Suleika Jaouad (pronounced Su-lake-uh Ja-wad) is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, and the creator of The Isolation Journals, a global project cultivating community and creativity during hard times. She wrote the acclaimed New York Times column “Life, Interrupted” and is the subject of the accompanying video series, which chronicled her journey with leukemia throughout her twenties. She has written reported features, essays and commentary for New York Times Magazine, Vogue, NPR and Glamour, among other publications. Her highly anticipated debut memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, is forthcoming from Random House in February 2021. 

Born in New York City to a Tunisian father and a Swiss mother, Suleika attended The Juilliard School's pre-college program where she studied the double bass and received her B.A. with highest honors from Princeton University. Suleika’s career aspirations as a war correspondent were cut short when, at age 22, less than a year after graduation, she was diagnosed with leukemia. After more than three years of treatment, including chemotherapy, an experimental clinical trial and a life-saving bone marrow transplant, she is now in remission. She began writing the “Life, Interrupted” column from her hospital room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and has since become a fierce advocate for those living with illness and enduring life’s many other interruptions. She served on Barack Obama's Presidential Cancer Panel, and sits on the national advisory board of The Bone Marrow and Cancer Foundation, and the Brooklyn Public Library’s Arts & Letters Committee.

Suleika travels the world teaching, speaking and leading retreats. She has appeared on The Today Show, NPR's Talk of The Nation, PBS documentary The Emperor of All Maladies, CBS News, The Paris Review, Vogue, Into The Gloss, The Los Angeles Times and Darling Magazine, among others.

When she's not on the road with her Volkswagen camper van and rescue mutt Oscar, Suleika lives in Brooklyn. Connect with Suleika on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to her newsletter to receive The Isolation Journals—free weekly creativity prompts—to your inbox.

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