Finding a Face for My Invisible Illness
I could only acknowledge my thyroid condition from sly, sideways angles—a hobbit stealing from a sleeping dragon’s hoard.
Lorraine is a journalist and fiction writer. Previously a staff writer for Smithsonian Magazine, she covers history, archaeology, evolution, and the weird world. She has received fellowships from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources and the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Lorraine's first narrative nonfiction book, The Last Voyageurs, (Pegasus Books/April 2016) was a finalist for the Chicago Book of the Year award. Her fiction has appeared in The Massachusetts Review and Literary Laundry. She's currently at work on two novels about friendship and belonging.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Lorraine Boissoneault
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Lorraine Boissoneault
More by this author
Hayao Miyazaki’s Characters Help Me Grieve My Chronic Illness
“Howl’s Moving Castle” and “The Legend of Korra” are about protagonists living with magic and fighting for the fate of the world. To me, they’re also metaphors for dynamic disability.
Drafting a Personal Essay Is Like Stumbling Through a Dance
You can study all you want, but it’s only in the act of doing that you learn what’s right and what isn’t.
Acceptable Forms of Agony
It was during my third year of teaching the saints at Holy Trinity that the burning began.
More in this series
Don’t Let It Bury You
How my relationship with dance helps me navigate my body, trauma, and mental health.
When Someone Loses A Bunch of Weight, Maybe Don’t Lead with “How’d You Do It?”
Weight loss is not a life change that just happens with a snap of one’s fingers. There’s more to it than that, even when people say it’s just about “putting in the work.”
On Playing Risk and Studying the Maps of Colonialism
Soon after I bought the game, I began to obsess over another map, one that also didn’t fully exist.