Eric Nuzum
Eric NUZUM is a writer, cofounder of podcasting company Magnificent Noise, and creator of iconic podcasts. He is considered a leading “go-to” expert in audio, podcasting, radio, and spoken word entertainment. He led NPR’s initial podcasting efforts in 2005 and remained that effort's leading creative and strategic force for a decade. As a creator, he developed some of NPR’s most successful podcasts, including TED Radio Hour and Invisibilia. He continued his track record of success during his tenure as Audible’s leader for short-form content and podcasting, creating such recognized podcasts as Sincerely X (another co-production with TED), The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson, and Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel. He is also the author of Giving Up the Ghost: A Story About Friendship, 80s Music, A Lost Scrap of Paper, and What It Means to be Haunted (2012), The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula (2007) and Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America (2001). Nuzum was awarded the National Edward R. Murrow Award for News Writing and his work has appeared in a few publications you’ve heard of and many more that you haven’t heard of. Eric is based in the New York City metro area.
“If there is one thing I'd learned about hospitals, it's that they aren't interested in healing you. They are interested in stabilizing you, and then everyone is supposed to move on. They go to stabilize some more people, and you go off to do whatever you do. Healing, if it happens at all, is done on your own, long after the hospital has submitted your final insurance paperwork.”
“Outside of note passing and the occasional tight-lipped kiss after school events, "going together" in seventh grade was pretty meaningless. You couldn't drive, had nowhere to go, and either weren't allowed or couldn't afford to do anything. I was kind of like being an old married couple, except you could control you bowels and stay awake past 8 p.m.”
“Eventually I had gotten it together enough to call her. I did so partly to let her know where I was and partly to almost brag about where I was. Whenever I’d get morose, sulky, or stuck somewhere between crabby and suicidal, she was quick to say something disarming or indirectly tell me things weren’t that bad. Laura wasn’t exactly dismissive of my feelings, but I often left our conversations feeling like she didn’t quite get how harsh things felt for me—or at least that she wasn’t willing to acknowledge it. This frustrated and upset me. I spent so much time trying to hide the depths of my feelings and the clusterfuckedness of my life from everyone, except her. The one person I was honest with was often telling me that I was being too dramatic, or overdramatic, or overthinking things, or would I just please change the subject. It wasn’t like she didn’t believe me—it was more like she questioned why I let things bother me so much. In a small way, ending up in the mental ward was a strange kind of validation for me. Being in Timken Mercy proved that when I was insisting that things were terrible, and she kept insisting that they weren’t, they were, in fact, kind of terrible.”
“Right there in that room, listening to the tape Laura gave me, I decided that I wanted something more than what I’d allowed myself to become. Listening to the voices and piano notes fade in and out, I decided that I wanted to be happy. If I had to fight for things in life, I wanted to fight for something bigger than the right to eat with a fork. I wanted to love and be loved and feel alive. I had no idea how to find my way, but listening to that music wash over me, I felt, for the first time, that the struggle I faced would be worth it.”