Nora Ephron on Crazy Salad | Blank on Blank @BlankonblankOrg

Uploaded July 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago

"It’s okay being a woman now. I like it. Try it some time.” - Nora Ephron, in a 1975 interview with Studs Terkel

To many, Nora Ephron is best known as the screenwriter behind some classic movies like When Harry Met Sally, Julie and Julia, Sleepless in Seattle, and Silkwood. But before she turned to writing screenplays, she was a journalist and a writer. Ephron got her start at the New York Post in the 1960s and soon she was writing for New York Magazine and Esquire.

It was at Esquire that Ephron made her name through with her personal essays, such as the one about the smallness of her breasts (A Few Words About Breasts). Ephron mixed humor with honesty, and captured the ups and downs of both being a woman--and the growing women's movement. It was around this time she sat down with Studs Terkel. Ephron had recently released a collection of her essays called, Crazy Salad.

Listen to the full interview, more about her place in the women's movement, her thoughts on writing and movies, and an inspiring message for graduates (“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”)

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The lost interview comes from the WFMT Studs Terkel Radio archive: studsterkel.org

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