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Writing in remission

Reading the writings of the lifelong hypochondriac Jacques Derrida during lockdown, Brian Dillon realises his own health anxiety has become unusually subdued.

Mark O’Connell’s prescription for writing

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘To Be a Machine’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

Vivekananda’s journey

How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga.

When a private pee is a public disgrace

The free pee is getting rarer. And the lack of suitably equipped disabled toilets is condemning people to lives cloistered away in their own homes. Discover how toilet access for all is part of an equal society.

Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life

The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.

How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction

Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.

Collecting pandemic stories

Find out how personal notebook jottings from two flatmates became ‘Journals of a Pandemic’, a comprehensive diary-keeping project encompassing dozens of writers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Domestic titans

Feeling trapped by the idea that an impenetrable carapace of space trash could surround the planet, Elvia Wilk turned to thoughts of the new worlds still to be revealed here on Earth.

Words of hope and anger

Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.

A symbol of a lost homeland

The story of one protective amulet from Palestine reveals a complex tale. Encompassing the personal history of an influential doctor and collector, it provides a window onto dispossession and exile, and the painful repercussions that are still felt today.

Why we need to decolonise healthcare

In this extract from ‘Divided’, Annabel Sowemimo describes the way her nana’s stroke and hospitalisation heightened her awareness of the need for us all to advocate for the health of others.

The doctor who challenged the unicorn myth

Our era of fake news and medical misinformation is nothing new. Estelle Paranque relays the thrusts and parries of a 440-year-old row over a magical cure-all, the unicorn horn.

Chemotherapy-day drawings

Undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, artist Clare Smith produced around 70 abstract drawings while sitting in the chemotherapy chair. She reflects on how creativity can bring respite in a crisis.

How homesickness inspires art

Gail Tolley looks at homesickness through the eyes of three contemporary artists and finds powerful new themes of identity and connection.

Appointments with plants

In our ‘always on’ culture, poet Elizabeth-Jane Burnett find a route away from screens – by following the ways of the trees and plants outside.

The stranger who started an epidemic

New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.

Autistic togetherness during lockdown

While lockdown has presented autistic people with greater challenges than life pre-COVID, many have found strength and comfort in the situation. Autistic writer and performer Kate Fox explains how.

The power of unicorns

Discover the unlikely connection between pharmaceuticals and unicorns.

The Transvengers as foe of the paradigm of heteronormativity

Jason Barker writes about his experience of working with a group of young trans people and describes the process of developing the theory which underlies The Transvengers comic, and society, today.

The secret lives of Britain’s first Black physicians

Dr Annabel Sowemimo explores the web of connections between early Black British doctors, the role of empire in West Africa and the pernicious reach of scientific racism.

Cataloguing Audrey

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.

The side effects of lithium mining

Laura Grace Simpkins attempts to untangle some uncomfortable truths about the social and environmental costs of making her medication.

When monarchs healed the sick

Our current Queen fortunately doesn’t have to spend hours laying hands on the sick to cure them. But it was a different story for monarchs of the early modern era, whose touch was a sought-after treatment for scrofula.

Guide dogs or good dogs from the Middle Ages

Medieval illustrations often show blind people, sometimes with dogs. But working out whether these were actually guide dogs involves a mix of detailed detective work and expert speculation.