I Was 758

New York Times bestselling author Dani Shapiro interviewed me about my life story and my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, for her widely-listened-to Family Secrets podcast. The episode is entitled “I Was 758,” and it’s available on most podcast distributing platforms. Thank you to Dani for doing this intimate interview. You can buy Data Baby from the retailer of your choice here and read more about it here.

About | My Book I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Consulting I Email

The Other Hollywood Reporter

AVN, aka Adult Video News, is The Hollywood Reporter of the adult industry. It’s been around forever, and I miss getting the paper version in the mail. In any case, the folks over there were kind enough to mention my recent story on Forbes: “How The Hardest Working Director In Porn Gets The Job Done.” Thanks, AVN!

About | My Book I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Consulting I Email

Thanks, Naked Capitalism

It was nice to see that Naked Capitalism shared a link to my 2017 story about financial domination. Thank you!

About | My Book I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Consulting I Email

Thank you, Travis and Sigrid

I’m a longtime fan of Travis and Sigrid, who, if you don’t know already, are a famous duo in London. Travis is a cyclist, Sigrid is an all-white, blue-eyed, deaf Norwegian Forest cat, and together they ride around the city, bringing joy and excitement to all they encounter, including quite a few celebrities over the years. Recently, Travis wrote a nice post about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, on his Instagram feed, which was really kind. Make sure to follow Travis and Sigrid on Instagram and order their book, which I highly recommend: Sigrid Rides: The Story of an Extraordinary Friendship and An Adventure on Two Wheels.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

A Trip Home

Yesterday, I flew up to the Bay Area, where I was doing a brown bag book talk at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. I got there early, and that gave me a chance to have breakfast, visit Pegasus Books where I was happy to see my book on a shelf, and go to my childhood home and knock on the front door (more on that in an upcoming post). After that, I went to Cal for the talk. I was interviewed by journalist and producer Cecilia Lei, who did a wonderful job asking insightful questions, turning what could have been bearing witness to a Q&A into a three-way dialogue with the audience, and prompting me to think about some of the deeper themes in and larger issues surrounding my book in new ways. Thank you to everyone who came. I’ve been doing a lot of promoting of my memoir this month, these last couple weeks in particular. After I’m done with the last event, which is this weekend, I’ll be writing a longer post about everything I learned about marketing one’s book. The photo is of the courtyard at the J-school. It was a bit overcast, but so are most days in the Bay Area in spring.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

The Unhinged Interview

What happens when one former child lab rat interviews another former child lab rat? Things get unhinged. Seth Fischer, who was himself studied as a child by his psychologist parents, and I talked about growing up under a microscope, the consequences of being a human guinea pig, and what happens when the subject sets out to tell his or her own story. Read the rest of our scintillating, strange conversation in the newest issue of Air/Light: “‘I Hate the Subject and the Subject Hates Me’: An Interview with Susannah Breslin.”

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

I'm at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books This Weekend

This weekend, I’ll be a panelist at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The panel, “Women and Bodies: Science Meets Sociology,” is on Sunday, April 21, at 3:30 pm., it’s moderated by Amy Alkon, and my fellow panelists are Dr. Jen Gunter, Cat Bohannon, and M.G. Lord. I’ll be talking about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. And, you can read more about the story behind my book here.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

The Other Hollywood

Ahead of The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend, where I’ll be a panelist—see: “Women and Bodies: Science Meets Sociology”—The L.A. Times shared “The 50 Best Hollywood Books of All Time” and asked readers for their suggestions on the best Hollywood books not on that list. My suggestion made it to “19 Great Hollywood Books We Missed, According to Our Readers.” Find out my suggestion here.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

Listen to an Interview with Me About Data Baby on ABC Radio National's All in the Mind podcast

I was interviewed about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment (read more about my book here) for a recent episode of ABC Radio National’s podcast about the human mind, “All in the Mind,” out of Australia. The episode is “Being a Human Lab Rat for 30 Years: What Happens Next.”

From the episode’s description:

“Researchers knew Susannah better than her own parents.

They may have even known her better than herself.

Today, how spending thirty years in a psychological study warped journalist Susannah Breslin's life.”

Listen to my conversation with host Sana Qadar here.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

Data Baby Is The Morbidly Curious Book Club's April Pick!

I’m super happy that The Morbidly Curious Book Club has chosen my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment—you can read more about my book here—as the April pick! The Morbidly Curious Book Club is very cool, and I’m honored that Data Baby is in the company of their previous 2024 selections, which include Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom, Lay Them to Rest: On the Road with the Cold Case Investigators Who Identify the Nameless by Laurah Norton, and Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy. You can join TMCBC here, check out the rest of their 2024 selections and follow TMCBC on Instagram here, follow TMCBC on TikTok here, and find various other relevant links for TMCBC here, including a link to the podcast, for which I’ll be doing an interview later this month. Thank you, TMCBC!

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

Listen to an Interview with Me About Data Baby on NPR's The Pulse

I was interviewed about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, for a recent episode of WHYY’s The Pulse, which is part of the NPR Network. The episode is “Discovering Your True Identity,” and the interview I did with host Maiken Scott starts at the 34 minute mark. (Read more about Data Baby here.)

From the episode’s description:

“Identity's a complicated thing — a mixture of nurture and nature, ethnicity, gender, culture, conscious decisions, coincidences, and more. In many ways, though, who we think we are boils down to the stories we tell ourselves; stories based on our origins, our families, and how we came to be. But what happens when those stories change? When we discover that the narrative of our lives is completely different from what we've always believed?”

Listen to the episode here.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

An Interview with Me About Data Baby on CBC Radio's "The Current"

CBC Radio’s “The Current” host Matt Galloway interviewed me about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. We talked about “The Truman Show,” growing up under a microscope, and the rise of surveillance capitalism. It was a terrific interview. You can listen to the whole thing here.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

An Interview with Me About Data Baby on Identity Theory

Matt Borondy of Identity Theory fame interviewed me about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. That Q&A is: “Secrets Laid Bare: An Interview with Susannah Breslin, Author of Data Baby.”

An excerpt:

“If you think of the main character of your memoir as just that, a character, she must be a product of her environment. In my case, she is studied by researchers who assign her a number and spy on her through one-way mirrors. She has a mother who touches her rarely and resents being a mother and sometimes says to her daughter: ‘I don’t want to be a mother anymore.’ Her father leaves her with her depressed mother who the main character feels like she has to parent or save or fix. Do you think this character is going to freely express her emotions, be vulnerable? No, she’s not. That has been studied, grinded, strangled out of her. There is no fixing her. She is what she is.”

Read the rest here.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

An Interview with Me About Data Baby on Daily Blast Live

Daily Blast Live interviewed me about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. Watch.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire me I Email

An Interview with Me About Data Baby on the Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books podcast

Zibby Owens interviewed me about my new memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, for her Moms Don’t Have Time to Read podcast. You can listen to the episode here: “Susannah Breslin, DATA BABY.”

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

@dedication_bot

The dedication for my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, got a shout out on X from @dedication_bot. A few other cool dedications from the account, which posts book dedications every four hours: “A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch by Sarah Hawley,” “The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth by Ben Rawlence,” and “Alone with You in the Ether: A Love Story by Olivie Blake.”

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

Why Am I Anxious?

When I’m not anxious, I’m depressed. Why am I anxious and depressed? Find out more about my particular brand of crazy and its roots in this interview I did with Anxious Dude: “I Am Anxious… Susannah Breslin.”

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

Data Baby Reviewed in The Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism

“Susannah Breslin was indeed a data baby — twice, even. And her second time, she flaunts the role, resisting its implications and asserting her own control over it.” Read the rest of this insightful review of my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, in The Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I HIre Me I Email

Data Baby Is One of Five Books' Notable Psychology and Self-Help Books of 2023

“In Data Baby, Breslin reflects on her experiences: How much of her present was predicted by her past? How much of her future has been pre-ordained? How much has all of ours?” Read Five Books’ recommendation of Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment in “Notable Psychology and Self-Help Books of 2023.”

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email

Data Baby Reviewed in The Globe and Mail

“If, as Socrates contended, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ then Breslin is living hers to the fullest. Lucky for us, she’s written a thought-provoking, ridiculously propulsive book about it.” Read the rest of this excellent review of my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, in The Globe and Mail.

Buy My Book I About | Blog I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Hire Me I Email