Uncovering the bizarre reality behind some of the world’s most famous stories.

A good writer can create an entire universe with nothing more than words — but what happens when real life is even more outrageous than a story in a book? Welcome to Stranger Than Fiction where every month, Eilish and her rotating co-host will investigate the intriguing world of writers and the bizarre reality behind some of the world’s most famous stories.

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Latest Ep!

Calling all Mortal Instruments readers - today on Stranger Than Fiction, Eilish Gilligan and Sohani Goonetillake cover all things Cassandra Clare, AKA Cassandra… Claire. There’s Harry Potter fandom drama from the early 2000s, fanfiction tomes that are longer than the bible, and two seperate plagiarism accusations… almost 20 years apart. Phew!

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The bestselling author accused of plagiarism... twice

Eilish Gilligan and Michelle Andrews cover one of the most interesting literary scandals of recent years - influencer Caroline Calloway, writer Natalie Beach, and the tell-all essay that blew their long-standing rivalry wide open.

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Cheating the New York Times Best Seller list

Eilish breaks down the surprising history of the New York Times Best Seller list, and the shady things some authors have done to land a spot on the list…

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The Twilight to 50 Shades of Grey pipeline

In the episode, we talk about the Twilight Saga extended universe. How exactly was 50 Shades of Grey inspired by a story about love and vampires? And how do we look back on both worlds today?

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Zoella and the ghostwriter

Zoella’s ‘Girl Online’ was so outrageously popular that it outsold career authors J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown in 2014. But people started raising eyebrows when a report came out that Zoella had the help of a ghost writer.

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The author who was fact-checked live on air

In this episode, we’re talking about Naomi Wolf, author of ‘The Beauty Myth’ and feminist icon turned… anti-vaxxer.

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The writer who faked her own death

We dive into the wild story behind self-published romance author, Susan Meachan and how she faked her own death and then “resurrected” herself, all via Facebook.

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The man who fooled Oprah

Welcome to the first episode of our new monthly series, Stranger Than Fiction. In this episode we’re going to be talking about an author named James Frey and his interesting little book, A Million Little Pieces.

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