(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Profound loss affects you and it never goes away.

It's part of what defines me.

My sister took her life in 1980.

That was a long time ago.

But, you know, it's still fresh in many ways.

My youngest son died of a heroin overdose in 2011.

And, you know, he was only 22.

And, you know, in many ways it feels like yesterday, even though it was more than 14 years ago.

That just sticks with you.

And I think it's a sobering kind of thing.

I can't tell you how much I've learned just by listening.

Guys need to listen to the women in their life.

There were, you know, a couple of times women have told me they've been in a meeting with a bunch of guys and they'll give a suggestion.

You know, I think we should do this.

Total silence.

Two people later, some guy will say the same thing, word for word, and everybody goes, oh, yeah, great idea.

Yeah, she wants the truth.

She's no frills, no bullshit.

Great, answer the question.

And that's the type of journalist we need, right?

What's good, everybody?

It's your guy, Jojo Simmons, and this is the For Good Podcast, where we focus on the good, never the bad.

And we're measured by what we do, not what we have.

Today's guest is someone whose story really inspired me.

John Dedekis is an award-winning journalist, author, and writing coach who spent decades in the newsroom, including as a senior copy editor on Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer at CNN, covering some of the biggest moments in history.

After years of telling other people's stories, John started writing his own, creating the Lark Chadwick Mystery Series, inspired by his time in journalism and his understanding of truth, loss, and perseverance.

But what really stands out about John isn't just his career, it's his heart.

He's walked through deep personal loss, losing both his sister and his son tragically, and has since turned that pain into purpose, using his platform to speak openly about grief, healing, and mental health.

This conversation is about resilience, storytelling, and how we keep fighting, finding light, even through the darkest moments.

John, welcome to the For Good podcast, brother.

I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you, Jojo.

It's good to be here.

Yeah, man, I'm excited to get into all the things you've done and all the things you continue to do and the story that continues to inspire many.

So we'll jump right into it, John.

My first question for you is, when people ask, what do you do?

How do you introduce yourself now?

Journalist, author, teacher, or something else entirely different?

Whoa, hadn't really thought about that.

We start off pretty strong on the For Good podcast.

I start off by saying, hi, I'm John.

Who are you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, you try not to overwhelm someone with your past because, God, I'm so old.

But, I mean, if you were to ask me to define it, I would say that I'm a novelist, a writing coach, a manuscript editor, and a motivational speaker.

Wow, I love it.

It sounds like a man that wears many hats, but has been able to succeed with those many hats on.

So that's really cool.

So I've seen you spend years at CNN, including as a senior copy editor on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

What was life like behind the scenes in that newsroom, talking about that part of your life?

Well, The Situation Room was, the basic concept was happening now.

We mostly covered geopolitical events, you know, wars, elections, you know, the major kinds of things.

And even though we had a rundown, we had an idea of where the show was going to go, often things would change all throughout the day, including while the show was on the air.

And so, you know, we were on edge all the way through, because of the fluidity of the day's news.

And Wolf was a master, unflappable.

You know, he would be ready to go in one direction, and during a commercial, they'd say, oh, we're going to drop that, we're going this way, and he'd handle it without complaint, just like a pro.

He's a pro's pro, a journalist's journalist.

So he was a master pivoter.

He knew how to pivot, he knew how to think on his feet, and he knew how to work in a fast-paced environment.

Totally.

In fact, there's a great story that goes with this.

There was a time, you may or may not remember Anna Nicole Smith.

She was a former Playboy playmate, she was a billionaire, 90-year-old guy, and she was found dead.

And so CNN was covering it wall to wall during the afternoon, because all we knew is that she'd been found dead.

We didn't know any of the circumstances.

Well, that's not in the wheelhouse of the Situation Room.

So just before we went on the air, Wolf said, well, we'll do 25 seconds on it and then we'll move on, because we already had our plan.

And New York said, no, we're going to keep going wall to wall with this.

So Wolf goes on the air, the guest bookings department just throws all the people at him that they can who are experts on her, and he's just following his journalistic curiosity.

Who was this person?

Why is she important?

Why do we care?

And on the way down in the elevator after the show, he and I were talking and he said, I didn't know who this person was at all.

So he's just following his curiosity.

And he said, somebody showed me her picture in Playboy.

She was hot.

I love that too sometimes, and not to say that it's cool to not know who somebody is, but when you don't know who somebody is and you are given that task to go do that research real quick, to go find out who they are.

So you can actually be curious yourself as an interviewer or somebody that's talking about it.

Sometimes my team brings me people on this show and it's like, hey, we got this person that does this.

And I'm like, I haven't heard this name, but give me their bio.

Let me go look them up.

And then I'll get excited and enthusiastic about interviewing the person.

I was like, okay, my team is picking the right people for me to speak to.

And they're so interesting.

You know what I mean?

That's exactly it.

And then what you do as an interviewer is you follow your curiosity.

You don't have to have the answers.

That's why God created questions.

I don't think that's the greatest interviewers are the ones that are curious, right?

Because now they're asking questions that other people want to know, questions that they want to know, and it becomes more of a conversation than an interview.

And that's why I love doing this.

You know what I mean?

So working in such a fast-paced, high -stakes environment, how did that shape the way you think about truth and storytelling?

Well, I've always been a big fan of the truth.

And that goes all the way back to when I first started in journalism back in the late 60s.

And by this time, Nixon was president, didn't have a reputation for being particularly honest.

And so right from the beginning, I was concerned about being able to hold public officials to account.

The transition to fiction didn't happen until I'd been at CNN.

So I'd been a reporter for, I don't know, at least 20 years.

I was a White House correspondent when Reagan was president.

And when I got to CNN, they made me an editor, which was, it paid well, but it was tedious.

It was fault-finding, and that's when I needed a creative outlet.

And that's when I began to write fiction.

But the same principle is involved.

Not so much the truth, but you want to tell the truth of what the actual story is.

And the skills that you bring over from journalism have to do with just writing succinctly, being able to write fast, and being a clear writer.

So speaking about your time at CNN and all the things you did there, the media landscape has changed a lot since your time there.

How do you feel journalism has evolved, for better or for worse?

Well, to a certain extent, it has devolved.

I mean, I'm still a fan of CNN.

They've gone through a lot of changes.

During the first Trump administration, some of the anchors were saying things I never would have let on the air because they were taking a position, and that's not their job.

I think what really has happened, technology has always driven journalism.

And that goes to the invention of the printing press and the typewriter and the microphone and the camera.

All these things, these innovations, have influenced how journalists do their job, how quickly they're able to get the news out there.

Well, we are now in a situation where you've got the Internet, which means that anyone with a phone who pushes send or post is a publisher.

But there's no one on their shoulder going, where'd you get that?

How do you know that's true?

Which is what happens in a traditional, reputable news organization.

People don't understand the levels of editing that are required before something gets on the air or gets in print.

And so we are now deluged with falsehoods.

And sadly, some of them are coming from the administration, from the president himself, who, and I don't mean to be partisan, but it is just demonstrably true.

This guy lies reflexively.

And it means that reputable journalists need to hold him account.

But the problem with that is, holding him to account, I just did an interview with a guy who said Caitlin Collins, who is one of CNN's White House correspondents, she plays it straight ahead.

When Trump calls her a nasty person, she doesn't get rattled.

She doesn't take the bait.

And yet the guy who was interviewing me said, she's a bitch, because of the way she asks questions.

No, I said, she's doing her job.

She's doing her job.

Yeah, she wants the truth.

She's no frills, no bullshit, straight answer the question.

And that's the type of journalist we need, right?

So speaking about, you spoke a little bit about social media and what it's doing to the media landscape.

I think about young journalists, and I'd love to know how, what do you think these young journalists need to understand about credibility and responsibility in this era of social media and instant news?

Well, I think it's really important for people to understand that no one party, no one side, no one person has the absolute corner on the truth.

There are statesmen on both the left and the right, and a good journalist is there to inform, not persuade.

Your job as a journalist is to get the facts, be accurate, be clear, be fair.

And so I think that's the main responsibility of journalists.

And it just means that you have to be much more willing to withhold judgment and to be willing to talk to people you don't agree with.

There are basic standards for journalism.

They never went away.

And it's just a matter for a young journalist to realize your job is not to persuade, it's to inform.

Yeah, I think that's important too.

I think there is a culture of some journalists trying to persuade rather than inform.

And I think as a journalist, they hold that responsibility to give us the facts and let us have our opinion on that, right?

So, yeah.

Let me clarify one thing.

Most newspapers have editorial pages.

That's where the opinions are.

And usually the editorial writers started as straight -ahead journalists.

They already know how to get a story, how to be fair, and what has now happened is they've earned the right to be heard.

And so, it's understandable that part of journalism is persuasive, but not just the facts reporting.

That's a whole different thing.

I love that.

So, you would say that a lot of experienced journalists probably go into editorial after a while, would you say?

I would say not.

I mean, not everyone.

Some leave the business entirely.

Some go into public relations.

I left day-to-day journalism in 2013.

When Trump ran for president the first time, I'd been out of day-to-day journalism.

My kids did not know how I voted.

I was a registered independent.

But I started taking a position, posting pushback posts on Facebook and places like that, pushing against the lies.

Journalists are enemies of the American people, Trump says.

No, they're not.

And so, I was a little uncomfortable getting out on a limb like that because that's not where my comfort zone is.

So, I'm in a sense a former day -to-day journalist, but I do have some experience covering politicians.

You spoke about a couple of questions ago, you kind of getting into fiction.

And I want to know, after decades reporting and editing real stories, what made you decide to shift towards writing fiction?

Well, I needed a creative outlet.

And the interesting thing is I didn't just automatically shift to fiction.

I first started researching a biography of a friend of mine who'd been murdered.

And so, it was just the facts, but it was just a long-form project.

But what was happening is that it was expensive, it was time-consuming because I was traveling.

I was digging up information about him that his family didn't know and they were uncomfortable with what I was finding.

And so, they asked me to back off, at least for a while.

And my wife at the time basically thought I was kind of obsessed with this project anyway.

And so, she suggested that I take some of my research and pour it into fiction.

I can do that in my jammies, plus I get to make things up.

And so, it was sort of by necessity.

I needed a creative outlet.

I already had something going and I just started to fictionalize it and embellish and I really went in another different direction altogether.

You know, that's what I will say I like about fiction is, yes, it's fiction, but a lot of it is based off of some truths, right?

A lot of it is based off of experience.

A lot of it is based off of stories that you may have heard and you want to bend the truth a little bit or you want to make it a little more entertaining or more interesting or whatever that is.

But that's why I love fiction because even behind fiction, I feel like there's facts.

Absolutely.

Would you say that?

I would, and I teach writing.

And one of the classes I teach is on how to write a memoir, which is autobiographical, it's a thematic, something from your personal life.

But often, my students come from a situation where, you know, there was abuse or there was some criminality or there were some things that might embarrass other people or they're just in a position not to know everything that they would want to know about whatever it is they're researching.

And so one of the bits of advice I give is to fictionalize it because, you know, you may have a great story about your grandma and grandpa, but, you know, they're not around anymore to answer all your follow -up questions.

And so there just comes a limit as to how much you really know.

But, you know, you know what it's like to be in love.

So, you know, you take your own personal experience and imagine what it might have been like, you know, when grandpa decided to kiss grandma for the first time, you know, just to give you one example.

Yeah, no, I get it.

Yeah, that's a good example.

Your Lark Chadwick series follows a young female journalist navigating truth, ambition, and loss.

What inspired her story and why tell it through her lens?

Good question.

And I didn't set out to start writing as a woman in any kind of calculated way.

It's okay.

Yeah, I think that's probably better.

But when I started writing fiction, someone suggested that I should write in a way that stretches who I am.

Never been a woman, at least not in this life.

And so I gave it a try, and I discovered that emotions are not gender specific.

We all have the exact same emotions.

It's just that the women in my life are more willing to share their emotions, and they're more articulate about the emotions they share.

They're more willing to show their emotions.

And so I found writing as a woman to be fascinating.

Plus, I was surrounded by young women at CNN.

For 25 years I was there, and many of them were in their early to mid -20s, and they'd let me ask them questions about what's it like to be a woman.

So that made it easier for you, like not to cut you off, but because I say it's hard to write as a woman.

We're not women.

We're men.

Of course, we've married.

We know women.

We know girls.

So there's a perspective we can get from talking to them and being around them and understanding them, but I'm sure it was hard not being a woman doing that.

Well, it was, but there were so many commonalities, and yet there was one woman I worked with, gorgeous, and I remember asking her, what's it like for guys to be coming onto you all the time?

And she said, I never have to worry about being safe in a conversation with a woman, and that's when I realized that being a woman, at least in part, means playing defense.

So it was those little tidbits that I picked up, and then a lot of these women became beta readers for me, reading early drafts of the manuscript to let me know if I got it right or wrong.

I love that, and I love that you wrote through the lens of a woman.

I always thought that was so interesting, a man that could take on that task and do a good job at it.

I come from the music space, and I always thought men writing for women and being able to succeed and write really good rap verses or whatever was so interesting, because you were able to go inside of a woman's mind, a woman's life, and really sound like a woman, or sound like you're speaking about how a woman would speak.

So I always thought that was very fascinating, that a man would take the time to not only want to write in a woman's lens, but to understand a woman, to be around women, to ask questions, to be curious, to try to get it right.

I think it gives us more compassion towards women, too.

Well, I mean, I think I'm a better man for this, and two, I can't tell you how much I've learned just by listening.

Guys need to listen to the women in their life.

A couple of times, women have told me they've been in a meeting with a bunch of guys, and they'll give a suggestion.

You know, I think we should do this.

Total silence.

Two people later, some guy will say the same thing, word for word, and everybody goes, oh, yeah, great idea.

The women are invisible.

And it's, I mean, think of this.

It's only been the last hundred years that women have had the right to vote.

You know, the country was founded in 1776.

It took until 1920-something for women to get the right to vote.

What's wrong with that picture?

Yeah, a lot.

A lot is wrong with that picture, especially how much women have shown us how strong they are, how intelligent they are, how much of, you know, trailblazers they are, leaders, creatives, and you name it.

Anything you can do, they can do better, in some cases, I would say, right?

That's pretty much it.

Yeah, I think you got it.

You got it.

So do you find that fiction sometimes allows you to tell deeper emotional truths than journalism ever could?

Sure, definitely.

Because journalism is, for the most part, just the facts.

Now, journalism has evolved.

There are now more documentaries, and people can emote more freely on the screen.

There's a great story.

One of my writer friends tells.

She's an Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter in Boston, Hank Phillippe Ryan.

And she's also written several, you know, best -selling novels, won 27 Emmys at least.

And she talks about when she was a young reporter.

She and I are roughly the same age.

And she and I had a similar experience of wanting to cover a story from an emotional perspective.

And in both cases, our news director said, well, you know, that's not news.

And then it wasn't until Oprah came along and showed that the, you know, the emotional dimension of people is really where the stories are, because that's where you're getting to motive.

That's where you're getting to the point where why people act the way they do.

And so Oprah finally made it fashionable for journalists to do the human interest kind of stories.

You know, and I also think it's because emotion is a chance for real human connection.

We all deal with emotions.

We all have emotions.

So when you can read that emotion on a page, you can connect to something.

You can relate to something.

And I think it just makes it for a better read when it doesn't feel like it's not authentic, but when you can really tap into that emotion, I feel like the person reading it taps into that emotion and they're like, oh, I've felt that before.

I know this feeling, you know what I mean?

So that's why I think it is important.

And it's cool to know that somebody like Oprah was able to really open up that lane in journalism to show people that like, hey, the person matters.

The story matters, but the person is really what matters in the story, right?

Because that is the story.

It's the people.

It's people who are the story in many cases.

Even if you've got, you know, a plane crash or something like that, there's the human dimension.

Yeah.

We're going to talk about some real stuff.

You've been pretty real so far, man.

Yeah, but now we're going to go a little bit deeper about your life and some losses.

And I hope I have been real.

And you know, this conversation has been amazing.

Well, I'm enjoying it too.

Oh, thank you.

Me too, bro.

I hope we get to meet up in person too one day and continue more conversations.

You've been open about losing both your sister and your son tragically.

How did those experiences change the way you approach your work and your life?

Well, a profound loss affects you and it never goes away.

It's part of what defines me.

My sister took her life in 1980.

That was a long time ago.

But, you know, it's still fresh in many ways.

My youngest son died of a heroin overdose in 2011.

And, you know, he was only 22.

And, you know, in many ways it feels like yesterday, even though it was more than 14 years ago.

That just sticks with you.

And I think it's a sobering kind of thing.

I think it makes you a little more empathetic to other people.

You know, there's sympathy and there's empathy.

Sympathy is, oh, yeah, I understand what you mean.

Empathy is, I feel it.

And that sticks with you.

There's an emotional connection that you have with anyone who is in pain.

You said grief is something you learn to live with, not get over.

What does that process look like for you now, years later?

Because you said it still feels still fresh to you.

What does that process look for you, the grieving process, even now?

Well, you put your finger on it.

It's a process.

And it's ongoing.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross pioneered the whole stages of grief.

And it's five stages, and I'll get them wrong.

It's anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Oh, I got it.

You got them.

You got them.

You got all five.

And I interviewed her at a press conference years ago when I was a young reporter.

And one of the points she made, she made two points.

One is we all go through grief every day when the alarm clock goes off.

You know, bargaining, 10 more minutes.

You know, anger, do I have to get up, all that, until we get up, acceptance.

But the other point that she made is that when we're going through this process, it's not a rigid step-by-step thing.

We can go through all those stages in minutes, including acceptance.

And even though acceptance is certainly the goal, it's realistic, there's a sixth stage that was uncovered by one of her associates, David Kessler, who's written, he wrote a couple of books with her.

And then after he died, one of his sons died.

And so he wrote a book called Finding Meaning, the sixth stage of grief.

And I think that makes a lot of sense.

And that probably is where I am now in the process because I look back at the six mystery, suspense, thriller novels that I've written, all of them, my protagonist, Lark Chadwick, is dealing with grief from page one.

And so that has defined her and that subplot and that subterranean psychological dimension to her character travels throughout all six books.

And so in a sense, I'm processing it as I'm writing the novels.

I love that sixth one is finding purpose, finding meaning.

Talk about writing about it.

When you speak or teach about writing through grief, what do you hope people walk away understanding?

You're asking really, really excellent questions.

Thank you.

I would like them to understand that there's no one way to grieve and there's no right way to grieve.

It's gonna be personal.

And I think that you need to give yourself permission to cry.

I wish guys did that more.

Yeah, I agree.

We tend to hold it in.

We hold them back.

Yeah, we hold them back.

And yet when you think about it, I can't think of many exceptions to the rule of the mass shooter just about every mass shooter is a guy.

And my hunch is that what's going on there is that in all of those cases, to one degree or another, there's unresolved grief and pain and anger.

And what ends up happening is it doesn't go away if you don't cry.

It stays inside, it festers, it corrodes to the point where when it surfaces, the tears have become bullets.

Yeah.

So it's just a matter of getting it out there, processing it, and all of that.

I don't know if that answers your question.

No, the tears become bullets was deep because that's basically saying your anger, your sadness, it blows up.

It turns into something that can be unsafe for not only yourself, but for everybody else around you and extending, right?

So I love that you said your tears can become bullets.

And you nailed it with, we hold back on crying, but I believe men should cry more.

I've probably cried on this podcast three times.

We were like 30 episodes in, and it made me feel good.

I was happy.

Every time I cried, I'd call my team.

I'm like, did you get it?

I cried, and I loved it.

Make sure it gets in there because I think it's important.

But I'm so glad you're saying that because, correct me if I'm wrong, it's an emotional safety valve.

It really is an emotional cleanser.

It's like a weight off your shoulder when you cry.

It feels like you've released not only tears, but you've released all those feelings and emotions that you're feeling when you cry.

Or when you just say it's okay to let these tears out.

I'm not saying cry all day, 24 hours, but let the tears out.

Let the tears out.

And I think many people just feel so much better when they let them out because I'm saying off my personal experience, I always feel better when I cry.

I always feel better after I cry.

And it's not like, oh, I'm so soft, I'm crying.

I'm tough as they come.

I'm tough as nails.

I'm in the gym, I'm lifting weights.

But that crying aspect is powerful.

I think crying is more powerful than conversation sometimes.

And that's just me.

I think just sitting there crying and letting it out, it's more powerful at times.

That's me too.

I would agree 100%.

I went through grief counseling when my youngest son died and I didn't go through counseling when my sister died.

And that was a really freeing experience.

And I think it really helped strengthen me to live life and to move forward in my life.

I feel like I get stronger every time a tear drops, not going to lie.

It strengthens me every time.

I feel like I must be Popeye and that's my spinach, just crying.

I'm ready to go.

So I want to talk about something that we talk about here a lot on the podcast and I love to speak about it.

I'm a heavy advocate for it.

Mental health.

I've heard that you've also spoken about the importance of mental health, especially for men, like we were just talking about, who may not always feel comfortable being vulnerable.

What do you think helps break that silence as we talk about it?

I think this podcast is doing that.

Thank you.

Just to address it.

I mean, my sister was, you know, she was diagnosed as schizophrenic, I think, but this was back in the 80s.

I think she was probably bipolar and we didn't have a word for it or medicine.

And I think she'd be alive today if we had the treatments for it back then.

My sixth novel, Enemies Domestic, I think deals with mental health and mental illness head on.

The title is taken from the oath of office that government officials take, pledging to protect the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And in Enemies Domestic, my protagonist Lark Chadwick is White House press secretary.

She's pregnant.

The dad is dead.

She's ambivalent about becoming a single mom.

Abortion is a crime.

And the first question she's asked comes from a Tucker Carlson type who asks, are you or are you not planning to abort your unborn child?

Now that's a personal question.