Bewildering Stories welcomes...

Ellen Weisberg

Ellen is a researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Principal Associate in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Ellen has published short stories and poetry extensively. She and her husband, Ken Yoffe, have published several chlidren’s and young adult books and have started a nonprofit charitable organization, “Facepaint,” for chldren’s education and social awareness and to support cancer research.

Testing prospective medications is impersonal work; one doesn’t see the patients who need treatment. A physician sees the patients but must maintain an emotional distance simply to be able to function. But what if the clinician or physician, herself, is stricken with the disease she treats and becomes a patient? Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the knowledge that one is to be hanged in the morning.

Fortunately, Ellen’s story has a happy ending. Her memoir displays compassion for those whose stories do not end well. She has been one of them and knows how they, too, have felt when faced with a dread diagnosis. She has seen cancer From Both Sides and gives science and medicine a human face.

The memoir oversteps our 9k word limit for a single issue. It is serialized in four parts in issues 818 and 819. It is complete on line as of the first installment.

Ellen Weisberg’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Ellen. We hope to hear from you again soon and often!