Welcome! I’m Wendy Kennar — writer, wife, mother, former elementary school teacher, and woman living with an invisible disability.

Everyone lives with pain and scars of some kind; some easily visible, some seemingly invisible. I write personal nonfiction to demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences of disability and to offer connection and support to others living with chronic illness and chronic pain.  

Fifteen years ago when I received my autoimmune disease diagnosis, I went online searching for information about this rare autoimmune disease of mine. I found a handful to links. That’s it.

I wanted to know someone else out there in this big world of ours was living with the same chronic illness and still fully living their life. I wanted to know I wasn’t going to feel sick forever.

I wanted to know what happened next, after coming home with a name for the symptoms I had been experiencing. But, I couldn’t find out any of those things.

That is why I write what I do.

I hope my writing helps chronically ill readers feel much less isolated and much more seen and understood. There is such comfort to be found, knowing someone else “gets it.” 

I hope my writing contributes to a shift in how my non-ill readers go about their day, perhaps using more patience, knowing everyone is hurting in some way.

In addition to links to my published personal essays, this website is also the home of “Wendy’s Weekly Words,” the blog I publish each Wednesday.

That may be a lot of W’s, but I primarily write about one of two B’s in my life:

Books (a writer must also be a reader)

and

Bodies (specifically my life with a rare autoimmune disease, an invisible disability)