Mallary Tenore Tarpley | SLIP

Written by journalist and professor at the University of Texas-Austin Mallary Tenore Tarpley, Slip offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding eating disorder recovery and interweaves poignant personal stories, immersive reporting, and cutting-edge science.
When Mallary Tenore Tarpley lost her mother at eleven years old, she wanted to stop time. If growing up meant living without her mother, then she wanted to stay little forever. What started as small acts of food restriction soon turned into a full-blown eating disorder, and a year later, Tarpley was admitted to Boston’s Children’s Hospital. With honesty and grace, Slip chronicles Tarpley’s childhood struggles with anorexia to her present-day experiences grappling with recovery.
This book tells Tarpley’s story, but it also transcends her personal narrative. A journalist by trade, Tarpley interviewed and surveyed hundreds of patients, doctors, and researchers to provide a deeper understanding of eating disorder treatment. She draws on this original reporting, as well as cutting-edge science, to illuminate what has changed in the years since she was first diagnosed.
As Tarpley came to learn, “full recovery” from an eating disorder is complicated. And that idea provides the basis for the groundbreaking new framework explored in this book: that there is a “middle place” between sickness and full recovery, a place where slips are accepted as part of the process but progress is always possible.
With new insights and an uplifting message, Slip brings much-needed attention to an issue that affects many. It offers a beacon of hope with its revolutionary perspective on recovery. This inspiring and life-affirming book is a must-read for individuals with eating disorders, their loved ones, educators, medical professionals, and anyone seeking to understand eating disorders and the path to recovery.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mallary Tenore Tarpley is an assistant professor of practice University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches journalism classes in the Moody College of Communication and writing classes at the McCombs School of Business.

Her debut nonfiction book, SLIP: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery, which was published by Simon & Schuster’s Simon Element imprint in August 2025, explores the under-discussed complexities of eating disorders and recovery from them. The book is equal parts memoir and journalism, and it weaves together Mallary's own narrative with perspectives from clinicians, researchers, and others with lived experience. In 2023, Mallary received a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support the science-related reporting in the book, specifically around the neurobiological and genetic aspects of eating disorders.

Previously, Mallary was the associate director of UT Austin’s Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, an international training and outreach center for journalists. Prior to UT Austin, Mallary was executive director the nonprofit Images & Voices of Hope (ivoh), where she developed a storytelling genre called Restorative Narrative — stories that show how people and communities are finding meaningful pathways forward in the aftermath of trauma. Mallary started her career at The Poynter Institute, a world-renowned journalism think tank. As managing editor of the Institute’s website, Poynter.org, she wrote and edited stories about the media industry and interviewed hundreds of journalists and authors.

Mallary’s articles and personal essays about eating disorders have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, TIME Magazine, and Teen Vogue, among other publications. She maintains a weekly newsletter, Write at the Edge, featuring writing tips and best practices.

Mallary holds a bachelor’s degree from Providence College and a master’s of fine arts in nonfiction writing from Goucher College. She lives in the Austin area with her husband and two young children.

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