Embodied

For almost 29 years, journalist Jennifer Senior was a self-described “brilliant sleeper.” Then, one night, something changed…and Jennifer has struggled with chronic insomnia ever since. She talks to Anita about insights on insomnia from both her reporting and personal life. Then, we meet a couple who share suggestions for navigating insomnia in a romantic partnership.
Meet the guests:
- Jennifer Senior is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of "Why Can't Americans Sleep?"
- Gabrielle Moss and Jesse Rifkin are writers living in New York City
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Please note: This episode originally published October 9, 2025.
Update: Gabrielle Moss has a new book, "The Midlife Plot Twist: How to Reboot Your Life Without Burning It Down (Even If You Really, Really Want To)."

Building a life as an artist is an uphill climb. After decades of hustling to make it work, writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest had one big question: How do you determine if art is worth all the sacrifice it requires? Stephanie tells Anita about traveling the world for answers and what she learned about what it takes to build a life as a female artist.
Meet the guest:
- Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a professor of creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of “Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life”
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Please note: This episode originally published September 11, 2025.
Update: "Art Above Everything" is now available in paperback!

How do you keep doing something that you love after your body changes ... and you can’t do it the way you used to? Yewande Komolafe was a cook for two decades before a medical crisis and multiple amputations forced her to change the way that she worked in the kitchen. She tells guest host (and Embodied producer) Kaia Findlay about her process of coming back to cooking and reconnecting to her identity as a chef. Plus, Christine Ha, “the Blind Cook,” talks about how gradual vision loss affected her abilities in the kitchen and how relearning everything from boiling water to knife skills helped her establish new methods for navigating the future.
Meet the guests:
- Yewande Komolafe is a recipe developer and cooking columnist at the New York Times
- Christine Ha is a MasterChef winner, the owner of two restaurants and an author
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What would you do if you knew your brain would stop functioning normally in just a decade? For brothers Ansel Dow (31) and Cosmo Hinsman (26), this isn't hypothetical. They carry a rare genetic mutation that makes frontotemporal dementia almost inevitable by their mid-40s. It’s the same condition that has altered the lives and personalities of their mother and five of her siblings. In conversation with Anita, the brothers reveal how this genetic legacy influences their most personal choices about love, friendship and building a meaningful life against a countdown.
Meet the guests:
- Ansel Dow is a community organizer and an advocate for more research into FTD
- Cosmo Hinsman holds a MFA in fiction writing
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Read "The Vanishing Family" from the New York Times here
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Please note: This episode originally published June 5, 2025.
Updates: Ansel and Cosmo's Aunt Christy, the first in her generation to develop FTD, passed away last November at age 72. Journalist Robert Kolker wrote "The Vanishing Family" about Ansel and Cosmo's family, which is set for release on September 29th.

Nearly 1.3 million people are held inside state and federal prisons across the U.S. What happens to a person’s physical body inside that carceral system — and after they get out? Those were questions Emile Suotonye DeWeaver has found himself up against through his life. Suotonye was in and out of juvenile hall during his adolescence before spending just over two decades in prison in adulthood. The activist and writer tells guest host Carvell Wallace how his time in prison affected his relationship to everything from exercise and nutrition to physical touch and desire. And he describes what the healing process for his mind-body connection has been since his release in 2017. 
Meet the guest:
- Emile Suotonye DeWeaver is the author of "Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy, and an Abolitionist Future"
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