At the age of twenty-five, Diane Shader Smith’s daughter Mallory passed away following a lifelong struggle with cystic fibrosis. A passionate advocate for the cystic fibrosis community and an eloquent writer, Mallory recorded her intimate experiences for the final ten years of her life with the intent to have them published posthumously, thus rendering invisible illness visible. The result is Salt in My Soul, a celebration of an inspiring young life, a meditation upon health, and a document of sickness in the twenty-first century. The groundbreaking work offers a personal perspective on chronic illness, recentering medical discourse around the voice of the patient. Shader Smith, who has gone on to give more than 250 talks worldwide about Mallory’s story and developed the book into a documentary, will speak at the Library about medicine, memoir, and the power of storytelling.

About the speaker:

Diane Shader Smith has had a vibrant career as a writer, speaker, publicist, and fundraiser with an extensive roster of clients during her multi-decade career. When Diane’s daughter Mallory died at the age of 25, she brought Mallory’s memoir to publication as Salt in My Soul (Random House 2019), which led to the documentary of the same name (3Arts Entertainment) and has given 250+ talks worldwide about patient insights, the global health crisis called AMR, and phage therapy–everything Mallory wrote about and stood for.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Shader Smith will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

This event requires advance registration.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.