Abby Alten Schwartz is a writer whose essays and reported stories explore a variety of topics, including health and wellness, relationships, creative living, and Gen X culture. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, HuffPost, AARP, Salon, WIRED, Next Avenue, and other publications. She’s written for WebMD and is a regular contributor to The Well, Northwell Health’s award-winning website. Abby’s stories have been reprinted widely. Her first health article for The Washington Post went viral worldwide and was added to the NIH National Library of Medicine. Her essay about raising a child with cystic fibrosis was later republished by Reader’s Digest International as an eight-page feature in over 12 countries and multiple languages. Her literary writing has appeared in numerous journals, has won Best Creative Nonfiction, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She even once had a column about hooping. The hula kind.Abby lives with her husband and splits her time between the Philly area and the Jersey Shore. She still binge-watches Bravo with her daughter, who recently fled the nest. To learn more about Abby’s writing, including her memoir-in-progress, Hypervigilant: A Memoir of Uncertainty, Intuition, and Hope, visit www.abbyaltenschwartz.com. Follow her on social media: Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn, and check out her Substack, Name Three Things.
Skin cancer doesn’t care if you’re embarrassed. One woman’s story of speaking up. After another round of icing my face with a bag of frozen peas, I popped some more Tylenol. It felt like I’d been hit with a baseball bat. The next day, peeling back the compression...
