Nora McInerny

In 2011, Nora McInerny’s boyfriend Aaron suffered a seizure. Which turned out to be brain cancer. Which turned out to be terminal.

They got married a month later. Had a baby the next year. And they spent 3 years living the heck out of their vows. Then, Nora miscarried their second baby. Seven days later, her father died. And six weeks after that, Aaron was gone, too.

Nora documented this time in her life through her popular blog My Husband’s Tumor. She turned Aaron’s favorite tee shirt, and her own experience with the silence of suffering, into a non-profit called Still Kickin, which supports awesome people going through awful things like cancer, ALS and Parkinson’s, and encourages meaningful conversations about the parts of life people would rather not see. Her memoir It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool, Too) was published by HarperCollins.

And now, Nora is the Gracie Award-winning host of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, which asks people to give honest answers to the question “how are you…?” Because everyone is going to go through something difficult, so we might as well talk about it.