Writer, Health Activist, Entrepreneur
Hi, I’m Kristina
I’ve always been a little “different”. I am freakishly intuitive and have often been told I feel too much. I have synesthesia, which means my brain fires colors at me all day long. Since childhood, I’ve been too multi-passionate to fit into one box, despite society’s constant urge to squeeze me into one. I am happiest halved-one foot on each shore of the ocean, half a heart in science, half in art. I am based in Montreal, in Canada’s French-speaking province of Québec, where I was raised by Armenian parents who immigrated from Egypt. Since my teens, I’ve suffered greatly from endometriosis, an underestimated and misunderstood health condition that the global medical system consistently fails to recognize and treat. Endometriosis does not only affect one’s uterus but every facet of one’s life and identity.
These traits have had a huge impact on how I navigate this world and fit into it. I constantly feel the magic and curse of being an outlier.
My path has been unconventional. I obtained a PhD in neurolinguistics and conducted innovative research on the multilingual brain. My research led me to travel widely and to live abroad, learning new languages, filling journals, and discovering photography. I created a travel photography shop and fell in love with the flexibility and drama of entrepreneurship. I joined a team of business owners and together we began co-organizing craft markets that celebrated the diversity of our creative community and quickly became some of the most widely anticipated events in our city.
But life got messy, as it tends to do.
My physical and mental health unraveled, tired of being neglected for two decades by a biased and broken healthcare system. I quit academia after my PhD and walked out of my dream career in science when it became clear that living with a disabling illness would permanently be at odds with the chronic expectation of self-sacrifice in academia. I had to fight hard for basic healthcare and recover from the trauma of being gaslit, overdosed, and discriminated against for my gender and my ethnicity. I had to redefine my way of being completely, from my daily choices, to my limits, to the way I recalibrate from chronic grief and advocate for social justice. I’ve been learning to undo my own stigmas and the ableism instilled in me from my immigrant upbringing, and to somehow live on the fault line between resilience and fragility.
Above and beneath all else, I’m a writer.
In my essays and newsletters, I like to challenge our never-give-up society and its narrow constructs of disability, resilience, and motherhood. My writing has been published by Roxane Gay, Longreads, Electric Literature, Newsweek, Catapult, Fodor’s, Condé Nast, Elle, the Globe & Mail, and others. I was a two-time finalist in Roxane Gay’s Essay Contest and shortlisted for CRAFT’s Memoir Prize. I am querying a lyrical memoir about reclaiming lost confidence in work, health and motherhood.
I regularly contribute to media coverage about reproductive health, chronic pain, life in academia, mental health, entrepreneurship, multiculturalism, travel, life balance, and gender bias in medicine. I’ve taught writing to graduate students and bloggers. I’ve authored scientific publications about the brain’s ability to juggle languages and have given more talks than I can count. My not-so-9-to-5-job is working as a freelance copywriter, editor and translator who offers consulting and writing services to academics and companies eager to change the world with their message.
Other Projects
WRITING
I write about
the pursuit of a fulfilling life,
neurodiversity,
being childfree by choice and not by choice (and somewhere in between),
medical gaslighting, social justice, academia,
mental health, grief, travel,
entrepreneurship,
multicultural identity, disability, and more.
SPEAKING
I speak about
all the same topics
that I write about
at events, on panels and
during media interviews,
but with a lot of
preparation and practice,
extremely cold hands,
and a big knot
in my stomach.
PHOTOGRAPHY
I take pictures of
breathtaking places,
ordinary moments,
and everything in between
as a form of storytelling,
mindfulness and poetry,
and an ode
to life’s
seasons and tides.
Kristina Kasparian, Author, Scientist, Endometriosis Advocate 