“My name is Stephanie and I tell stories. In 2018, I was diagnosed with complex PTSD. At the time, I looked good on paper — a successful journalist in a happy relationship — but I had been having panic attacks every morning in my office for months. After I got diagnosed, I found it impossible to maintain the veneer of perfection I was trying so desperately to uphold, and instead dedicated my life to healing from C-PTSD. But because C-PTSD is an under-researched, under-diagnosed condition, it was hard to find material on it, and many of the books I did read made me feel pathologized, stigmatized and alone. I told myself that when I finally healed, I would write the book I so wanted to read when I was first diagnosed — a stigma-busting, kind, first-person account with real science and solutions”
“WHAT TAKES THIS BRILLIANT WORK FROM A PERSONAL STORY TO A CULTURAL TOUCH POINT IS THE WAY FOO SITUATES HER EXPERIENCES INTO A LARGER CONVERSATION ABOUT INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA, IMMIGRATION, AND THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION… THIS IS A WORK OF IMMENSE BEAUTY.” – Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
Emmy award-winning producer Stephanie Foo grew up with an avid interest in storytelling and started her first podcast when she was 21 years old. That podcast, Get Me On This American Life, launched her career and did in fact help get her on This American Life 4 years later.
As a child, Stephanie created comics, got her start in print journalism, then became fascinated with audio narratives. At This American Life, she reported, edited, and mixed radio stories and often produced entire shows. Stephanie produced This American Life’s video project, “Videos 4 U: I Love You,” which garnered three Daytime Emmy nominations and also won the 2015 Webby Award for Online Film & Video in Drama: Individual Short or Episode category.
Altogether, she has worked in audio for over a decade. Stephanie helped create the national radio show Snap Judgment, and her work has been showcased on numerous podcasts, such as Reply All, 99 Percent Invisible, and Radiolab. Stephanie also produced an Emmy-winning video short for TAL. In addition to her journalism and writing, Stephanie is an adjunct instructor at Columbia University and was a 2019-2020 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Fellow
In 2022, she published What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma that explores the science and psychology behind Complex PTSD through the lens of her own personal narrative of healing. Published by Ballantine/Random House in the spring of 2022, the book is a New York Times best seller, garnishing praise and accolades.
When she’s not telling stories, you can find Stephanie in Forest Park, saving trees and harvesting acorns as one of the park’s six “Super Stewards.”