Body Weather by Lorraine Boissoneault

About the book:

Science writer Lorraine Boissoneault has been in pain for most of her adult life. Unable to control or make sense of her chronic illness diagnoses, she began describing the ebb and flow of her symptoms as "body weather." At first an imaginative approach to coping with flare-ups, the phrase has become a waypoint in Lorraine's explorations of the intimate relationship between our fragile bodies and the world around us.

Visceral and poetic, these braided essays traverse science, history, and memoir to explore the interconnected relationships between the human body and Earth's meteorology--two chaotic systems that inform every cell of our beings. Boissoneault surveys her own "body weather," relating her dysregulated thyroid to global temperature fluctuations; her arrhythmic heart to chaotic thunderstorms; her inflamed joints to wildfires beyond control.

Body Weather is a lyrical exploration that reimagines the cloudy stages of grief and challenges us to reexamine universal questions lodged deep within: how do we find comfort and meaning in a fevered world?

About the author:

Lorraine Boissoneault is a writer, producer, and journalist with a passion for storytelling across various mediums. Previously a writer and producer for the science documentary channel “Real Science” (with 2 million subscribers), she has also worked as a staff writer for Smithsonian Magazine and freelanced for outlets like National Geographic, Great Lakes Now, The New Yorker, Catapult, Lit Hub, The Washington Post, PassBlue, and many others.

Lorraine has received fellowships from the Society for Environmental Journalists, the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, and the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Her work has been shortlisted for awards such as the Peter Lisagor Award and the Chicago Book of the Year Award. In 2024, she won the Lukas Book-in-Progress Prize from Harvard and Columbia University.

The conversation will be moderated by Helen Fields.

Helen Fields has written about everything from meteorites to microbes. She's had staff jobs at U.S.News & World Report and National Geographic and her freelance work has appeared in Discover, Smithsonian, Science, New Scientist, and many other publications. Helen was also on staff for more than a decade at a company that did government health communications.

She writes for The Last Word on Nothing. If you need any stories about nature, museums, or cool sciencey stuff in the Washington, D.C., Helen Fields has got your back.

Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact [email protected] with questions.

Dato de accesibilidad: Este evento toma lugar en el segundo piso y Lost City Books no tiene ascensor. Favor de contactar [email protected] con cualquiera duda.

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