Tessa’s work focuses on chronic illness, disability, and health justice. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Self, Medium, Health, Refinery 29, Wired, and The Daily Beast, among others. She was a senior editor at Lifehacker, Self, and The Daily Beast. Currently, Tessa teaches composition and rhetoric at The City College of New York.

Tessa’s acclaimed debut book “What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness—Lessons from a Body in Revolt” is available now. “What Doesn’t Kill You” is part memoir about her life with an incurable disease and part guide for newly diagnosed chronic illness patients and the people who love them.

Tessa was born in Idaho and grew up in Oregon, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. She received a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and a master’s degree from The City College of New York in Harlem, NY.

Tessa has lived in New York City for fourteen years and resides in Brooklyn. You can follow her on Instagram @tessajeanmiller.

Select work:

• Five Things I Wish I’d Known Before My Chronic Illness

• Not Today: Learning how to cope with a body in revolt

• What to Do When the News Cycle Triggers Your PTSD

• How This Chronic Skin-Picker Created a Sane, Affordable Skincare Routine

• Black Mirror Does Not Appear to Know What the Morning-After Pill Is

• I Have Medical PTSD from My Chronic Illness—Here’s What I Want You to Know

• When Straight Parents Don’t Know How to Talk to Their LGBTQ Kids About Sex

• What to Do When You Worry Yourself Awake

• This Is What It’s Actually Like to Have a Miscarriage

• And the Wiener Is…My Trip to Brooklyn’s Smallest Penis Contest

• What a Panic Attack Feels Like According to People Who’ve Had One