Susan Burton, EMPTY

Susan Burton's memoir, Empty, is one of my favorite recent books. I'm really excited to share our conversation which we had at the beginning of the pandemic. Now it feels like a lifetime ago! Susan is an editor at This American Life on where the episodes she has produced include "Ten Sessions," "Five Women," and "Tell Me I'm Fat.” Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Slate, The New Yorker, and others. Empty is the story of Susan’s secret eating disorders, both anorexia and binge eating disorder, that defined her adolescence and adulthood. We talked about her book becoming both a confession about the painful secrets she had been living with and sharing her story as a means of recovery and connection. Our interview was the first one she had done and she meaningfully shed light on habits and compulsions, how we hide our turmoil, and the road to sharing ourselves with the people closest to us.