Episode 80: Lydia Denworth & why friendships are good for us

Marginally | a podcast about writing, work, and friendship

Today's episode is a fascinating discussion of the science of friendship with author, science writer and editor Lydia Denworth. Before this interview, we read her excellent new book, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond. We enjoyed talking about some of our favorite parts, but we recommend checking out the whole book to learn more about this topic, which is just starting to get significant scientific attention.

Lydia Denworth started her career in news magazines and freelancing for women’s magazines, but has more recently gravitated to writing primarily about science. She’s visited brain imaging labs and baboon troops in Kenya, and written about everything from Alzheimer’s to zebrafish.

She is now the author of three books of popular science. Today we’re talking about her third book, which is Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond – an excellent book about the health and scientific data about quality relationships. This book was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

She is a contributing editor for Scientific American and she writes the Brain Waves blog for Psychology Today. Her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Spectrum and many other publications.

We loved talking to her about her new and fascinating book, which is out this week – January 28, 2020. We strongly recommend you check it out.

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Find us on Instagram @marginallypodcast. Meghan's occasionally on Twitter @meghanembee, and Olivia’s @roamingolivia

Theme music is "It's Time" by Scaricá Ricascá.

Have a question you'd like us to try to answer, or a topic you'd love to have us cover? Interested in being a guest? Contact us here. Thanks for listening, and get to work!

If you like Marginally, you should check out #amwriting, with Jess and KJ, where two much more experienced writers talk through their processes with each other and celebrated guests.