About

Jennifer Crystal is a writer, educator and patient advocate. She teaches non-fiction seminars and courses at Grub Street Creative Writing Center in Boston, where she leads the Writing to Heal Intensive Program. Jennifer is also the Senior Writer and Patient Experience Representative for the Lyme Wellness Initiative at Harvard Medical School.

Renowned as a voice for patients of long-haul illnesses, for the past decade Jennifer has written a weekly column for the Global Lyme Alliance, which has received mention in The New Yorker and CQ Researcher and on cbs.com, weatherchannel.com and prohealth.com. She has been interviewed for books, anthologies, articles, podcasts, and webinars as both a Lyme and COVID-19 long hauler. Her written work has been featured in or on The Boston Globe, Aeon’s Psyche, Cognoscenti, Harvard Health Blog, poetryandcovid.com, boston.com, and many other publications. She was a 2015 panelist at the Boston Book Festival.

Jennifer holds a M.F.A. from Emerson College and a B.A. from Middlebury College, and has completed a Workshop in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University and a summer of study at the Bread Loaf School of English.

Jennifer enjoys skiing, paddle boarding, kayaking, and eating dark chocolate.

Read more about Jennifer on GrubStreet's "Meet a Grubbie" page

Watch Jennifer discuss her journey with Lyme Disease on CBS Boston