Off the Bike, At the Desk: Working With Joan Lunden

What I’ve Been Up To (Beyond Buckskin)

While Buckskin Rides Again keeps rolling out each Sunday, I wanted to pause midweek to share some publishing news and a few thoughts for anyone considering writing a memoir.

Since Joan Lunden’s new memoir cover was revealed, one question has come at me over and over: “Is Joan as nice in real life as she is on TV?”

The answer is yes! She’s warm, approachable, perceptive—the same Joan you remember from morning television.

But here’s what people don’t ask, and what I want to talk about: Joan Lunden is a workhorse.

Beauty vs. Work (and Why That’s a False Choice)

When I scroll through Joan’s Instagram feed, most of the comments gush about her looks. And of course, she’s always been striking—she won the genetic lottery, no question.

But here’s the quiet bias at work: our culture, women included, often assumes an attractive, charismatic woman can’t also be a serious grinder. As if beauty and stamina cancel each other out.

That assumption does Joan (and many women like her) a disservice.

When we began working together a year ago, Joan was already “locked and loaded.” She had spent several years shaping the bones of her memoir: recreating timelines, verifying headlines, and combing through the hundreds of sources that documented her extraordinary life.

Once we partnered, she poured herself into the work. Nights, weekends, whatever it took. She wasn’t phoning it in—she was catching spacing errors, noticing details in the proof others had missed, and pushing herself through the hardest revisions.

She’s the only author I’ve worked with who read the entire book aloud. Every. Single. Word. And that commitment led us to a major rewrite. Writers take note: there’s no substitute for reading your work aloud.

I collaborate with many kinds of authors. Some are brilliant but pressed for time. Others don’t have the stamina to stay with the long, slow process of bookmaking. Joan? She brought both talent and tenacity. That’s why this book shines.

A Glimpse Inside Joan’s Memoir

Here’s a passage from the introduction that stuck with me:

When I left Good Morning America after twenty years, a reporter asked me, “After being in a role like this, do you think you’ll ever be able to top it?”

Rude, right? But also . . . a fair question.

Twenty-five years later, I guess the answer is no.

Not that I needed to top it—or even wanted to.

The truth is, I didn’t chase the next big TV gig in earnest. Instead, my career morphed, evolved, and expanded in ways I never expected. And maybe that’s the real story here: reinvention, resilience, and what happens when you step off a fast track and into the unknown.

Don’t you love how Joan flips the question? The reporter wanted to know if she’d ever “top” her GMA years—as if the only way forward was up some imaginary ladder of prestige. Instead, she shows us that a life can be richer, more interesting, and more meaningful when you step off the fast track.

This is the Joan I worked with: not just a polished TV personality, but a woman who lives resilience and reinvention every day—and who put that same stamina into writing this book.

Preorder JOAN: Life Beyond The Script

Meanwhile, On the Road with Buckskin…

If you joined this community more recently (welcome! I’m glad you’re here), you may have missed some of the early miles in Buckskin Rides Again:

Each Sunday brings a new leg of the 4,820-mile journey, but it’s never too late to catch up. All the dispatches are right here.