Hard Knox with Amanda Knox
You don't have to be stuck in a prison cell to feel trapped in your own life. Drawing on her extraordinary journey, Amanda Knox explores how we make sense of struggle, truth, and change in a world that constantly tests us. In conversations with writers, thinkers, and creators Hard Knox dives into the ideas and experiences that help us grow more grounded, thoughtful, and free. Each week, subscribers also have a chance to Ask Amanda Anything. Amanda is here to answer your questions, about her, about you, about how to lead a more fulfilling life. And nothing is off the table! To submit your questions and comments, subscribe at www.amandaknox.substack.com, where you’ll also gain access to ad-free and bonus episodes, subscriber-only essays, and more. www.amandaknox.com Twitter: @amandaknox IG: @amamaknox Bluesky: @amandaknox.com.bsky.social
Episodes
January 20, 2026 • 25 mins
In a moment when the news feels relentless and outrage is often treated as a moral obligation, Amanda reflects on what meditation is really for. Is sitting quietly a form of disengagement, or a way of learning how to respond without making things worse? Drawing on Zen practice, Buddhist history, and her own experience of trauma, activism, and family life, Amanda explores the false choice between rage and withdrawal, and makes the c...
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January 13, 2026 • 76 mins
Mike Semanchik is the executive director of the Innocence Center, and Scott McMahon is an American who spent more than five years imprisoned in the Philippines for a crime he did not commit. In this episode, Amanda, Mike, and Scott unpack how a justice system built on delay, corruption, and extortion can turn a single accusation into a life sentence without a verdict, how patience and tenacity become survival skills when truth is s...
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January 6, 2026 • 61 mins
In this episode of Hard Knox, Amanda is joined by her husband Chris for an intimate and surprisingly funny conversation about the practice of beginning again. Drawing from Zen practice, a New Year’s fight, and a walk in the woods, they explore how noticing momentum in our thoughts, moods, and arguments can interrupt downward spirals, how compassion and physical connection can reset conflict, and why beginning again is not about era...
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December 30, 2025 • 64 mins
Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist and bestselling author whose work explores creativity, intelligence, and what helps people grow after hardship. In this episode, Amanda and Scott talk about how we get stuck in stories about ourselves, how to tell the difference between honoring pain and letting it run the show, and why growth often starts with a small shift in perspective rather than a dramatic breakthrough. Along the w...
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December 26, 2025 • 31 mins
Amanda and Chris debate the true meaning of Christmas through stories about Charlie Brown, gift giving, religion, pagan traditions, and very strong opinions about gift cards. They explore why Christmas has always been less about belief and more about gathering, why remembering people matters more than buying things, and why sharing your blueberries might actually be the whole point.
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December 23, 2025 • 61 mins
Nicholas Kristof is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and longtime New York Times columnist whose reporting has taken him from the Tiananmen Square massacre to the brothels of Cambodia and the opioid-ravaged communities of his own hometown in Oregon. In this conversation, Amanda and Nick explore how witnessing atrocities shaped his belief that individual acts of courage can stand against overwhelming darkness. They also discuss w...
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December 18, 2025 • 44 mins
In this Ask Amanda Anything episode, Amanda answers listener questions that range from deeply personal to playfully unexpected, touching on disability, identity, creativity, politics, joy, and very bad dates. She reflects on how to find agency when life feels unfair, how to stay grounded when others project stories onto you, and why humor and curiosity are often better guides than certainty.
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December 16, 2025 • 63 mins
Liv Boeree is a former professional poker champion turned science communicator whose work explores game theory, technology, and the incentive systems shaping our world. In this wide-ranging conversation, Amanda and Liv examine how our competitive instincts can either sabotage us or help us grow, how to design lives that create more win-win dynamics, and why learning to “zoom out” may be the most powerful resilience skill we have. T...
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December 12, 2025 • 67 mins
By the time he was sixteen, Jason Baldwin had already felt the sting of prejudice from his community in West Memphis, Arkansas. Kids at the trailer park where he lived had long been shunned by more well off residents of the town. Still, nothing could have prepared him for how vicious these prejudices would turn once the bodies of three eight year old boys were found murdered. Jason and two of his friends were convicted of the murde...
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December 11, 2025 • 65 mins
Amanda and Chris return for another round of Who’s Right? Up for debate today: excuses and disrespect. Does offering an excuse ever make things better? Why do we care about motive? Do we want apologies with "no excuses," or is it helpful to understand why someone screwed up? Does being disrespectful require intent? This one gets heated! We need your input. Let us know who's right, and how you think about this thorny topic.
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December 9, 2025 • 69 mins
Youngmi Mayer is a comedian, writer, and podcaster whose work blends dark humor with deeply personal stories about trauma, identity, and immigrant family dynamics. In this conversation, Amanda and Youngmi explore how humor can become a survival tactic passed down through generations, how telling the “inappropriate” truths can create unexpected community, and how comedy helps us confront the parts of ourselves we’re taught to suppre...
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December 2, 2025 • 57 mins
Isabelle Boemeke is a former fashion model turned climate activist, author and the world’s first “nuclear energy influencer,” known for making one of the most complex and controversial climate solutions both accessible and inspiring.
In this conversation, Amanda asks how Isabel transformed despair about climate change into agency and why optimism about human creativity may be our most important renewable resource. They explore ho...
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November 28, 2025 • 54 mins
Anna Vasquez was just nineteen when she and three of her friends were accused of a horrific crime that they were completely innocent of. Their case was swept up in the mass hysteria about satanic cults that had seized the country in the 80s and 90s. It would take twenty four years for Anna and her friends to be fully exonerated, including over a decade in prison. But Anna's story didn't end with her release from prison or even with...
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November 27, 2025 • 40 mins
Amanda and Chris return for another round of Who’s Right? This time debating the meaning and future of Thanksgiving. Together they ask how the holiday’s mythology became so cringe, and why rethinking its stories, rituals, and food traditions might help us build a culture of gratitude that actually feels authentic. Along the way, they explore how gratitude works in real life, not just in holiday lore, and why reframing our struggles...
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November 25, 2025 • 66 mins
Helen Lewis is a journalist and author whose new book The Genius Myth dismantles how achievement really works.
In this conversation, Amanda and Helen ask how the stories we tell about brilliance shape our culture and why our fixation on lone, exceptional individuals so often misleads us. They explore how luck, collaboration, and power create the illusion of “born geniuses,” and why understanding the real mechanics of success can ...
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November 20, 2025 • 33 mins
In this playful and revealing back-and-forth, Amanda and Chris debate the ethics, psychology, and survival-value of improvising your way through life. They touch on careers, creativity, parenting, identity, and confidence, while exploring why adaptability may now be the most essential human skill of all. How do you know when to “fake it till you make it”?
Reach out to us at www.amandaknox.com or amandaknox.subs...
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November 18, 2025 • 62 mins
In this weeks wide-ranging conversation, Amanda Knox and Aella, a writer, sex worker, and self-taught researcher, explore the art of questioning everything. They talk about status, desire, fear, and freedom. And it’s a deep dive into what happens when living experimentally turns your whole life into a lab.
Reach out to us at www.amandaknox.com or amandaknox.substack.com
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November 14, 2025 • 42 mins
Most people are pretty bad at having difficult conversations. We don't get much practice--the internet makes sure that we mostly see content from people we agree with. When we do see opposing viewpoints, it's usually in the form of hateful comments. But when Dylan Marron started receiving a deluge of online abuse in response to his viral video series, he did the opposite of what most people do. He gave his detractors a call. Photo ...
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November 12, 2025 • 41 mins
Who's Right is back by popular demand! Between our usual Hard Knox episodes, Amanda sits down with her husband, Chris to debate something serious or silly and ask you: “Who’s Right?”
In this Who’s Right? episode, Amanda and Chris explore what really happens when we say “no”—to others, to expectations, and even to ourselves. Is saying no an act of selfishness or self-respect? They unpack why boundaries feel so hard to set, how ...
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November 11, 2025 • 53 mins
Phil Klay is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and National Book Award–winning author of Redeployment, Missionaries, and Uncertain Ground, whose work examines the moral and emotional toll of modern war. How do soldiers make sense of what they’ve done when the meaning of war keeps changing? Why does true patriotism demand not blind loyalty, but the courage to question—and to forgive? Released on Veterans Day, this conversation dives into ...
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