In a new episode of Next Question, Katie gives a behind-the-scenes look at how she — with the help of two talented women — captured her remarkable rise in journalism in a moving new memoir, which is out now. In this segment, Katie sits down with her collaborators — Lucy Kaylin, the vice president of print content at Hearst magazines and the author of two books of her own, and Adriana Fazio, who connected with Katie while writing her thesis at Notre Dame on the broadcaster’s career.

They dished about the hours spent researching, writing, and reworking parts of the book from Katie’s home in the Hamptons. And how the pandemic presented them with a unique opportunity to really focus all their attention on this project.

Adriana and Lucy would drop in for a week at a time and the three of them “would just be in our pajamas all day, bent over our laptops,” said Lucy, who at times pushed them to keep working until late in the night. 

“It would be midnight, and Katie and I would actually be begging to go to bed, and Lucy would say, ‘No, we have to keep going.’” Adriana said. 

This period is also marked by the murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning that unfolded across the country, which Katie says really shaped how they told her story. 

“I think it informed and kind of brought into sharper focus many things we were writing about,” Katie said, adding that it helped her think through her own “implicit biases.”

In one section of the book, she reexamines her late husband Jay’s interest in the Civil War and how he romanticized the Confederacy and Robert E. Lee. “It was a really interesting and, at times, painful exercise trying to understand what it was about these moments” that captivated him, Katie said.

But that’s not all she reappraises in Going There. The book is filled with candid reflections on her upbringing, her relationships, the nature of TV news, and her role in it. Katie discussed her transition from the TODAY Show to anchor of the CBS evening news on the podcast, describing the experience as “interesting slash horrible.”

She’d been packaged on TODAY as “perky,” adept at handling the lighthearted segments the show’s known for. At the same time, she was tackling dozens of serious stories, but when she moved over to CBS, she still wasn’t taken seriously as a journalist, she says on the podcast.

“Do I regret it? I try to live without regrets, but if I knew then what I know now, would I have made the move? Probably not,” Katie said.

She also looked back on Jay’s untimely death, how she handled that painstaking experience, and how she wrestled with writing about it. “I think people who experienced those kinds of tragedies will really relate to what I was going through. And I think a lot of the feelings and the things I did, in retrospect, will resonate with a lot of people,” Katie said.

“I think it was also some of my best writing because it was so close to the bone,” she said.

The three of them also reveal their favorite parts of Going There.

Katie enjoyed the chance to really dig into her family history and to learn more about her mother’s Jewish background. And after decades of being written about and analyzed as a public figure, she said “it just felt so fulfilling to be able to talk about what it felt like at the time for me personally.”

For more behind-the-scenes moments from Katie’s memoir, tune into the full episode of Next Question. And make sure to buy her book, which is out now, and tickets to her book tour!