NYT Writer Susan Dominus: "I Couldn't Risk It"

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Messy Parts with Maryam Banikarim

Guest: NYT Writer Susan Dominus – “I Couldn’t Risk It”

Date: July 13, 2026

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Main Theme

In this episode, host Maryam Banikarim sits down with acclaimed New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Dominus to unravel the “messy parts” of a successful career and life. The conversation navigates Susan’s upbringing, family dynamics, imposter syndrome, creative confidence, the evolving media landscape, and advice for future generations, all threaded with honest reflection and relatability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Roots of Curiosity and Writing

• Childhood & Family Dynamics

  • Susan grew up as the youngest of three in Harrison, NY, observing more than speaking up—“I talk really quickly because I felt like I had to speak quickly to get a word in.” [03:14]

  • Describes herself as inherently bookish and curious, especially about adult life and family relationships.

  • Family messages prioritized making a living over personal success, with some preoccupation about finances.

    “A huge amount of my emotional life...transpired...in the process of reading books. I wish I could connect to books now the way I did then.” – Susan [03:14]

• Sibling Differences

  • Ellen (sister) and her represented different archetypes: Susan, the creative; Ellen, bridging business and creative; brother was more reserved and bookish.

• Early Encouragement

  • A teacher suggested, “I think you’re a writer.” From that point, Susan’s path felt set.

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2. Finding a Voice: Insecurity & Risk

• Imposter Syndrome at Yale
  • Despite her passion, Susan avoided competitive writing classes fearing rejection:

    “If they told me I wasn’t a writer, I knew I wasn’t going to be a writer and I needed to hold it close to me. I couldn’t put it out there and risk having Yale...tell me you’re not a writer.” – Susan [00:11], [14:23]

  • Felt alone rather than finding her tribe—class anxiety played a role.

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3. The Path to Journalism: Not Always Linear

• Reluctant Leader

  • Started the school newspaper after brother’s encouragement but doesn’t see herself as entrepreneurial or a “starter.”

    “I loved the work of doing it so much right away...I just knew the second I showed up at the paper that’s where I belonged.” – Susan [09:29]

• Career Decisions Influenced by Family

  • Parents valued security and a clear career path, nudging her toward editing before writing.

    “My parents wanted me to have a job that had security and a career track. But I did it till I was 30.” – Susan [21:11]

• Transitioning to Writing

  • With support of her now husband—an artist—Susan pivoted to writing at age 30.

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4. Growth, Vulnerability, and the Messy Middle

• Reporting as Humble and Uncomfortable Work

  • Describes journalism as a balance of boldness (chasing sources) and introversion (one-on-one interactions).

    “It is a humble pursuit...it can be scary, uncomfortable. There’s a lot of asking of questions people don’t want asked.” – Susan [16:19]

• Navigating Office Life vs. Creative Work

  • Finds group dynamics challenging, prefers the autonomy of writing.

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5. The Changing Media Landscape

• Reflections on the Industry

  • Acknowledges the shift from longform to “shorts,” and the rise of platforms like Substack.

  • Emphasizes the importance of foundational journalistic skills and ethics, even amid the rise of independent publishing.

    “The sausage can be really not pretty. But there are some basic rules that every journalist I know who’s well-trained stands by and would sacrifice a lot to uphold.” – Susan [26:10]

• Technology and AI

  • Recent adoption of AI tools like NotebookLM and Google Gemini in her research, boosting productivity but recognizing limitations.

    “I came around feeling like I don’t actually know how I did my job before I had this.” – Susan [27:07]

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6. Family, Sibling Influence & Identity

• Family’s Lasting Impact

  • Discusses the dynamic of “staying in your lane” as siblings and how those early familial roles echo into adulthood—“I console myself...that they’re both very kind.”

  • Explores how siblings, and their differences, shape each other’s lives and opportunities.

    “What really interested me was, what would it be like to grow up in a family where people told you all the time, the sky’s the limit?” – Susan [29:25]

• Parental Expectations

  • The enduring power of seeking parental approval, particularly when parents overcame adversity themselves.

    “People who want to impress their parents usually respect their parents a lot...They have no idea how much we all still want their approval, and it’s because we think they’re impressive.” – Susan [23:07]

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7. Navigating Limits and Creative Confidence

• Breaking Personal Narratives

  • Susan reflects on the self-imposed limitations she inherited and perpetuates, especially regarding fiction writing.

    “My whole life has been the practice of trying to dismantle the sense of limits that I probably have imposed on myself out of a culture of conservatism in my own loving family.” – Susan [31:58]

• The Good Girl Complex

  • The urge to deliver, fulfill assignments, and earn approval—something both women identify with—can be harnessed for creative goals.

    “If you make that an assignment for yourself...it’s like, giving yourself that permission.” – Maryam [33:54]

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8. Mentoring, Advice, and the Way Forward

• Self-Understanding

  • Finding your “flow” and career satisfaction can come from noticing when you feel “most yourself.”
  • Jodi Kantor’s advice: the roles you play in your friendships can reveal your strengths.

• Advice for Young Professionals

  • Try to anticipate where the energy is moving—get involved in “the future,” even if it feels peripheral or uncomfortable.
  • Build skills and relationships in communities and offices; in-person connections create opportunities.
  • Be open to learning from experienced colleagues before branching out solo.

  “Try to be the person who can see into the future. If there is a new working group that’s starting to focus on something that feels down the road...try to get involved.” – Susan [38:56]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Risk and Self-Protection

  “If they told me I wasn’t a writer, I knew I wasn’t going to be a writer and I needed to hold it close to me.” – Susan [00:11], [14:23]

• On Reporting

  “It is a humble pursuit...you are literally running across campus to try to corral an 18-year-old into talking to you...” – Susan [16:19]

• On Chasing the Future

  “Try to be the person who can see into the future...If it feels new, even if it’s not your comfort zone, try to get involved. Try to make it your comfort zone.” – Susan [38:56], [41:36]

• On Community and Work

  “If you can move towards a job where there is more interaction in an office...those only good will ever, ever come of that in a million different ways.” – Susan [41:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:11] Susan on risk and not applying to Yale writing classes
• [03:14] Childhood dynamics and early love of books
• [05:15] Father’s career and family roles
• [07:08] Sibling rivalry and difference; own twins
• [09:29] Early newspaper experience and self-perception
• [13:06] Yale, imposter syndrome, and class anxiety
• [16:19] On what journalism really requires
• [21:11] The editor years and transitioning to writing
• [23:07] Parental approval and its legacy
• [24:59] Media disintermediation and giving career advice
• [27:07] Using AI and navigating new tools as a journalist
• [29:25] The exploration of family, expectations, and upward movement
• [31:58] Changing self-narratives and embracing possibility
• [38:56] Advice on seeing the future and career growth
• [41:42] The value of community in work environments

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Flow & Tone

The conversation is intimate, reflective, and at times self-deprecating. Both Susan and Maryam share candid stories, admit uncertainties, and laugh at their own expense—all offering listeners a lens into the "messy" reality behind career achievements.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Success is rarely a straight line: doubts, detours, and self-imposed limits are part of nearly everyone’s story.
• Family and upbringing leave lasting imprints—sometimes forming strengths, sometimes barriers to overcome.
• Hustle, curiosity, and willingness to be uncomfortable are essential, even (or especially) for introverts.
• The media world is changing, but core skills and ethical grounding never go out of style.
• Seek out the edges—the future is made by those willing to work where change is happening.
• Create your own structure and permission; assignment yourself the creative work you want to do.

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For more depth, listen to the episode and check out Susan Dominus’s book, Family Dynamics: The Secret to Sibling Rivalry and Success.

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Transcript

[Sue Dominus]

I tell my students I didn't take a single. I only took one writing class at Yale because you have to apply to these writing classes. And some of them were very competitive.

[Podcast Host]

And why didn't you apply because you didn't think you would get in.

[Sue Dominus]

I couldn't risk it. If they told me I wasn't a writer, I knew I wasn't going to be a writer and I needed to hold it close to me. And I couldn't. I couldn't put it out there and risk having Yale, which had already told me many times I wasn't something enough. I couldn't also have Yale. Tell me you're not a writer.

[Podcast Host]

Today on the messy parts we're going to have on Sue Dominus. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist at the New York Times. She has a book about family dynamics, in fact, called Family Dynamics, the Secret to Sibling Rivalry and Success. But what's so interesting is how much we oddly had in common. Or maybe that's not so odd because we all have a lot in common. Messy parts that really start from a young age and continue on through our adult lives. She has a good lessons and a lot of good stories. I can't wait for you to listen. Susan, I'm so excited to have you on what I now call the infamous blue couch. You know what's interesting to me as I went down the Google rabbit hole and started reading about you, is that you're interested in psychology. I mean, you write about a lot of things, right? Culture, things related to medicine, science, but really, in the end, it seems like you're interested in the psychology of it all. Do you think that's true?

[Sue Dominus]

I do think that's true, and I think that a lot of magazine writers are drawn to that because whenever you're telling someone's story in depth, if you're really doing your job as a magazine reporter, a lot of the time you're going to see connections and patterns that they themselves haven't seen, which I think is one of the reasons why people speak to journalists in the first place. They don't realize it, but it's very rare that somebody is sitting across from you and really taking the time to take in all the details of your life and show that level of attention and care to what's happening in your life.

[Podcast Host]

It's interesting because actually one of the first things you said was that when we sent you the prep doc that you actually felt seen, which by the way, we were all very amazed by that. But I think one of the things I also find in doing this conversation on the couch is people will tell you things that they may not have talked about before. And people say to me, how is that? And I say, usually people say, nobody ever asked.

[Sue Dominus]

I think that's exactly right. And people go through their whole lives waiting for people to ask. And people go through their whole lives thinking, oh, it would be rude to ask. But there's all sorts of social science research that suggests when strangers strike up meaningful conversations, you know, on a train or a bus, both parties leave feeling a little bit fulfilled and also surprised that they were as comfortable with it as they would. All of which is to say that people underestimate how willing people are and really how eager people are to open up and say something true.

[Podcast Host]

This is the perfect messy parts. So one of the things I've discovered in 50 some episodes now is that really, a lot of it starts in childhood for people. We know a little bit about your brother and your sister. You obviously are very interested in family dynamics. But when you think back to who you were as a young child growing up in Harrison, like, paint that picture for me.

[Sue Dominus]

I was the youngest of three, which I think meant I did a lot of observing. And I always joke that I talk really quickly because I felt like I had to speak quickly to get a word in. Because I was the youngest of three. I was born a bookish child. I can't say my parents, you know, read to me for hours or there was some retreat into. No, I just always loved a good story. I loved books. I was pretending to read before I could read, and I read very young. A huge amount of my emotional life, I would say, transpired, you know, in the process of reading books. I wish I could connect to books now the way that I did then. I mean, they. My whole mood, my whole feeling about the world was dictated by it. And I think a lot of it was my curiosity about adult life. You know, what's. Why do people divorce? Why do people get married? What's.

[Podcast Host]

Why were you interested in that?

[Sue Dominus]

I just was curious. I do. I do not know. I honestly think I was just born a curious person. But I loved writing. I loved reading from a young age. I, you know, went to a perfectly good public elementary school where I was encouraged and told pretty early on, you know, I think you're a writer. Whether they had said it or not, I just think I was going to be one.

[Podcast Host]

Were there messy parts in your childhood? Because it sounds like you had this, like, idyllic, perfect Westchester life.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes, there were definitely messy Parts. So, you know, one of the reasons I think I wrote the book is because I always just assumed I would be a novelist. All I did was inhale literature. My mom grew up on the Lower east side in real financial hardship and had, you know, was in constant amazement to find herself living in upper middle class life. There wasn't a lot of pressure to get great grades necessarily. They were pretty, I would say they were bathrobe till noon kind of people, you know, on the weekends. But there the main emphasis was just make a good living. That was sort of always the focus. And I think there was a little bit of preoccupation with finances. And my father had a very high pressure job, which didn't always make it easy to.

[Podcast Host]

What did he do?

[Sue Dominus]

He ran ad sales at cbs, but historically, it's kind of interesting. He ran ad sales at CBS right at the moment when those three networks were losing their stronghold on advertisers because a flood of competitors on cable were starting to come in.

[Podcast Host]

And your sister followed in his footsteps

[Sue Dominus]

of icon, precisely into his footsteps. Yes, exactly. My sister was a. Well, it's funny, Ellen. What Ellen ended up doing, which I always think is interesting, is my dad was the business side and I was what you might call a creative. And Ellen bridged the gap between business and creative when she left Viacom. That's the role that she was filling, which I kind of loved.

[Podcast Host]

And was there different roles each of you played in the family, including your brother?

[Sue Dominus]

Let's see, my brother was six years older than I am. He was pretty quiet. You know, my dad is like a real hail fellow, well met, kind of. He was an ad set guy. I mean, so you got it. Yeah, exactly. Super outgoing. My friends always told me that he looked like he should be president. You know, he had this like, he was very corporate looking. And my brother was a little bit quieter, I would say a little bit maybe more bookish. My sister was very much, she looks like my dad and she was interested in similar things. They were both very good with their hands, I would say, and very visual, which I am not at all. Like, if you send me a postcard, I will read every word of it. I will not even notice what's on the COVID of the postcard.

[Podcast Host]

You know, so all very different things.

[Sue Dominus]

My sister and I. My sister and I looked so different, in fact, that when we were little we went to a summer camp together and people found it so hard to believe we were sisters because Ellen was fair and straight haired and very blue eyed and pink of cheek. And I do not look like that. And they actually put us in different rooms, these kids, and they, like, grilled us about things like, what's your father's middle name? Because they didn't believe that we were sisters.

[Podcast Host]

That's amazing.

[Sue Dominus]

And we are temperamentally very, very different also.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think there was more sort of competition with your sister or comparison with your sister growing up? Because you write about family dynamics, right?

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. Oh, yeah. It was very, very intense. I mean, we each had sort of different things going for us, and we kind of stayed in our lane a little bit. And of course, that's always this interesting question about siblings. You know, when they are so different, is it because they're desperately trying to individuate, is it that they were genetically inclined to move in different directions and they're encouraged to do that. I myself has fraternal twins. You know, I always say that we fed them the same food, we read them the same books, we, you know, had the same job charts, whatever it was. The joke I make is that one of my sons was a son. Social chair of his fraternity at the University of Wisconsin.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, big school.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah. And. And then his brother's form of Greek life was studying ancient Greek at this very unusual and tiny school called St. John's College, which is like a great books program.

[Podcast Host]

My roommate from barner transferred to St. John, so I've actually been. Oh, wow.

[Sue Dominus]

So he was at the one in Santa Fe. He just transferred to Haverford, but he's still studying ancient languages. And he is not a fraternity kind of guy.

[Podcast Host]

You know, it's the literal opposite.

[Sue Dominus]

They are. They could not be more different. I mean, I console myself or, you know, I tell myself that they're both very kind. That's what they have in common, is they're very sweet boys.

[Podcast Host]

Growing up, I read that your brother basically convinced you to start a school newspaper because he saw something for you which you didn't even. I mean, it sounds like you knew you wanted to be a writer, but he pushed you to sort of take a step that's actually further than that. Right. Starting something's almost like starting a business. So that's maybe the part of your dad.

[Sue Dominus]

Well, that's really funny, because I would say that to this day, I am highly not entrepreneurial. I'm not a natural leader of any kind. I don't. I'm not a starter of things.

[Podcast Host]

I don't know, because you started a paper.

[Sue Dominus]

But that was kind of the one and only time that I've ever really taken on Something like that. I wouldn't say I'm a private person, but I'm not somebody who necessarily is someone that people are like, that's a girl I want to follow into battle. You know, I just. It's just not my role. My sister is very. Maybe it's because I had an older sister who was. I think she wouldn't be surprised to hear me say this, a little bossy. I myself was not, you know, a particularly bossy person.

[Podcast Host]

But you're not recessive.

[Sue Dominus]

No, I'm not, but I don't feel the need to run things. I sort of zone out at restaurants when people are deciding what to order. Let them figure it out. You know, I'm not. I don't love making decisions. I don't. I don't find any of that particularly fun.

[Podcast Host]

So you don't think of yourself as entrepreneurial and yet you start this paper? Yes.

[Sue Dominus]

Although I would say what was really formative about the moment was not that I was leading the newspaper, but that I loved the work of doing it so much right away. Like, I played piano. I was not necessarily inherently talented, but I did love it a lot. I played a lot of piano. I ran track pretty seriously. And at a certain point, my piano teacher said to me, look, it's gotta be piano or newspaper. You can't do both. And I was like, it's been nice working with you. I mean, I just knew the second I showed up at the paper that that's where I belonged.

[Podcast Host]

And how did you know that?

[Sue Dominus]

I just enjoyed it, and I felt like I was my most me self, and I felt my most confident and my most comfortable.

[Podcast Host]

So if you had to give advice to somebody, graduating now into what seems like a pretty messy world, you seem to have found yourself in that moment of doing the newspaper. To your point, it was like you were in flow. There was something that connected for you. What is that people should be looking for?

[Sue Dominus]

Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I always feel a little bit guilty when I give people career advice, because I think I was a little bit unusual in that I knew the environment in which I felt most comfortable and most myself. It was very apparent. But to the extent that you can feel in yourself when you feel most at home. I'm sure you're familiar with Jodi Cantor's book, How to Start. I think Jodi makes a great point, which is, what is the role that you play with your friends? Are you the person they come to when they need help with math? Are you the person they come to when they need advice? Are you the person they come to when they need like a big idea of a project to get started? Those things really do tell you how other people see you. And chances are if they're coming to you for it is because they know you like doing it. And that's something to pay attention to.

[Podcast Host]

It's almost like you're deconstructing yourself through a journalist's eyes in order to be able to understand yourself.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. What you're describing, yes, I think that's true. I mean, it's. What's interesting is I was obviously reading about you before I came here and I'm so amazed by how many different kinds of things you've done. And they all do require a certain amount of creative and entrepreneurial spirit mixed together. But I feel like I'm a rubber band that can only stretch so far in one direction in terms of where my talents are. I. I do teach also now, and I do love that. And I sometimes think it would be great to be able to do that with all of my resources and all of my attention. What do you like about that about teaching? First of all, it's. It's almost like writing. You start and then by the end of the day you have a page full. I'm lucky enough to teach at Yale and those kids have a tremendous learning curve. That's where you went by the idea? I went undergraduate. I just enjoy their company. I. It's a way to keep in touch with the future. You know, the New York Times is not the youngest of institutions, God bless it.

[Podcast Host]

And how do you pick what to write about? Like, how does that work for you? Because you have a pretty wide range from the really crazy IVF mix up story, which I really, I wanted to like, go down that rabbit hole much, much deeper. Yeah. You know, to menopause, to writing about translators. Like what? You have a very wide range.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah, I've. I mean, I've written about politics, I've written about banking. I used to work at a magazine called the American Lawyer, started by Steve. Brilliant. I think my curiosity serves me very well. And so I always say that if you ask me to come up with a topic to write about, I'm not. I don't always have that many ideas off the bat, but if you give me a topic and I start digging into it, I will have ideas. So I think just being a very naturally curious and probing person helps me be eclectic. And since it is the messy parts, I would say sometimes I've wondered if that's Too bad, you know, if I should have liked a brand or if I should focus on a certain thing, or should I just be throwing myself really into investigative work, you know, in order to make policy change happen?

[Podcast Host]

So you graduate from high school and you go to Yale. What was that like? Did you feel like you just landed, like, the perfect dream scenario and like life was going to be great?

[Sue Dominus]

Definitely not. When I got in, I thought that certainly having been, like, a bookish person in a pretty, like, John Hughes movie kind of high school, where there weren't a lot of kids who wanted to say, like, yes. I also loved the Unbearable Lightness of being. Let's get coffee and talk about it. At Yale, there were kids like that. So that was fun. The truth is that I think imposter syndrome is endemic at Yale. Like, and, you know, a lot of these schools, and I suffered from it pretty badly.

[Podcast Host]

By. By that you mean you felt like somehow you weren't worthy to be there?

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. Even though I didn't get it. I wasn't a legacy. I didn't. My parents weren't donors. I wasn't an athlete, but I felt like a pretty average suburban kid. And there were. It's funny, you go to Yale and there's a lot of people to be intimidated by. There's the beautiful people. There's the children of 17.

[Podcast Host]

It's so funny. Every school has the beautiful people.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. And every school has, like, the seventh generation version and the, you know, and the very wealthy. And the young people I was most intimidated by were the ac. The children of academics. And there were a lot of those, too. So I. Yeah, I had a lot of imposter syndrome. By sophomore year. I was like, oh, I get it. They have a patter. I can learn that pattern, too. And I. I have things to say. I tell my students I didn't take a single. I only took one writing class at Yale because you had to. You have to apply to these writing classes. And some of them were very competitive.

[Podcast Host]

And why didn't you apply? Because you didn't think you would get in.

[Sue Dominus]

I couldn't risk it. If they told me I wasn't a writer, I knew I wasn't going to be a writer, and I needed to hold it close to me, and I couldn't. I couldn't put it out there and risk having Yale, which had already told me many times I wasn't something enough. I couldn't also have Yale. Tell me you're not a writer.

[Podcast Host]

But that's so interesting because. Right. You would Think like you get into this school and all of a sudden you find your path, but really all of a sudden you're just with like all types, all time.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And it actually makes you feel more alone rather than finding your tribe.

[Sue Dominus]

No, I think it was its own form of class anxiety. Again. My parents were very upper middle class people, but they didn't go to graduate school that my, my grandfather was. Yet my cousin always said he wasn't the guy who hired the guys to paint your house. He wasn't the contractor. He was the guy the contractor called, you know, one of the five men who shows up and, you know, paints the house. Even though of course I did come from an upper middle class home. In some ways my background was at that time pretty unusual. I mean most of my friends parents were academics or PhDs or you know, have gone to graduate school, that kind of thing.

[Podcast Host]

Sorry. So we go back. Your brother tells you to start this thing. You said you wanted to be a novelist.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And you tried it once before you actually wrote your book?

[Sue Dominus]

Well, I mean, not even. I think I went, I had a summer job once and it was run by this resort, by this wonderful, now dearly departed woman named Jane Orrens. It's called Puisisana, this resort. And she said, you know, after you're done at one being a chambermaid, there's this empty cabin. If you want to write fiction, you go write. And I was like, great, I'll finally be a fiction writer. I won't be busy with my academics. And it turns out I really do not have much of an imagination.

[Podcast Host]

Really.

[Sue Dominus]

Well, I don't know. So now that my kids have gone, we're sort of empty nest. I joined a writer's group of wonderful people in my community, Hastings on Hudson. And I've been messing around with fiction and I've been having a wonderful time with it for the time first, first time in my entire life for somebody

[Podcast Host]

who's listening, who's like, oh, I want to be a journalist. What does that mean?

[Sue Dominus]

It means you're 53 years old, it's 110 degrees on the campus of New College in Florida. Somebody says to you, oh, that's the kid who showed up at that thing and said that thing. And you, in 103 degree heat at the age of 53 are literally running across campus to try to corral an 18 year old into talking to you. Like it is a humble pursuit, you know, and it can be, um, it can be scary, it can be uncomfortable. There's a lot of Asking of questions that people don't want asked. For me, the reporting is both the best of the job, but also the thing I am very happy to have done. It's so much safer and easier to be in your studio, tap, tap, tap on your laptop. No longer putting yourself out there or making yourself invisible or trying to overhear or asking dumb questions. I mean, it's complicated reporting.

[Podcast Host]

It's interesting because in some ways you're a loner, but you're also not shy. Right. Because the act of reporting requires you to put yourself out there to chase, to try and get the source to speak. Right. That's a pretty in your face kind of thing that you have to bring out of you. Somebody who likes to sort of recede and go. Right.

[Sue Dominus]

So it's funny because my son always says that he's an introvert, but he says that doesn't mean he's shy. He is. He's confident. He just doesn't crave time with other people necessarily. I think for me, I'm realizing is I do very well one on one. In almost any one on one situation. I'm pretty comfortable. Put me at like, at a big group, at like a dinner party or a big party or a gathering, a weekend getaway. That's not always as comfortable for me. But a lot of reporting is one on one. And I think that's why it works for me. But yes, I am. I have a lot of. Anybody who knows me well would say, I'm sure this is true of you as well. I have a lot of hustle, you know.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I say that's one of the things that's common about everybody who's come on the couch. Like, you can't get to someplace without hustle. I mean, it requires hustle. You can't just manifest from your bedroom.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah. And it requires creativity and it requires like digging deep to find the energy to do the weird thing or the hard thing or the thing that's starting from zero. You know, getting on a plane or, you know, saying goodbye to your kids when they're three years old.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, I.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

You know, it's funny because we started this thing you may have read about called the longest table, where people put the table down and people come and it really. It's kind of this amazing thing because it's a moment of community. And I had to go Friday to one in Miami. I went by myself. Which, you know, to your point about you get on the plane when you have the job. It's lonely.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. Right, I agree.

[Podcast Host]

And I. I remember checking into the hotel. It was a few hours before, you know, I had to find the event. And I was like, you know, it's so interesting. I'm here for this moment of community, but I'm spending several hours by myself, feeling lonely.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Trying to figure out the Metro Rail, like, you know, and then I got there in this moment with 400 people. And it's amazing how, like, you can just, you know, you go to that story, you get your story, it's very exciting. And then on the other side, there's sort of, again, the lull as you're coming back. Okay, so you graduate from Yale, and what. What. What's the first thing you end up doing?

[Sue Dominus]

I applied for, like, a bunch of editorial assistant jobs at various magazines and didn't get them. If you're interviewing to be an editorial assistant at a women's magazine, maybe better not to say in the interview. So do people who work at women's magazines ever leave women's magazines?

[Podcast Host]

It really signals you want the job.

[Sue Dominus]

I did not get that job, but I did get a job at Glamour magazine. I was an editorial assistant for three and a half years.

[Podcast Host]

Who was the editor in chief then?

[Sue Dominus]

The beloved and legendary Ruth Whitney. The thing I always say about Ruth Whitney is editors. If you got called to Ruth's office, I would watch these grown women literally run down the hall while applying lipstick. That was how much they respected her. It wasn't really fear. It was just people really, really wanted to impress that woman. She was incredible.

[Podcast Host]

So how did you end up that job? Because it seems like not the job you would have wanted.

[Sue Dominus]

It was not the job that I wanted. I very much wanted to work in magazines. I think it's important for people to know that the world used to work in a way that wasn't always so great. My dad worked in ad sales. He knew somebody who did ad sales for Conde Nast. I think there's a lot of favor trading back then. So I got an interview I didn't get guaranteed the job. By the way, the same person who got me, the one at Glamour also got me the interviews I didn't get. But I did get a foot in the door. And I worked for this woman named Judy Daniels, who had been the first female editor of Life. And she always said she was gonna write a book called I Met Everyone Once. She had an insane Rolodex. I don't know if even people listening to this know what a Rolodex is, but I still Use that word. I can.

[Podcast Host]

Turning it around.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. I can still picture her handwriting and all the insane names on it, including Gloria Steinem and people like that. So she was great. And one of the things she said to me is, if you want to be a writer, be an editor for as long as you can stand it. Because when you're ready to be a writer, all those people you worked alongside will give you assignments and they know you and they trust you.

[Podcast Host]

Why? As long as you can stand it?

[Sue Dominus]

I didn't want to be an editor

[Podcast Host]

because really, you didn't want to be an editor.

[Sue Dominus]

Now why was I an editor and not trying to be a writer of some kind? Because my parents wanted me to have a job that had security and a career track. But I did it till I was 30. My students think that's like insane, you know?

[Podcast Host]

Well, everything seems like an eternity when you're young.

[Sue Dominus]

Exactly. I know, but I was, I was a full on editor until I was 30 years old.

[Podcast Host]

And were you writing for yourself on the side?

[Sue Dominus]

Barely. I was running, actually. I did sort of, I think, not particularly well. But I was running a print magazine called Nerve. Nerve had a huge online presence. They started a print magazine and brought me in to do that. And that was an incredibly creative, wonderful, wild place. They ran out of money at a certain point. And I had just met my husband.

[Podcast Host]

And how'd you meet him?

[Sue Dominus]

We met at a party and my husband was. It's much more of an artist than I am and much more of a free spirit. And he'd basically been living from artist colony to artist colony.

[Podcast Host]

And what was that like?

[Sue Dominus]

He got a lot of debt along the way. It wasn't always pretty. And I think it was also quite lonely not having an infrastructure. But he definitely encouraged me to make the leap and become a writer. And at 30, that's what I did.

[Podcast Host]

It's funny because I went to longest table at NYU and I happened to sit next to Kid. We'd actually spoken at a panel about the longest table to his class. I happened to sit next to him and he asked me a question that he didn't get a chance to ask when I was in the room, which is how did you have the guts to just pick up and move to Argentina? Which is a crazy thing I did after graduating college. He was so interested in that and I was like, well, why don't you go take the risk, you have no debt. I mean, this is kind of the moment to take the risk.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And he was worried about disappointing his parents.

[Sue Dominus]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

And Living up to his parents, you know, expectation. And so here you are, right? You're like, I'm going to be an editor and do the right thing. Be the good girl. Right. Versus, you know, I'm just going to go off and live in a colony and write.

[Sue Dominus]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Like, what was it that needed you to satisfy your parents instead of just satisfy yourself in that moment?

[Sue Dominus]

Well, you know, one thing I think is something that I did observe writing my book is that people who want to impress their parents usually respect their parents a lot. And my parents are, you know, strong, resilient people who did come up from, you know, poverty, basically, especially in my mother's case. They have no idea how much we all still want their approval, and it's because we think they're impressive.

[Podcast Host]

You're an editor for a good period of time. You said until you were 30. Did you enjoy that?

[Sue Dominus]

There were things about it that I enjoyed. I remember. You know, you get to a certain level and, you know, people are kind of listening to you, and that's nice. And, and you. There are perks that come with it. But I, I, as I said, group dynamics are, are maybe a little hard for me. So. Working in an office wasn't always that easy. People say that you should do the career. That's not just the thing you want to do, but is the life that you want to lead. And as a writer, I, I love going to the office. I love my colleagues at the New York Times Magazine. That is an incredible group of people. For me personally, it's also, and probably for everyone else, it's probably nice that I'm not there every single day.

[Podcast Host]

You basically grew up in the media business. I spent a good amount of time in the media business. It's an, is an industry that's completely being disintermediated. I was thinking of that, actually, as I was reading some of your articles that are long form because, you know, doing a podcast, it's all about the shorts. I mean, it is like literally inverse of everything we grew up with. Yeah, yeah, you'll come on, we'll do the full episode. People will listen to it. But most people will see a very short clip because that's how now people consume content.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Like a clip will get 150,000, including. Thousand views.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. Including me.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So as you think about this industry, right, and you're teaching students, what advice do you have for people who want to go into this business that has, I don't know, I feel like it's been disintermediated. For, like, my last 30 years.

[Sue Dominus]

It's interesting because I think that people are still. First of all, they're still writing books. And I don't know if people are reading books, but the publishers are still buying them. And so sometimes I tell my students, you know, maybe you want to think about writing a book if you have an idea that no one else has had and you are uniquely positioned to tell it. Publishers also love young people, and other colleagues of mine who teaches would never tell young people that because it is hard to write a book. But I'm not sure it gets easier with age. It's hard for everybody to write a book. All I can tell you is that my students get jobs. They go work at the Atlantic. They work at Politico. They, you know, some of them do it for a while and then go to law school. It's true. But most of the kids, if you are committed to it and you can get, you know, an ally behind you, they get jobs. They do get jobs.

[Podcast Host]

I just actually was in an event, and I met a young writer at a magazine that was much bigger in its heyday than it is today. And I was like, why are you not on Substack? Why aren't you not doing other things? Because the. The move forward is almost no longer just gated at the Atlantic or Politico. Everybody's doing everything at Substack. We had somebody on actually not that long ago who actually is incredibly successful now. On Substack. Yeah, way more so than when she was gated at a. At a job.

[Sue Dominus]

But it is nice to build a following at a more mainstream publication. It's also nice to learn some skills from people who are more senior than you. And it's also nice to have the resources to go report. I mean, that is, of course, like, what journalists worry about with Substack is there aren't that many people who have the time and ability to actually report out new things that have not been said to the world. And that is pretty much democracy is, like, built on, you know, somebody has to find stuff out. And I do think it's worth getting training in also just journalistic ethics. I don't think you need to go to journalism grad school. I don't even think you need to take classes at Yale in journalism. I mean, it'll help you get a job. But journalism is not sacred. It's. Talk about the messy parts. It is a messy business. And the sausage can be really not pretty. But there are some basic rules that every journalist I know who's well trained, stands by, and would sacrifice a lot to uphold. I don't know if you get that. If you just get out of school and you start writing a substack and

[Podcast Host]

so how has AI impacted your life?

[Sue Dominus]

Well, it definitely is intimidating and intense. And I went from being somebody who really never used it at all in the last piece I did. That was a very complex science piece. I came around feeling like I don't actually know how I did my job before I had this. I now use NotebookLM.

[Podcast Host]

Isn't that an amazing tool?

[Sue Dominus]

Oh, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

My God.

[Sue Dominus]

I uploaded every interview and was able to obviously pull quotes and check them against the originals. It hallucinates, it makes mistakes. Notebook LLM was just for somebody who's not that naturally organized. Saved me a huge amount of time. But also Google Gemini. I was writing pretty complex scientific stuff. You know, the Times magazine, we have the luxury of this incredible fact checking department. But I, for myself, would write a version of something that was new to me and I would put it into Google Gemini. The New York Times has its own accounts that we use. So it's. This feels more secure to me. And I would just say, is this accurate? And it would get me closer to something that would be closer to what the fact checker would ultimately.

[Podcast Host]

I love that you can put reams of research into Notebook LM and it'll make it into an audio file. Yeah. So you can listen to it walking.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes, that too. Yeah. I mean, it can do many, many, many, many wonderful things.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, it can't do everything, and there's many issues, but yeah.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

It's kind of incredible.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I want to go back to the book because I have a sister who's a journalist, and there was two of us growing up. We're seven years apart from each other, and people often say to us, oh, my God, what was in the water in your house? Like, oh, my God. What happened? The two of you? Yeah. And it was interesting that you became interested in that.

[Sue Dominus]

Well, the other thing that happened, I talk about in the book is that my parents used to go away for a long time.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Sue Dominus]

You'll find this funny. I used to say when I spoke about the book that my parents would go away for two weeks at a time on business trips. My mom raised her hand at an event and said, excuse me, we were on vacation. It was the 70s. Parents went away without their kids.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yes, without their parents.

[Sue Dominus]

And they parted, each kid with a different family when they went away. We never went on family vacations.

[Podcast Host]

We did. You just Were going in at somebody else's house.

[Sue Dominus]

Well, I guess the vacation was, I would say, with the Goldies, who are close friends of my parents. And it was a very different family culture around enrichment over there. Like, you know, we did. They did math for fun at the dinner table. And, you know, there was an expectation that you could talk about the news. And, you know, it was very pointed at the end of this very sophisticated meal that Gayle would prepare.

[Podcast Host]

I like that you say, at my home, we were just focused on chewing. Finish chewing your food.

[Sue Dominus]

Oh, yeah, manners. That was what we were focused on. And also, you know, we were sort of, like, quarreling amongst ourselves. When my parents were talking about my dad's day, did they not quarrel at these people's home? Oh, they did. But. But. But they also had these other conversations that we were most definitely not having. What really interested me was what would it be like to grow up in a family where people told you all the time, the sky's the limit. Whatever you want, you can do it. Because my parents were so supportive and wonderful. They paid for my college. They, you know, took me to the library. There wasn't a message of, sure, you know, sure. Why not you? No, it was much more conservative than that.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, I definitely grew up in a family where they were like, why not you? Even though I don't know why they would have thought that.

[Sue Dominus]

Look, they were immigrants. Those people have nerve and verve.

[Podcast Host]

They are not fearful people, a hundred percent. And now I think back to my own parents, because we moved here in the middle of the housing crisis, and my dad was a banker. My mom did TV strategy in Iran. So already they were kind of different. Yeah, Young, both working parents, but they moved there and decided to open up a French bakery. They knew nothing about that. I was like, what? Occurred to them, because those are usually successful businesses. Like, we're gonna land here and we'll open up a French bakery. I so distinctly remember I wanted to be a journalist and a friend of my dad's, and I was going to go to school and study English or journalism or whatever. He was like, english is not your first language. That's not a thing for you. So you don't need. Your environment. Isn't just the one in your home.

[Sue Dominus]

Oh, no, your environment. Your parents are a tiny bit of your environment.

[Podcast Host]

But.

[Sue Dominus]

But also Harrison High School. I can't think of a single journalist who came out of Harrison High School. You went to law school, you became a banker. You took over your dad's pizza place. You went into Schmatz trade. You went to fashion. You know, I can't explain. There was not a lot of modeling of the creative life.

[Podcast Host]

You say you're an introvert, but actually have this incredible community that you, you know, from camp and otherwise.

[Sue Dominus]

Oh, lots of places you say that

[Podcast Host]

you weren't necessarily creative or have imagination. You've won Pulitzer Prizes. Right. There's this like, that you weren't told you could do everything, but frankly you kind of have done everything. Despite all the things you think or say. Your lived experience is different.

[Sue Dominus]

Well, but of course I could sort of go back to you and say that I am those things within a very narrow bandwidth. You know what I mean? In the sense that like I do think I'm creative. That doesn't mean that I can write fiction that I, you know, that I have that particular skill.

[Podcast Host]

What if you change that narrative for yourself? What if you said I actually can do that?

[Sue Dominus]

Well, I'm trying. I am trying.

[Podcast Host]

I'm just saying maybe the limits are the ones we put on ourselves.

[Sue Dominus]

I am sure that's true. And I think my whole life has been the practice of trying to dismantle the sense of limits that I probably have imposed on myself out of a culture of conservatism in my own loving family.

[Podcast Host]

I do think there's some actual science to. If you put it out there. I mean, I, I saw a documentary years ago called what the Bleep Do I Know, which was about the actual science of manifesting in some ways. Right. If you put it onto the universe, it was like at a particle physics or something. But I would say to you, like, what if you switch that narrative for yourself?

[Sue Dominus]

I love that idea. And maybe I'll. I'll start working on it, you know. And by the way, I'm not complaining either. I hope that's clear.

[Podcast Host]

It's not, it's not a complaint. It's more just a. It's a mirror.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes. Yeah, no, I think that's. This is like. Talk about an edifying and psychologically.

[Podcast Host]

The Blue.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah, the Blue angel, we'll call it. I think I basically, I've been somebody who just puts one step in front of the other and am not great. I really admire people who are great at taking a pullback and strategizing. And who are those people?

[Podcast Host]

We all, we just.

[Sue Dominus]

I can name a few. No, I think really because I like

[Podcast Host]

you, I'm one step in front of

[Sue Dominus]

the other and all you can do is create the time for it and the space for it. So even more important Than telling myself that, you know, sue, if you really want to write a great novel, you are going to write one. I think even more important than that is saying, sue, you really want to write a great novel, why don't you carve out two hours every morning before you do anything else?

[Podcast Host]

Exactly. Why don't you join a writers group?

[Sue Dominus]

I. Yeah. And I am in a wonderful writers group, and I love it very much. What I need to do, and I'm happy we're having this conversation because now I will. Is I need to make that a regular practice, not just when I'm on deadline.

[Podcast Host]

That's the messy part. Gift for you.

[Sue Dominus]

Thank you. I'll take it and run with it. I love it.

[Podcast Host]

You do have that good girl inclination. I have that.

[Sue Dominus]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Like, I mean, I knew people who didn't turn things in. I didn't think that was an option.

[Sue Dominus]

I know, right?

[Podcast Host]

It was like, if you give me an assignment, I will do it. That is just how it works.

[Sue Dominus]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So if you make that an assignment for yourself, which is kind of a good note for all listeners.

[Sue Dominus]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

It's like, I went to coffee with a friend and she wants to do a podcast. And I was like, why is she asking? Why isn't she just doing it?

[Sue Dominus]

Right. So, yes.

[Podcast Host]

Giving yourself that permission.

[Sue Dominus]

Giving yourself the permission. Giving and taking yourself seriously enough to build in something as boring as structure. That is part of the creative process, is doing the structure to make it

[Podcast Host]

possible, you know, And I. So it's interesting. So I was saying to you, we're seven years apart, me and my sister. And in your book, one of the things that I sort of took away was this idea that the siblings sort of make the road for each other. We sort of had that as living embodiment because we were seven years apart. So I had things that I could, in part, because I went first by a long shot. And then our parent, you know, my dad drowned and my dad died, and then mom really sort of fell apart. So I remember saying to her, we really need to send Susie to boarding school. I'll meet you to make it easier for you to bring her.

[Sue Dominus]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

Like, if we can't afford it, maybe there'll be a scholarship. I mean, in some ways, it was like being a parent without being the parent. Yeah.

[Sue Dominus]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

Or saying, you know, she actually ended up in boarding school in Connecticut at Taft, and I was here in graduate school, and I was like, she can stay with me for the summer because she needs to get a job. She can't just come home and do nothing. And I remember, like, help introducing her to now Senator Coons. But at the time, he was just working at the Eugene Lang Foundation. Chris Coons at the time, I knew Chris Coons at the time, he was running the I have a Dream Foundation. He wasn't the senator. And I said, oh, I have a sister. She's, you know, whatever, a sophomore in high school. And he said, oh, oh, yeah, we have internships. I remember she was actually interning, and I had a summer job in investment banking, so I was never around. So basically, like, that was a crazy idea because she was in New York City by herself doing all kinds of crazy. I don't know what, while I was at a 247 job. But in that way, it was like, I felt a responsibility to help because there was nobody else to help her.

[Sue Dominus]

And you had a vision that your mom couldn't have just by virtue of her background and her experience?

[Podcast Host]

I don't know, because my mom had the vision to be like, oh, you should go to Columbia. So she had it in her.

[Sue Dominus]

That's one step. But the, like, let's get her an internship with this person who seems like a good mentor, who's going places. That's probably one level beyond what your mother might have been able to figure

[Podcast Host]

out at the time. Well, I mean, I would say to you, I think that was one level beyond what she could figure out once my dad died. So in writing the book, what did it show you or what did it reflect for you about your own upbringing and your relationship with your siblings?

[Sue Dominus]

Well, I hadn't even reflected on that moment with my brother until I was writing the book. And suddenly we met because I was writing about Marilyn Holifield, who was a civil rights activist who grew up in Tallahassee, basically, you know, Jim Crow era. And her brother, she was telling me, bullied her. And he had gone to Harvard Law School and founded the Black Harvard Law School Association, Students Association. And he sort of bullied her into going to Harvard Law School because he saw her talents and knew that it would give her opportunities that she wouldn't get elsewhere. I remember thinking, he kind of reminds me of my older brother. And then I remembered that story. So I just think you see things in a way that you don't. I thought a lot. I wrote something for Oprah for oh Daily about my sister also, because my sister had a really different path for me. She went into corporate America and. Which is a much more professional place. And it's all about the. There are a lot of, like, Very clear rules about how to operate in a workplace that journalists never get briefed in. I think it was invaluable to have my sister to turn to, to say, like, I have this slightly sticky professional situation. How do I handle it professionally? How do I negotiate? How do I take this opportunity? And how do I say no to this while not losing standing? You know, Ellen will tell me when I'm out of line, when I'm being ridiculous, when I'm being unreasonable. I think your friends are often, it's their default, you know, to say, like, good for you. You should ask for more.

[Podcast Host]

Why would I say that? Yes, of course. No, your siblings are there. To be brutally honest, they are.

[Sue Dominus]

Be brutally honest. And I think there are wonderful benefits to being an only child. To have that constant attention from your parents and to have those financial resources that are undivided, even developmentally. We know that, like full time attention from parents is huge. But the reality check, I think there's only one relationship that really provides that. In the same way that fearlessness and frankness. I think that's a sibling.

[Podcast Host]

I'm gonna go back. So I have one final question for you. You know, I think a lot about the younger generation, right. And what we can pass on that'll be useful. And I mean, invariably they say, okay, boomer, even though we're not boomers. So we'll put that aside. What piece of advice would you give to somebody, like, in their 30s now?

[Sue Dominus]

Try to be the person who can see into the future. In other words, try to the extent that you can't take a step back, and if there is a new working group that is starting to focus on something that feels down the road, like maybe it'll be a thing. Try to get involved in whatever is the future.

[Podcast Host]

Why is that your advice?

[Sue Dominus]

I just admire people who do that. And I think that it is. It's. First of all, the world is interesting. And to be on the edge of where it's changing is just. I think it can be very stimulating. But also that that often is the place where all the energy ends up going. I mean, there were working groups being formed at the New York Times about artificial intelligence. You know, six years ago. And I remember saying, that's not something I would have done. But to all the editors I knew and admired, I was saying to them, get on that working group.

[Podcast Host]

Why do you think that you see that opportunity when other people want to just wish it away?

[Sue Dominus]

You know, my father was an executive at CBS when CBS was the Tiffany network, and he had the opportunity to go run a cable network. And I think he might say that he didn't come quite have the vision to realize that some of those cable networks would go on to become forces. And that, you know, it was. Cable was still like the sad little siblings to use a sibling dynamic. And it became, you know, really, really a thing. Even when I was interviewing people for my book, you hear these stories about people who are like, oh, my father had this incredibly thriving, beautiful millinery business. He made beautiful hats. And he didn't see that hats were about to go out of fashion. And then they did, and that was that. You know, you hear stories of people who could have sort of seen a little bit ahead and planned for it. My friend Virginia Heffernan, whom I adore, she's a wonderful writer. As a high schooler, she went to. Her dad taught at Dartmouth, and because she was in a university system, she had access to things like email that nobody else had access to at that time. And I think it made her very digitally comfortable. And she ended up writing about technology and, you know, file stories from her phone at a time when all of us. When that wasn't a thing. Yeah. Or even something like Twitter. I mean, I'm embarrassed to tell you, of course, the rise and fall of Twitter. It doesn't really matter now, but when I started at the New York Times writing a column twice a week, they were begging me to tweet it out and engage in repartee with people. If I had started doing that every time I published a column in whatever year that was. 2011.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sue Dominus]

If you started tweeting twice a week with a New York Times account, I would have had a gazillion followers. And I kept saying, I saw that people I admired were doing it, but I was like, I don't know. I don't really like to self promote and I'm not really comfortable with it, and it's just not what I do. And I look back and I'm just like, dummy. If you see people working on something that seems new and fresh and maybe you think it's extraneous to your job or it's something for other people to worry about. If it's on the edge, if it's pushing forward, if it feels new, even if it's not your comfort zone, try to get involved. Try to make it your comfort zone.

[Podcast Host]

It is. It is actually a really great piece of advice, by the way. It's also not lonely because you're like, with other people trying to figure it out.

[Sue Dominus]

Yes, and by the way, that is the other thing I would say to somebody in their 30s, if they're unhappy with their job or they're not feeling great about it. If you can get yourself into the office more often, if you can move towards a job where there is more interaction in an office, or you can create that community yourself by gathering people you know outside of the office, those only good will ever, ever come of that in a million different ways.

[Podcast Host]

Also, a good piece of advice. I hope you enjoyed this amazing conversation I had with Sue. I know you're going to want to pick up her book and also look for her next article in the New York times. Remember, tell 10 friends we're all now sandwich boards because we want more people to listen and also more people to come on and share their message stories. So like it, review it, and share it with friends.