South Philly Author, Editor and Ghostwriter Reveals Why She's Ready To Be Unmasked
Amy Federman opens up on Tourette's, being a late bloomer, and facing fear head on. She says midlife is a time to pull bullshit out at the root.
If you’ve read any one piece of Amy’s work, you won’t be surprised to learn that she’s a highly experienced writer. Her on-point sentence structure and fantastic word choices reflect both talent and time. In 2004, Amy earned a BFA in writing, literature, and publishing from Boston’s Emerson College.
Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, Amy returned home after college. She rented a row home in South Philly with three friends and took a job as a cocktail waitress. Her one or two year plan ended up turning into a few more. In 2010, Amy pivoted towards a career in writing, starting out as a social media and marketing manager and ultimately carving out a niche as a writer and ghostwriter in the business space.
For almost a decade, Amy’s been managing content for ConantLeadership. She co-authored a book with the founder, Doug Conant: The Blueprint: 6 Practical Steps to Lift Your Leadership to New Heights is a WSJ best-seller.
As the Editor in Chief & Director of Content, Amy regularly writes newsletters about workplace trends and ideas. And she takes the knowledge shared by top leadership luminaries at ConantLeadership’s virtual summits and distills it into actionable, digestible, and accessible content. Amy’s also a business ghostwriter and has bylines of her own, like her cover story in the print edition of Success magazine, where she advocates for a four-day workweek.
A year into her 40s, Amy’s ready to take more risks and let herself be more fully seen and heard. Amy lives in South Philly with her husband. You can find her at @amyfedermanauthor on Insta and Threads, at @AmyFeds on X (Twitter) and as Amy Federman on LinkedIn.
This interview took place before the 10/7 terrorist attack in Israel. In light of the tragedy, Amy is taking a mental health break from social media.
I recently Zoomed with Amy to talk about all the changes in her life just as she’s finishing her first novel. Plus, we discuss another topic near and dear to Amy and so many: neurodiversity.
Reading “Thank you for ignoring me” was how I discovered your substack a few years ago. As a parent of a child with tics, I really appreciated reading about your experience with Tourette Syndrome. What kind of response did you get after sharing this? And do you still have a need or desire to mask your tics?
I'm so glad there’s more awareness now. When I was a kid, no one knew I had Tourette's, including me. People had this idea that the disorder always involved curse words. No one thought tapping my finger, blinking, or making soft clicks with my tongue could be Tourette’s. So I would get a lot of feedback that I was disruptive and damaged in some way.
Adults in my life and teachers would yell and ask, “Why don't you just stop that?” I would get kicked out of class and ostracized — not only by peers — but by authority figures who thought I was being insolent or “difficult.” I internalized a lot of those messages well into adulthood. Discovering my tics were due to a disorder, not some hardwired moral failing, was a revelation for me that started to unravel a lot of shame.
After I shared the post, I heard from a lot of people that they had no idea I had Tourette’s. It was kind of like me “coming out,” and it was so nice to enjoy some support and camaraderie. I'd like to say I just let it fly now, but I often still feel pressure to mask my tics, especially in a professional context.
I do a lot of public speaking for work, including live webinars. Generally, when I’m focused on a task or conversation, I don’t tic. But sometimes, when I'm on those zooms, I'll have a blinking tic. Then I wonder, should I just call it out? But thus far, I have chosen not to and hope people won't notice it.
Discovering my tics were due to a disorder, not some hardwired moral failing, was a revelation for me that started to unravel a lot of shame.
You’ve talked about wanting to use your writing voice in more personal and creative ways. As you open up more, are you starting to feel more confident and comfortable sharing your headspace with readers?
Yes, I'm getting more comfortable. Substack has been a great outlet to do more personal writing. We were just talking about that need to mask. And I think that informed how I’ve been able to thrive in ghostwriting, content marketing, and business writing in the thought leadership space. It has felt very natural for me to use my skills to elevate other peoples’ platforms and bring their ideas to life.
I've been perhaps too comfortable in positions where I'm kind of hiding. But during the pandemic, like a lot of people, I started realizing life is short. And for the first time, I started thinking, “What do I want? What do I want to say? How do I want to be seen? How do I want to take up space?”
It's kind of embarrassing because I feel like such a late bloomer. I mean, this was in my late 30s. I'm realizing that so much of my growth as a writer has happened in these past several years. I’m coming out of hiding and stepping into the light. So that's the path I'm on.
I agree that changing in midlife is surprising. Because the focus of change is usually on young people. But the process of changing doesn’t end.
It doesn't end, and it makes sense that the focus is often solely on young people’s “coming of age” stories because of the ageism in our culture at large. We strive for youth and are endlessly fascinated by it. But we are “coming of age” at every stage of life, and that should be celebrated too. The natural course of maturing and gaining insight is incredible. I’m seeing how the ongoing growth and self-reflection that comes in midlife can be so rewarding and challenging in equal measure.
My 40s have been a big change decade, so I related to the essay you wrote just before turning 40 last year. I absolutely loved “How do we mourn our own lives?” even more when rereading it. It’s so good. Where are you now in the process of coming to terms with getting older?
First, thank you for saying such nice things. It means a lot to hear. To answer, I’ll use a complete cliché: Life really does begin at 40. It's when the synthesis and insight that come from marrying experience with reflection starts to blossom into a deeper understanding of what it is to be alive. And mourning is part of that. A deeper understanding that life is short is such an important part of personal development.
We may know intellectually that life is short in our youth, but we don't always understand it in our marrow. There's understanding with a small u, and then there's Understanding with a capital U. Hopefully, we're growing into that capital U as we enter our 40s and changing our behavior accordingly. In the essay, I was mourning the excitement from the first quarter of life when it felt like, “Who knows what's gonna happen?”
Yeah, I always like the word possibility. It's one of my favorite words.
Yes. But as much as I missed the highs of youth — and cherish that reckless, hopeful, impulsive spirit that was so alive in younger me — I really do believe that maturity is a blessing. Aging is a gift. I know it sounds saccharine or corny, but I really do believe this.
I've been on a growth trajectory which includes (but is not limited to) going to therapy and starting to unpack my learned behaviors and limiting beliefs in many areas. It’s hard work, but I feel like, okay, if we haven't already, midlife is the time to pull some of this bullshit out at the root. I’m trying to set the stage for a fulfilling second half of life. Part of the mourning in that essay was feeling shame for not focusing on my own creative work sooner. And while I do wish I had pursued my own literary writing aspirations earlier, another part of me feels like I wasn't ready to create meaningful work yet—because I hadn’t done enough inner work.
We are “coming of age” at every stage of life, and that should be celebrated too. The natural course of maturing and gaining insight is incredible.
“I want to be 'The Fool'” is another one of your must-read essays. In it, you mentioned your fear of “the entire medical milieu.” That stood out to me because I work in healthcare and know avoiding or delaying care might lead to worse outcomes. But as a patient, I understand. I struggle with anxiety too. What aspects of healthcare interactions cause you the most distress? And was there anything in particular that helped you manage your anxiety when you had surgery last year?
To me, one of the things about the medical milieu that inspires dread is the objectification of the body. Whether it’s accurate or not, I feel there’s something inherently dehumanizing about being examined. And so many of my interactions in healthcare spaces have reflected this. I've also had bad experiences in childhood and early adulthood when doctors didn’t listen to me, minimized my concerns, and treated me like a thing, not a person.
For 20 years before to my surgery to remove a tumor from a salivary gland last December, I didn’t have blood drawn. I tried to do exposure therapy for it, but I would start hyperventilating at the mere sight of a needle intended for my vein (whereas I’ve never had an issue with tattoos or piercing noodles, go figure). But then I needed surgery, which required blood work, so I had to get through it, and I did. I cried the whole time. It was embarrassing. I'm 40 and crying about getting blood drawn.
Once I did it though, I was like, “Oh, I can do that again if I have to.” And the same for the biopsy, CT scans, and the surgery itself, all of which were terrifying and unpleasant, but I got through them. And it comes back to one of the most important things I've learned in treatment for tics/OCD: Avoidance makes me mentally sicker. We have to expose ourselves to what we fear in order to heal.
It’s really a both/and thing: Healthcare institutions have a lot of work to do to make the patient experience better and really listen to all patients—especially patients from marginalized populations—at a systemic level.
And, as individuals, we are well-served when we do not default to avoidance, when we expose ourselves, in manageable ways, to discomfort, because avoidance makes everything worse. We are capable of doing difficult and scary things.
The more I work with my nature, not against it, the better I do.
Well said. Systemic changes are definitely needed. And learning ways to help ourselves and each other is important too. When I’m a patient, I have to remind myself that it’s OK to say no or ask for something. It might seem obvious, but it doesn’t feel that way. It’s difficult for me to speak up for myself, but like you say, the more I do it, the easier it gets. I also wanted to ask you about the HuffPost essay you wrote a few years ago about being rediagnosed with ADHD as an adult.
When I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adolescent, it was sort of dismissed. Back then, they called it ADD. There was this now-forgotten moral panic in the 90’s that minimized ADD diagnoses and fear-mongered about Ritalin (and, relatedly, Prozac), and that panic very much echoes what's going on now.
It seems the 90’s are back in every way. Some voices are still minimizing the condition, saying, “Oh, well, everyone has that,” which they absolutely do not. And other voices needlessly scare-monger, saying, “we shouldn't be medicating people,” which I disagree with because these can be life-changing and life-saving medications.
And I’ll add that there has been an emerging trend in the online conversation about neurodivergence which worries me because it is veering into this territory of learned helplessness. Yes, ADHD is an invisible disability with real challenges but it does not disqualify us from doing hard things. I’m seeing this trend of people becoming indignant about being asked to do basic tasks in the name of being “neurodivergent,” and I think that does all of us a disservice. We need reasonable accommodations and access to healthcare (which includes mental health) rather than being treated, or acting, as if we're inherently incapable of doing things. By and large, we can be very capable and competent people — our brains are just wired differently.
Since getting treatment, how are things going for you? Do you feel supported?
I will say, there’s a honeymoon period when you're first medicated for ADHD. I felt like, wow, I could conquer the world. Now that the honeymoon period has settled, I still sometimes struggle with executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation. And I struggle with accepting that my capacity will never be wholly consistent, that I have to take each day as it comes and build cushions in my calendar to support that volatility.
The more I work with my nature, not against it, the better I do. But I supplement my medication protocol with talk therapy. And I'm learning to build self-trust and other skills. And working remotely has been life-changing. The lack of environmental distractions combined with the comforts of my own space is a dream combination for my productivity and well-being.
There's also a grief component with getting diagnosed and treated later in life. There’s a feeling that life could have been so much less difficult. But I'm so grateful I’m doing better than before, and feeling more supported now. I encourage anyone who suspects they have ADHD to seek diagnosis and treatment if possible.
I so agree. Can you give an elevator pitch for your novel, THE SHREWDNESS?
Sure: In a world remade by an invisible malevolence called “The Shrewdness,” anyone who gets farther away than 12 feet away from another person vanishes permanently. The novel follows our hero Maya and her small team of “testimony takers.” Working as outsiders in rural Pennsylvania to collect an oral history of the disappeared, they uncover a troubling local mystery. Unraveling the thread could be dangerous, but it might be Maya’s one shot at salvation—finally a way to heal the wounds of her tumultuous past.
It’s upmarket, speculative fiction that aims to marry a high-concept, propulsive plot with a thoughtful exploration of global themes about grief, survival, and the interconnectedness of human beings.
Has the story idea been in your head for a long time, or did it come to you just before you started writing?
The inspiration came in the early days of the pandemic. I heard a lot of people kvetching about social distancing. Initially, I didn't mind the isolation as much as other people seemed to (and I did have the privilege of not really being alone since I live with my husband).
I love the people close to me. But I also need a lot of alone time and cherish my independence. So, at least at first, the slowing down of expectations and obligations felt more like a relief than a burden. I started wondering about the inverse of distancing, how it might be hellish in a different way if you could never be apart from other people. That’s how I first conceived of the idea.
As the pandemic wore on, I was also appalled by people’s selfishness, their unwillingness in many cases to do the bare minimum to protect their neighbors, and that broadened the context for the book–this feeling that a greater spirit of camaraderie is needed in our culture.
That said, the book’s message is not, “hell is other people.” Quite the opposite. Aside from having a (hopefully) fun mystery and dystopian component, the book has an uplifting message about how we need each other. It's about the interconnectedness of humans and how collaboration is crucial to survival. It’s about how our salvation is often found in community with other people. And it asserts that rugged individualism is an ethos for an old paradigm. As self-interest continues to imperil our planet and climate, our fates are intertwined.
I love that! And it’s so spot-on. You’ll have full fall colors in Philly soon. Do you have any fun fall traditions you’re looking forward to?
I don't have a ton of fun fall traditions other than buying an obscene amount of small decorative gourds and putting them all over my house. So I'm looking forward to doing that.
Do you have a recent fave of something you’ve watched, listened to, or read you’d like to share — or maybe one of each?
Sure. I recently read all of Tana French's books. I love her so much. I cannot recommend her work enough. In perhaps my favorite book of hers, The Secret Place, she writes about girlhood friendships as being literally magical. Of course, she's a mystery writer, so the big beats are procedural, you know, these are Irish mysteries with these hard edges and acerbic cop dialogue but also there is so much softness and beauty and musical language. Her descriptions of the Irish landscape alone are worth the price of admission.
And I just read the novel Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll which blew me away in its deft, lyrical takedown of our deeply misogynistic culture and its equally triumphant celebration of the restorative power of sisterhood. I mean, it’s a must-read. Get out your post-its and highlighters, you’ll need them.
Also, everyone should read Your Art Will Save Your Life by Beth Pickens.
For music, I'm usually listening to lots of jazz and tiki playlists on Spotify. And I watch a lot of television. I know everyone and their mom has recommended Succession, but I still want to echo that recommendation. I think it’s an example of a television show that’s art, and I think that it’s high art. And also, on the less arty end, I adore some of the Real Housewives franchises. When people try to inflict their snobbery upon these shows, I just remind them that every episode of The Real Housewives of New York passes the Bechdel Test and I hold my head up high.
Love Succession too! I’ll have to check out your other recs. This was so fun! Thank you.
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This is part two of my interview with Amy Federman. For Amy’s full bio and more, check out part one: South Philly Author, Editor and Ghostwriter Reveals Why She's Ready To Be Unmasked. “Amy Federman opens up on Tourette's, being a late bloomer, and facing fear head on. She says midlife is a time to pull bullshit out at the root.”
Daphne, I so enjoyed speaking with you. Thanks for sharing my story!