The Long Haul has been featured in the LA Times, Newsweek, CNN, and more.

**It's been more than two years of constant hard work, but once you take a moment to catch your breath, launching a debut book can start to look like the thrill of a lifetime. The last few months have been transformative.**

-The day after the launch, we were greeted by a rave review in the Los Angeles Times.
-Soon after, an excerpt from the book's first chapter was published in the December 23 issue of Newsweek magazine alongside an author Q&A.
-Then we received a strong review in the January 13 edition of Science magazine.
-Later, I was interviewed by CNN, for a story, "How to help friends and employees living with long Covid," penned by my former colleague Julia Chan, who now runs CNN's Impact Your World series.

Meanwhile, in the weeks following the launch, I published an in-depth essay in Open Mind magazine about how we can't let Long Covid become a contested disease. That piece was also picked up by The Hindu in India.

My friend and ally John Novack from the Society for Participatory Medicine ran an excerpt of chapter 15, about the ePatient movement and crowdsourcing healthcare, on the SPM blog. The book was heralded by the National Association of Science Writers, which played an integral role in first connecting me with my agent and thereby getting the book deal created in the first place. 

I'm excited to publish a long feature story written with journalist and Long Covid Survival Guide editor Fiona Lowenstein for The Nation magazine set to be online and on newsstands on April 3.

Local media and podcasts have been giving it lots of love too.

Local media: I started out launch week with interviews for Denver's KOA radio morning news show along with Hawaii's KITV-4 TV news. We also garnered a news piece in the Macon Telegraph (the hometown paper where I first started writing when I was 17) previewing our middle Georgia book event.

Podcasts: In the run-up to the launch, I was invited to appear on Johns Hopkins University's "Public Health on Call" alongside my colleague Kim Knackstedt. Perhaps my favorite appearance was an hour-long interview for the "Evolving" podcast hosted by Nita Jain. I appeared on the "Health Design" podcast, hosted by Dr. Moyez Jiwa, a medical professor at Australia's University of Notre Dame. I spoke in-depth with Rebecca Handler for an Open Medicine Foundation video interview. And I caught up with UC Berkeley's David Tuller in an interview for the "Virology" blog run out of Columbia University. And I discussed my reporting from the book with PBS White House Chronicle host Llewellyn King for his long-running "ME/CFS Alert" YouTube series.

I spoke with Jaime Seltzer and Steve Molony for the "Chronically Complex" podcast, run by the ME Action Network, where I sit on the board of directors.

In April, I sat for a podcast interview coming soon with "The Lead," a podcast produced by the University of Georgia's Cox Institute for Journalism Innovation, as well as aninterview on The Long Covid Podcast. I was also featured on Jacksonville public radio station WJCT's "What's Health Got to Do With It?" hosted by Mayo Clinic Professor Dr. Joe Sirven.

I've started a new job at a think tank.

On December 19th, I officially joined the Century Foundation as a full-time Fellow and Journalist-in-Residence.

The story of the new job begins back in the fall of 2021, when I was deep in the book-writing process, and I reached out to TCF Senior Fellow Rebecca Vallas, for expert insight into how Long Covid might prompt a generational rethink for disability policy. That kicked off four hours of interviews, and Rebecca figures prominently in chapter 14, "A New Epidemic of Disability." Even better, Rebecca reached back out a few months later, and we wagered that a lot more partnership might be in store. That conversation continues to this day.

We are grounded in a mission far larger than ourselves or any specific disease. This is about a fundamental truth: Disability rights are human rights. All along, whether I was conscious of it or not, that moral framing governed my larger motives about why Long Covid matters.

As part of the new role, I'll be co-chairing the narrative working group for the Disability Economic Justice Collaborative, a collection of 40 different think tanks and advocacy groups forging a big-tent coalition for change. To be human is to live in an imperfect body. To build an ideal society, that universal truth ought to be imbued in all of our laws and policies.

You can hear more about our plans in an upcoming episode of Rebecca's podcast "Off-Kilter."

I've been speaking everywhere I can.

We kicked off the book launch with a slate of events the first week, and I've been keeping the pace of up.
--A few days before the launch, I held an off-the-record pre-launch book talk with Stanford University's Peninsula Alumni Club.
-On the eve of launch came an author talk with the Solve ME Initiative on the theme of "The Long Haul and How Patients Can Change the World."
--On launch day, November 15, I spoke on a panel about disability and journalism with Georgia State University, organized by my friend and editorial collaborator Liz Weaver.
--Later that evening I joined a Twitter spaces interview block as part of the Miami Book Fair.
--The next day, November 16, I spoke on a panel for the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) and Congressional Progressive Caucus Center (CPCC). I highlighted the groups' recommendation to create brand-new NIH institute dedicated to researching post-viral disease.
--Later that month, I sat in for a book talk for Science Writers in New York on November 30 organized and moderated by David Levine for an audience of dozens of science writers.
-On December 7, I spoke at Warner Robins High School reading and book signing organized by my teacher Mr. Scott Daniel where I announced that I'd dedicated the book to beloved WRHS teacher Mrs. Pamela Stanescu.

-On December 19, we held a book signing for local Atlanta friends and family event at Virginia Highland Books.
-I took a break for Christmas and New Years, and focused on meeting my new TCF colleagues for the early weeks of January.
--On February 14, I spoke to University of Georgia's Washington Semester Program undergraduates about my career journey.
-And in early March, I guest-taught a class night for Boston University's Health Communications masters students, discussing how clean, clear writing can change lives.

Most recently, I traveled to St. Louis, where on March 11, I moderated a panel at the annual Association of Health Care Journalists conference, featuring two patient experts alongside Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis' School of Medicine. About 50 journalists from local and national publications were in the audience, and we're excited to work with them in crafting more vital coverage of Long Covid.

Perhaps my favorite recent talk came when I was invited to speak to the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research Quality via its Director's Speakers Series. I was impressed by how more than 100 employees joined and asked great questions, probed me for all my insights, and were hungry to do everything in their power to improve healthcare quality for long haulers around the country.

My colleagues at the Century Foundation asked equally insightful questions, after reading the book for our organization's book club in May, I joined a lively Q&A to discuss the ins and outs of the writing process.

In Atlanta, my collaborator Elizabeth Weaver and I joined a May 12 Millions Missing event hosted by the Georgia chapter of the ME Action Network, which read The Long Haul for its book club this spring. Organizer Liz Burlingame said "this is a book I've been waiting 30 years to read." 

The same week, I also spoke with more than 350 science and medical students in Brazil at Pontifical Catholic University of Goias, in an event translated live into Portuguese.

-July 31: Stanford Alumni Club of Baltimore/Washington: I'll address the book club, which is reading The Long Haul this month.
-August 24: Online News Association national conference in Philadelphia on the topic of "Incorporating Disability Voices Across News Coverage."
-September 11: I'll speak with 300 incoming nursing students at Georgia College and State University about how to design healthcare in patient-centered ways, and to understand the value of storytelling in clinical settings.

I've also been named a regular columnist with Psychology Today.

Throughout it all, I'm anchored by a quote from famed University of Oregon track star Steve Prefontaine, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." I've been giving it my all. The beauty and transformation come in seeing that this mission is a worthy one, and that constant dedicated practice is yielding results.

One of my favorite results so far has been creating a new partnership with Psychology Today.

I'l be authoring a blog entitled:
Patient Revolution
Dispatches From the Front Lines of Science and Democracy

I have my first seven stories approved for Psychology Today, ranging from the economics of Long Covid to the future of human-centered design to the fundamentals of the writing process. I'm excited to share them with you in the coming weeks.

This will be my main outlet for the next year or more, and I'm thrilled to have my own platform through such a well-read publication. I plan to dive back in covering ideas and stories at the human side of policy. Together, we can continue telling stories that transmute pain into purpose, that explore the range of the human condition. And we can leverage the power of science and democracy to keep making life better for all of us.

Previous appearances (prior to book launch):

Webit Global Impact Forum: In conversation with Harvard Medical School’s Dr. George Church on the topic of “Resilience to all Viruses” (June 28, 2022)

Georgia State University “Going the Distance” Career Panel (June 22, 2022)

Guest-hosting “Off-Kilter” podcast for the Century Foundation, in conversation with Meghan O’Rourke, author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (April 8, 2022)

Georgia State University “Brains and Behavior” undergraduate program (May 2021)

MillionsMissing (May 2021)

University of Georgia Coronavirus response task force (April 2021)

University of Georgia Washington Semester Program: On covering Covid-19 (March 2021)

Science Writers 2020: National Science Writers Association Panel: Investigating and covering emerging and contested diseases October (2020)

DISabled to ENabled Podcast (October 2020)
Part 1: Exercise, exertion, and exhaustion
Part 2: Walking along the Berlin Wall
Part 3: Pet sitting problems

Webit Festival virtual panel: Innovations, moonshots, and health (May 2020)

"Modern Education” Podcast/Radio show at Stanford University: On the intersection of work and life (October 2019)

How to find a doctor when you have ME/CFS - Bustle (2018)