PEN15’s Anna Konkle on how life inspires art

Think from KERA

KERA

Kera, 071003, Think, Society & Culture, Krysboyd

4.7 • 911 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For children who felt responsible for their parents’ happiness: There’s a way to turn that into joy. Anna Konkle is co-creator and co-star of the Hulu series “Pen15,” and she joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her childhood – when her parents fought all the time and she felt like the peacemaker – her complicated relationship with her father and how she turned that experience into comedy for her critically acclaimed series. Her book is called “The Sane One.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Parents are supposed to prioritize their child's emotional needs, but some parents are too wrapped up in their own stuff or in arguing with one another that they literally can't function as the grown-up in the room. And in those
0:22.4	families, sometimes the child feels responsible for the parents' happiness instead of the other way
0:27.8	around. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd. My guest grew up with two parents
0:34.5	who loved their daughter, but did not protect her from the
0:37.8	turmoil of their relationship they fought a lot they would eventually
0:41.7	divorce but continued to live together for some time after that and would
0:45.1	occasionally seem to be very deeply in love Anna Conkel coped as a child by
0:50.6	trying her best to soothe or distract their conflict. And as an adult, she poured some of
0:55.6	that early confusion into comedy when she and her creative partner, Maya Erskine, created a
1:00.3	comedy called Penn 15, in which, as 30-something women, they each played versions of their
1:05.5	real-life adolescent selves. The show ran for two much-praised seasons. You can still watch the whole thing on Hulu,
1:12.3	but it only detailed some of Conkel's complicated relationship with her parents, especially her
1:17.3	father, which continued to evolve for the rest of his life. She shares some of the rest in a
1:22.5	compelling new memoir called The Sane One. Anna, I'm welcome to think. Thank you for having me. You share such an
1:30.8	insightful diagnosis of why your parents' relationship was always complicated. Your dad approached
1:37.4	a lot of situations with humor and your mom, you describe her as naturally funny but in an
1:42.2	unintentional way. Talk about that.
1:46.0	Yeah.
1:51.1	My dad and mom both connected in their sort of hippie days. And then there was this scurry towards sort of corporate America and more the white picket fence world.
2:01.3	And in that, my dad was very funny, but in an inappropriate way.
2:06.7	So we got fired a lot, which in itself is sort of funny to me.
2:10.5	And my mom, on the other hand, is very earnest and an RN nurse, but also an energy worker and crystals and magnets and was
	...

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