In May 2020 my 8-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. I’m a solo parent, and the strain of trying to care for two kids alone during the COVID pandemic with a curveball like cancer thrown in is a haunted room in the home of our life.
My daughter finished treatment in November 2022. A year later, I was let go from my 9-to-5-with-benefits job in the online learning industry. I took 2024 off to write full-time, and am now finishing my memoir about drinking my way through my daughter's years in cancer treatment.
I’m also chronicling what it means to write full-time without guarantee that it will work out into something sustainable. I think we see the end-goal too often. I know I have a habit of looking at my creative heroes and thinking, I want that- but how? My aim is to show the journey, with the hope that it will lead me to where I want to be.
For more about me and my writing, visit my website: writingelizabeth.com
For pictures of my dog and three cats, follow me on Instagram: @writingelizabeth
— Elizabeth
Selected Writing
I Was the World’s Worst Cancer Mom, Narratively
The Years My Son Refused to Go to School, TIME
What Gisèle Pelicot Means to Us, Harper’s BAZAAR
An Open Letter to the Old Man Who Bartered with My Cancer-Patient Daughter at the Community Yard Sale Fundraiser, McSweeney’s
The Cost of Distrust: How RFK Jr.’s Leadership Threatens Families Like Mine, Ms. Magazine
My 8-Year-Old Was Suffering From Cancer. To Keep Her Alive, I Made An Unthinkable Choice, HuffPost Personal
I Felt Like I Was Failing At ‘The Talk’ — And Then Chappell Roan Fixed Everything, HuffPost Voices
Making Friends With My Nemesis, Write or Die
Finding Comfort in the Horror of Stephen King’s Maine, Reactor Mag
Working From The Cancer Floor, Scribente Maternum
Why I Never Say I’m Sober, newly sober
Writing The Wounds Closed, Writing in the Dark
Everything I know about rejection in writing I learned from being a Philadelphia Eagles fan, Nimrod International Journal
A full list of my work can be found on my website.
Podcasts & Interviews
48 Minutes with “The World’s Worst Cancer Mom” Narratively
“UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive was shot dead. Why did thousands react with glee?” LA Times
Friends of Fledgling Podcast, Fledgling Writers Nest
Candlepower for Creatives, Parents Who Think
Finding Comfort in the Horror of Stephen King, KingSize Podcast
“Behind the Substack,” Coffee Break
…and more to come— stay tuned!
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to support my work! I won’t be doing any subscriber-only posts or special meet-ups. I don’t plan on running workshops or coaching sessions. I will not be marketing anything to you other than the words I write. Your subscription is a wildly-appreciated gesture of support, and the only incentive is that I love what I do- and I promise I’ll continue to do it.
