Hi, everyone, it's Omna. Welcome to the next episode of Settle In. Today, we are talking to the prolific creator, Lena Dunham.

She has a new book out. It's called FamSick. It Chronicles the rise of her HBO show Girls, but also the many, many struggles she was dealing with personally in her health and in her family, all at that same time.

And we talk about it all.

We talk about what it was like to become super famous, about the online attacks at the time,

about addiction and sobriety and illness and love and where she is today and what she wants

next out of life. So settle in and enjoy my conversation with Lena Dunham.

Lena Dunham, welcome to settle in.

Thanks so much for joining us.

It's an absolute pleasure.

I'm an enthusiastic PBS viewer.

Those tote bags really got me through my school years, and I'm thrilled to be here.

Thank you for that.

We'll have to send you an updated tote bag.

Listen, I think it's fair to say.

Anyone who knows you and your work will say you have never been one to hold back, right?

You are very comfortable sharing parts of your life.

It's part of what people adore about your work and about you. But this

memoir, this is intensely personal, right? It's about your family and your sex life and your

traumas, your addiction, your illness. And I wonder now that it is out there in the world

for all to read, what has that been like for you?

So I started the book in 2018. I was newly sober. I had just gotten out of rehab, and I was really trying to figure out how to make sense of some of the experiences I'd had

sort of in the first decade, almost decade of my career. And now it's 2026, hard to believe, that pandemic did a number on us.

...