Stephanie Foo Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Stephanie Foo is an accomplished published author. She first got her career started with her memoir What My Bones Know.

She was first diagnosed with complex PTSD in 2018. She looked good when it came to being on paper, as she was doing well in her career as a journalist and was involved in a happy relationship. However, every morning while in her office she had been having panic attacks, and the experience has been going on for months.

Once Stephanie received her diagnosis, she found that it was tough to hold up that illusion of perfection that she was trying to keep up. She instead decided that it was time to dedicate her life to the cause of healing from her C-PTSD.

This proved to be tough because C-PTSD is a condition that has been under-diagnosed and under-researched. It was particularly difficult to discover material that covered it for the author. Unfortunately, the books that she was able to find ended up making her feel worse: stigmatized, pathologized, and on her own.

Stephanie told herself that she would write the book that she wanted to read so badly when she was diagnosed herself when she was healed. It would be a first person account that busted stigmas and provided actual science and real solutions for those living with C-PTSD.

The author had a previous career working as a radio producer for Snap Judgment and This American Life. She has also freelanced for podcasts that include Nancy, The Cut, Invisibilia, 99% Invisible, and Reply All. She still produces and edits audio things once in a while. She also co-produced a This American Life video series that ended up winning an Emmy.

Stephanie also made an app once upon a time with the goal of making audio easier to share. She now sticks to writing and editing audio pieces. She has also seen her work featured in publications such as Vox and The New York Times.

She is usually busy telling stories but when not busy doing that, she can be found working to save trees and harvesting her own acorns in Forest Park.

Stephanie was born in 1987 in Malaysia. Her family moved to America when Foo was two years old. When she was in her teens, her parents abandoned her. Stephanie went to the University of California at Santa Cruz before attending and graduating from Stevenson College in 2008.

After graduating, Stephanie taught high school journalism. At the same time, she began listening to radio programs such as Radiolab and This American Life. She decided that she would try to get into the field. She went to a porn convention to track down a story and even started her own podcast that was named ‘Get Me On This American Life’. The podcast was clearly successful. Foo started a music podcast around this time as well named Stagedive.

Foo would work at Snap Judgment as an intern, moving to a producer. She then transitioned to working at This American Life. She has covered everything from Japanese reality television to online dating and race. She would put on her own podcast in 2015 called Pilot, with each episode working as a pilot episode for a podcast in a different genre.

Stephanie was working as the project lead for a This American Life app that came out in 2016 named Shortcut. The goal was to let listeners share audio on different social media sites easily. The app let users pick an audio clip that lasted up to 30 seconds and post it to social media directly, with the audio playing alongside a clip transcription. It was later put out as open-source code.

The author has commented on diversity in media in different fashions, including her essay in 2015 titled “What To Do If Your Workplace Is Too White”. She has also produced Videos 4 U: I Love You for This American Life which was nominated for three Daytime Emmys. The project director won an Emmy for Best Directing Special Class. It also won a 2015 Webby Award. Stephanie also won a Knight Foundation grant and worked as a Columbia University fellow in 2016, using them both to work on what would become the Shortcut app. Foo has also been a judge many times for the American Mosaic Journalism Prize.

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo first came out in 2022. It was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in the category of Best Memoir & Autobiography. If you have struggled with complex PTSD or are just interested in finding out more about the subject, this is the perfect book for you.

Journalist Stephanie Foo dives in to a memoir about her healing and writes the type of book that she wishes she would have had at her disposal when she was first diagnosed. This book delves into her experience with C-PTSD and how having this affliction has helped to shape her life.

By the time she had reached the age of thirty, Stephanie was a woman who seemed to have it all. Everything that you put down about her life on paper said that she was successful, and perhaps she was.

Stephanie was working the job of her dreams, employed as a radio producer who had helped her team win awards at This American Life. She had a boyfriend who loved her and they were very happy together. Everything looked great.

However, when her office door was closed, nobody knew that Stephanie was enduring panic attacks and crying at her desk. Not just sometimes, but just about every morning. She had wondered what was wrong with her for years, and finally had an answer when she ended up being diagnosed as having complex PTSD.

C-PTSD is something that happens when trauma keeps happening over and over throughout the years. For Foo, both of her parents had ended up suddenly abandoning her when she was just a teen. The family had moved to the U.S. from Malaysia and had ditched her after abusing her verbally and physically for years while also neglecting her.

Being diagnosed shone a light on the way that her past has kept on threatening to impact and ruin her relationships, her health, and her career. Foo looked for resources to help but didn’t find much, and was left to do her healing herself and put the map of her experience into a book.

In this book, Foo interviews psychologists and scientists and recounts trying different therapies. She goes back to San Jose in California to look into how immigrant trauma has affected people in the community and even finds out secrets in her family from Malaysia and learns how trauma can be inherited through the generations.

Stephanie ends up finding that you can’t always move on from your trauma, but you can find out how to move with it. Read this powerful memoir and witness what Foo learned for yourself!