Suleika Jaouad

Why you should listen

Suleika Jaouad is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Between Two Kingdoms and the subject of the award-winning Netflix documentary American Symphony. She is also the creator of The Isolation Journals, a free weekly newsletter founded during the COVID-19 pandemic to help others transform isolation and life’s interruptions into creative grist and community; more than 155,000 people from around the world have joined.

Jaouad wrote the Emmy Award-winning New York Times column “Life, Interrupted,” from the front lines of her hospital bed and has since become a fierce advocate for those living with illness and other forms of adversity. Jaouad served on Barack Obama's Presidential Cancer Panel and her advocacy work, public speaking and reporting have brought her everywhere from the United Nations and Capitol Hill to a maximum security prison and a two-room schoolhouse in rural Montana, with reporting and essays featured in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian and Vogue, among others.