Personal Story with Disability:
Dysautonomia:
"The Long Covid Reader"

Mary Ladd’s reported stories include meat dresses, dough throwing pizza champions, the cold sweat of medical debt, and withered sexuality. She started writing professionally at the San Francisco Chronicle and later collaborated with Anthony Bourdain. She is also the author of The Wig Diaries: An Irreverent Cancer Book, a collaborative effort with "Bad Reporter" illustrator Don Asmussen. Her writing is in the best-selling 642 Things to Write About and Lit Starts book series, as well as Playboy, Time Magazine, KQED, and several breast cancer-oriented anthologies.

She teaches and offers her time to Bay Area Young Survivors, Breast Cancer Action, Bright Spot Network, and ZYZZYVA and loves helping people connect their thoughts to the page. Mary regularly presents her work at events for Litquake, the Community of Writers, and Breast Cancer Action. She is a member of the We Wai Kai Nation, and loves eating pizza with her husband, Oscar Villalon, and son, Cipriano.