohen first wrote as a screenplay, Best Actress (Black List 2010). For Feud, they were nominated for two prime time Emmy Awards, as well Golden Globe, Producers Guild, Writers Guild, and Critics Choice Awards, and were honored with the American Film Institute Award for significant “Contribution to America’s Cultural Legacy.” Zam and Cohen have a number of film and TV projects in development, including those based on the lives of Vivien Leigh, Mama Cass, William Haines, Kate Hepburn, and Lois Weber. He also co-created a limited series with Emmy-winning director Robert Trachtenberg based on the life of one of the 20th Century’s most influential designers and photographers, Cecil Beaton. Zam wrote the book to Off-Broadway musical The Kid (music by Andy Monroe and lyrics by Jack Lechner) based on Dan Savage’s best-selling memoir, winning the Outer Critics Circle, BMI’s Jerry Bock Award, and American Theater Wing’s Jonathan Larson Prize. The Kid was also nominated for 5 Drama Desk Awards including Best Musical and Best Book for Zam, the Lucille Lortel for Best Musical, and the GLAAD Media Award for Best New York Theatrical production. Zam teaches screenwriting, TV writing, and film and theater studies at NYU and a class on British Theatre every August in London.

Click here to access the recording


In this podcast, he spoke with journalist and writing coach Estelle Erasmus about the following:

  • How he came up with the idea forFeud: Bette and Joan with his co-creater Jaffe Cohen
  • How Ryan Murphy got involved
  • Advice on screenwriting
  • How he got his start
  • His projects in development
  • What ASJA members can learn from his experience

Follow Estelle Erasmus on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and on her website for publishing advice and editor interviews

Read Estelle’s interview with Michael Zam

Read a Writer’s Digest interview on Michael Zam

Links:

NYU blogpost on Michael Zam

NOTE: Audio file can be played or downloaded for future use. The specific steps may vary depending on your system, but here are some general instructions that may help:

Windows

  • Click link above to play audio. (Internet connectivity issues can affect quality of playback so we recommend downloading file instead.) 
  • Right-click to download file (select "Save Link As..." from the right-click menu, give the file a name, and click "Save")

Mac

  • Click link above to play audio. (Internet connectivity issues can affect quality of playback so we recommend downloading file instead.) 
  • Alt-Click to save file to iTunes.
 

© 2021 American Society of Journalists and Authors | All Rights Reserved | Contact Us
  • A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.
    – Sidney Sheldon
  • A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.
    – Kenneth Tynan
  • A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self–addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
    – Ring Lardner
  • A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.
    – Marguerite Yourcenar
  • All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary – it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.
    – Somerset Maugham
  • Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
    – Christopher Hampton
  • Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.
    – Lawrence Kasdan
  • Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.
    –Wilson Mizner
  • Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
    – Flannery O'Connor
  • I just wrote a book, but don't go out and buy it yet, because I don't think it's finished yet.
    – Lawrence Welk
  • I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
    – Douglas Adams
  • I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.
    – Stephen Wright
  • It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
    – Robert Benchley
  • It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
    – Andrew Jackson
  • Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.
    – Richard Curtis
  • No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self–deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.
    – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
  • There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
    –Somerset Maugham
  • Writing a novel is like paddling from Boston to London in a bathtub. Sometimes the damn tub sinks. It's a wonder that most of them don't.
    – Stephen King
  • Writing a novel is like spelunking. You kind of create the right path for yourself. But, boy, are there so many points at which you think, absolutely, I'm going down the wrong hole here.
    – Chang–rae Lee
  • Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
    –Samuel Johnson