Do you have any plans for the holidays? How about taking a trip down to Columbia with today's show and you could join our special forces fellows who meet up with the Colombian paramilitary pals?

And then they fight against the rebels who are also aligned with the drug traffickers. So there's a lot of people to meet and a lot of places to go and a lot of people get killed.

Howdy? I'm Jeff Goldsmith

and this is the Q&A. My agenda is simple. Each week I plan to bring you in-depth insights into the

creative process of storytelling. And folks, yes, we have quite the trip for you today. We're looking

into Apple TV's Echo 3 with our guest, Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Bull, who has created the show and is the lead writer on the show.

And look, the show is quite a trip.

And the fact that they spent nearly a year filming in Columbia gives it a realism that you're not going to find in a lot of other television shows.

And you've got to kind of commend Apple for committing to it

like that. And without a doubt, Mark used his journalistic research skills to bring the realism that

you want from a show like this, but also a lot of good drama as well. And he was very

forthcoming about his creative process, so I know you'll dig this episode. And speaking of things to dig,

Backstory Magazine just turned 10. That's right, we have lasted a decade and we couldn't

have done it without you. Of course, now is the perfect time to become a subscriber, and it's

the holiday season. You could even give a gift subscription to Backstory Magazine. Just in our

shopping cart over at Backstory.net,

you click the little gift box in the checkout cart, and that's how you do it. And look,

you know, we just published our Wakanda Forever issue, which has a lot of award season coverage

in it, so it is a perfect time to get in and read us. If you want to see what's in the issue,

you can see our table of contents over at Backstory.net and surf around there.

And if you've never read us before, you could, of course, read our free issue at Backstory.

Or on our iPad app entitled Backstory.

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