Diary

Indelible Memories, Legible Bodies: The Case of Graphic Illness Memoirs
I will be giving a talk on November 20th at an interdisciplinary conference in France (in French, English, and Spanish) with the overarching theme: “Memories, Marks, Imprints.”

Reading Ferrante
It might seem odd to use the word rapturous to describe a reaction to a piece of literary criticism, but I can’t think of a better one to

The Case of the Spiculated Tumor
Just as I was preparing to post this long delayed cartoon, I learned that my cancer was active again. I will no doubt have another encounter with the

Spiculation
After 6 months of “partial remission,” and almost five years of “progression-free survival,” I’ve learned just how partial “partial remission” can be. One of the several pulmonary nodules

The Scan Report
The oncologist does not mince words when delivering the scan report. Good news (“Good Pet”) or bad, it’s the facts minus emotion. December 2016 brought the first bad

Summer Diary: Making friends, silver and gold, new and old
Old-age friendships are slightly different from those made in the past, which consisted largely of sharing whatever happened to be going on. What happens to be going on

Cancer Gadfly: Drinking the Big Pharma Kool-Aid
“Immunotherapy Drug Fails Lung Cancer Trial.” Naturally the headline caught my eye since I have been reading about lung cancer since my husband was diagnosed in 2009 and

Scanxiety
“Scanxiety,” a coinage not of my making (I wish!) but that makes the point efficiently, is an attempt to represent the limbo I described in an earlier diary

Welcome. Some musings on my current preoccupations with the worlds of illness and the worlds of books, the vicissitudes of living with cancer and the need now, in my eighties, to imagine what new writing might be.