Replay: Sarah Fay shares Five Things She's Learned about Writing Illness
Check out the first five minutes of her recent class.
“Our stories of illness need to be told. Each of us brings a different perspective, and it’s only by having varied voices speak about the experience of having cancer, or AIDS, or mental illness that we can try to understand it and feel less alone.”
– Sarah Fay, Five Things I’ve Learned about Writing Illness
Last Sunday, Sarah Fay hosted her new class, Five Things I’ve Learned about Writing Illness, a two-hour session focused on the challenges and insights of writing about illness, injury, and recovery. Drawing from her own experiences writing two illness memoirs, Sarah emphasized the importance of telling our stories of illness and how they help foster understanding and reduce isolation.
During the class, Sarah encourages participants to consider five key questions she uses in her own work: How do we describe the indescribable pain? How do we say something new in a genre filled with illness narratives? How can we evoke emotion without falling into self-pity? How can our stories resonate with readers who haven't experienced the same illness? And finally, does writing truly heal?
Sarah’s candid reflections and practical advice offers new perspectives on writing about illness, helping participants approach their own stories with openness and authenticity.
Sarah is the award-winning writer of the memoir Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses. Pathological was an Apple Best Books pick, hailed in The New York Times as a “fiery manifesto of a memoir,” and named by Parade Magazine as one of the sixteen best mental health memoirs to read. She writes for many publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and The Paris Review, where she was an advisory editor.
Her new memoir Cured—the sequel to Pathological—is a bestseller on Substack. She’s on the creative writing faculty at Northwestern University, a certified mental health peer recovery specialist, a private Substack consultant, and the founder and director of Substack Writers at Work helping people master the art and business of Substack.
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