The Architecture of Enough with Laura Carfang
Today's storyteller brings us inside the architecture of a life built for achievement — degrees, titles, rooms where decisions are made, a carefully calculated climb through the ranks of academia. Breast cancer forced her to stop. This is a story about what happens when the scaffolding you've built your identity around suddenly can't hold you anymore — and what you discover when you stop climbing long enough to ask: what is worth, really, if it isn't this?
This conversation explores self-worth beyond achievement, identity shifts after cancer, redefining success, balancing ambition with self-care, navigating long-term survivorship challenges, and finding purpose and meaning in life after diagnosis.
Naked in Bed with Cathy de la Cruz
Today's storyteller brings us somewhere most breast cancer narratives don't go — into the messy, funny, vulnerable, and ultimately tender territory of sex after surgery. This is a story about a Frankenstein-ed body, a 24-year-old on OKCupid, naked takeout from a Taiwanese restaurant, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It's about the very specific calculus of figuring out what your new body can feel, and who you trust to help you find out.
This conversation explores sex, intimacy, and dating after cancer; learning to accept a changed body; realizing that other people aren’t judging us as harshly as we judge ourselves; cancer becoming one part of our identity rather than our whole identity; ongoing anxiety in survivorship; and the changing challenges of survivorship over time.
Tiny Things with Lorie Kolak
Today's storyteller brings us into the quiet, exacting world of tiny things — and what it means to build something beautiful when the larger story of your life has gone completely out of your control. This is a piece about chemo brain and lost words, about a miniature garden assembled with tweezers and a glue gun while a wound vac churned beside her, about what happens when you can no longer offer the people you love the story they want to hear.
This conversation explores chemo brain, finding comfort in small things, friendship, uncertainty, redefining health and wholeness, resistance, creativity, finding your own cancer story, and how cancer changes your perspective on life and the future.
Proof I Was There with Adrienne Holland Hubbard
Today’s storyteller recalls a particular grief of being edited out of your own life. Of watching the early years of motherhood blur and vanish under the weight of an aggressive diagnosis—and the slow, tender reckoning that comes years later, when the life you fought for is finally, undeniably yours again. But more than anything, it's a story about proof. The kind you find not in memory, but in the unexpected places you least expect it.
This conversation explores the lasting impact of cancer on motherhood, identity, and healing. It touches on the isolation of treatment, reclaiming connection with family, redefining life after cancer, quiet wellness, creativity, writing, and community.
I Can Still Feel It with Cassandra Umbriaco
Today’s storyteller reflects on receiving a breast cancer diagnosis at 28 and the lasting emotional imprint of survivorship more than a decade later. Moving between past and present, she explores the survival mindset that carried her through treatment and the gradual return of feeling after years spent simply trying to stay alive.
This conversation explores memory, identity, inner resilience, and the relationship between who we were before cancer and who we become afterward — revealing how pain and love can coexist in the same story.
My Grandmother’s Grandchildren with Esther Yumi Ko
Today’s storyteller reflects on her relationship with her grandmother against the backdrop of a family deeply marked by cancer. As relatives fall ill and pass away, truths are hidden and grief moves quietly through generations.
This conversation explores memory, cultural silence, substitution and survival, what it means to be mistaken for someone who is gone, and how presence itself can become an act of love. It’s a meditation on mortality — and on what it means to remain.
Be bold. Be beautiful. Be confident. with Hannah Morales
In this episode, today’s storyteller, Hannah Morales, shares a vivid account of the days surrounding her mastectomy and the moment she first saw her changed body in the mirror. Expecting grief and resentment, she instead discovered pride, relief, and a deeper sense of identity that extended beyond appearance.
This conversation explores body image after cancer, surgical loss, motherhood, scars as story, and what it means to define boldness, beauty, and confidence on your own terms — not society’s.
Biopsies and Baristas with Laurie Pomeranz
In this returning guest episode, today’s storyteller, Laurie Pomeranz, shares a vivid and surprising account of the day her metastatic recurrence was confirmed through a spinal biopsy. What unfolds is not only fear and dread, but humor, music, connection, and an unexpected act of kindness from her care team.
This conversation explores how patients experience medical procedures from the inside out, the power of levity in hard moments, and how small gestures of care can become unforgettable anchors inside life-altering news.
Friendship is Sacred with Alyssa Tsagong
In this episode, today’s storyteller, Alyssa Tsagong, reflects on a decades-long friendship that grew into something she now calls kinship: a relationship rooted in truth, curiosity, and shared tending of body and spirit. After a metastatic diagnosis, that friendship became a place where fear could be spoken out loud and held without being fixed or minimized.
We talk about friendship as sacred work, building capacity for grief and joy at the same time, and how supportive relationships can be intentionally cultivated — not just relied upon — through practice, ritual, and presence.
Hope and Heartache, Hand in Hand with Caitlan Killian
In this episode, today’s storyteller, Caitlan Killian, reflects on friendship formed during treatment, the parallel journeys of two young women with breast cancer, and the paradox of celebrating healing while mourning loss. This conversation explores metastatic survivorship, community, grief, faith, and what it means to hold hope and heartache hand in hand.
Asymmetry with Julia D. Pereira
In celebration of Pride Month, each Friday in June we’re re-sharing our favorite episodes featuring LGBTQ+ voices from the Wildfire community.
Psychologist and artist, Julia D. Pereira was diagnosed at 32 with Triple Negative breast cancer. In this episode, Julia reads her essay, “Asymmetry,” from Wildfire Journal’s 2024 “Queer in Cancerland” issue. Her writing beautifully explores the theme of uncertainty.
April and Julia discuss the quiet magic found in uncertain moments, finding strength in the unknown, and making empowered decisions in the midst of ambiguity. They also reflect on what it means to find connection and community within breast cancer as a queer person.
My Chemo Companion with Danielle Connor
Danielle Connor was diagnosed at 48 with Triple Negative breast cancer. She is a wife, mother to a teenage daughter, and a lifelong baker. In this episode, Danielle reads her essay, “My Chemo Companion,” from the 2025 Living Well issue of Wildfire Journal. Her piece invites us into the heart of her kitchen, where grief, survival, and sweetness rise together.
April and Danielle discuss humor and resisting the “Disney Princess mom” narrative, emotional support hobbies, and gratitude. Danielle also talks about her twin sister Nicole’s contrasting cancer experience.
My Life, & Being Wrong with Stephanie Millett
In celebration of Pride Month, each Friday in June we’re re-sharing our favorite episodes featuring LGBTQ+ voices from the Wildfire community.
Stephanie Millett was first diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer at 25, and again at 31 with metastatic breast cancer. Stephanie is a retired hairstylist, writer, and advocate for advancedbreastcancer.net. In this episode, Stephanie shares their essay, “My Life, and Being Wrong,” from Wildfire Journal’s 2022 Legacy Stories issue. Stephanie and April discuss the power of sharing your story through advocacy, the reasons some people choose privacy around their cancer experience, and what it means to model resilience and honesty for our children. They also talk about Stephanie’s future plans to write a book offering practical guidance for others who want to begin telling their own stories.
Sleeping Snakes and the Lake with Katie Murray
Second-time guest Katie Murray joins The Burn to share her story of being diagnosed at 41 with Stage II invasive lobular breast cancer. A writer, teacher, and mother of four, Katie reads her essay “Sleeping Snakes and the Lake” from the 2025 Living Well issue of Wildfire Journal.
Her piece offers a meditation on healing—not the kind defined by treatment end dates or clean scans, but the slow, quiet kind that arrives unexpectedly years later, in moments as small and tender as noticing baby eyelashes. Liz and Katie discuss healing versus recovery, the pressure of timelines, hope, and the shame Katie carried about her cancer diagnosis.
Ready for Battle with Liz McFarland
Liz McFarland was diagnosed with HER2+ breast cancer at 39. A realtor and proud Choice Mom to two young adults, Liz joins this episode to read her essay “Ready for Battle” from the 2025 Body issue of Wildfire Journal.
Her piece explores beauty and body image, the lasting impact of middle school shame, and the complicated realities of silicone, surgery, sensation, and sagging. At its heart, it’s about vulnerability — about what happens when we stop pretending to be warriors and simply tell the truth.
Liz and April discuss the need to control the small things during cancer, how adolescent experiences shape our emotional terrain, the persistence of body shame, and what survivorship looks like for Liz now, 13 years after diagnosis.
Still Here: On 15 Years in Cancerland with Dana Donofree
Dana Donofree was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 at age 27. She is a survivor, advocate, and the founder of AnaOno, an intimate apparel brand designed to support those affected by breast surgery and reconstruction. Dana is also the longtime guest editor of Wildfire Journal’s annual Body issue.
In this episode, April welcomes Dana back for her third appearance on The Burn. Together, they reflect on a Cancerland retrospective, exploring topics such as unpopular opinions in breast cancer, the role of AnaOno, and what it means to feel sexy at any age. They also discuss Dana’s continued commitment to guest editing the Body issue of Wildfire Journal, her insights on working and advocating within the cancer space, and the ongoing challenges of survivorship.
Swimming, and Changing Direction with Shalini Krishnan
Shalini “Shal” Krishnan was diagnosed at age 31 with Stage II breast cancer. She works as a project manager in the international sports sector and currently lives in Lausanne, Switzerland with her partner. In this episode, Shalini reads her essay, “Swimming, and Changing Direction,” from the 2024 Body issue of Wildfire Journal. The piece transports us to a memory of being caught in the waves at a beach in Brazil, tossed, breathless, and disoriented. A moment of fear that lodged in her body and paralleled the experience of cancer.
April and Shalini discuss using metaphor to make sense of illness and how April’s Sparks Writing Workshop helped Shalini shape and write this story. They explore fear, how Shalini once took her body for granted, and what it has meant to rebuild her relationship with it as an athlete after cancer. They also talk about Shalini’s experience of attending 10 weddings across 7 countries while undergoing treatment.
Rosé-Colored Glasses with Susan Danenberger
Susan Danenberger was diagnosed with Stage I breast cancer at 48, and again at 50 with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer (MBC). A fifth-generation farmer and winemaker, she owns Danenberger Family Vineyards in Central Illinois. In this episode, Susan reads her essay, “Rosé-Colored Glasses,” from the 2025 Body issue of Wildfire Journal. Her piece draws us into a deeply personal story of body image, beauty, and transformation after breast cancer—one that begins with stilettos and selfies, and unfolds into a powerful journey of reckoning and rebuilding. April and Susan will talk about autonomy in the context of cancer, trusting (and questioning) medical providers, seeing yourself through the eyes of others, and financial toxicity. They also discuss how connecting with other survivors at New York Fashion Week changed Susan’s life.
In Praise of Quiet Advocacy with Amy Austin
Amy Austin returns to The Burn for a second visit. Amy was diagnosed with Stage IV de novo breast cancer at 34 after initially being misdiagnosed with a complex benign cyst. She is the third in a direct family line to be diagnosed with breast cancer without a known genetic link. In this episode, Amy reads her poem “In Praise of Quiet Advocacy” from the 2024 “MBC: Advocacy” issue of Wildfire Journal. Her poem is about the role of “quiet” advocacy in supporting individuals living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). April and Amy will discuss what quiet advocacy means, the importance of being seen and seeing other young breast cancer patients, and the impact of friendships when sharing an MBC diagnosis. Amy will also share how her poem came to be with the support of another MBC friend, and the writing prompts that are all around us.
My Side with Shelley Moreno
Shelley Moreno was diagnosed in 2012 with Triple Negative breast cancer. Shelley reads her piece “My Side” from the 2024 “Mothers & Daughters” issue of Wildfire Journal.