Vyshali Manivannan is a Ph.D. candidate in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University and holds an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. Her research focuses on discourses around the ailing body, biomedical technologies intended to make chronic pain visible, and the ableist imperatives of academic style. Her scholarship has appeared in Digital Health, Fibreculture, and Platform, among other journals, and her creative work has been featured in literary magazines such as Consequence, The Fanzine, and DIAGRAM. She was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize in Nonfiction and was among those listed in “Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2014” in Best American Essays 2015. She presently serves as a Writing Studies lecturer at Pace University – Pleasantville.