Burkett has a dotorate in history and was professor in the subject at Frostburg State University for 13 years. In a dramatic turn she enrolled on a 1-year course at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She later chaired the journalism department of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. She was a staff writer for the Miami Herald and she has been published by leading publications such as Rolling Stone and Harper's Bazaar. She divides her time between New York and her home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe where she trains journalists.

She published her first book in 1993 alongside Frank Bruni. In A gospel of shame : children, sexual abuse and the Catholic Church the pair explored the incidences of Catholic sex abuse cases. Two year later she published The gravest show on earth : America in the age of AIDS. Burkett criticized doctors and the 'AIDS industry' for making financial gains from the disease and not prioritising a preventative cure.

In 1997 she collaborated with Bruni again for Consumer terrorism : how to get satisfaction when you're being ripped off. A year later she also collaborated with Susan Molinari for Representative mom : balancing budgets, Bill, and baby in the U.S. Congress. In the same year she challenged her own liberal feminist beliefs by interviewing Christian conservative women for The right women : a journey through the heart of conservative America.

In 2000's The baby boon : how family-friendly America cheats the childless, she attacked the US government for pro-family initiatives that leaves childless colleagues paying the price. A year later she released her study of an American High School, Another planet : a year in the life of a suburban high school.

In 2004 she published So Many Enemies, So Little Time. An American Woman in All the Wrong Places... She related to her time in Kyrgyzstan where she took a Fullbright Professorship in 2001 to teach journalism. She also spent time in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan compiling a study of women's rights.

In 2004 Burkett also co-directed Is It True What They Say About Ann, a documentary about the right-wing commentator Ann Coulter.

Four years later she published her first biography, her chosen subject was the late Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir. In the book Burkett vindicated Meir for her role in the Yom Kippur War, stressing that far greater responsibility lay with the Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan.

Producer

• Music by Prudence (2010)
• iThemba (2010)

Director

• iThemba (2010)
• Is It True What They Say About Ann (2004)