Laurel Braitman is a bestselling author, speaker, educator, and a trailblazer in the field of medical storytelling. She aims to be the human equivalent of a casserole you bring people after sh*t hits the fan. 

Laurel inspires healing and mental wellness through her books and her work as the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford School of Medicine’s Medical Humanities and the Arts Program. She is also the Founder of Writing Medicine, a global community of writing healthcare professionals. Her work has taken her to unexpected places from studying grizzly bears in Alaska, to stream ecology research in the Orinoco and Amazon. She’s made coffee for the Hell’s Angels, been a backpacking instructor, interned at NPR, taught high school in Colombia, done environmental conservation work in DC, gotten her PhD at MIT, and volunteered with grieving kids.

Today, as a thought leader in mental health, Laurel writes and teaches about healing, grief, and emotional wellbeing for all of us—humans and other animals—as reflected in her New York Times-bestselling Animal Madness and her memoir What Looks Like Bravery, about resilience born from loss.

Laurel encourages those who have experienced loss and other trauma—including and especially healthcare professionals– to communicate bravely and vulnerably in service of their own well-being and that of their patients and colleagues. 

She has reached millions of people via her workshops, keynote talks, books, and courses, guiding participants to write their own paths toward healing. 

She lives and writes on her family’s ranch in Southern California, where she is also (slowly) learning cowhorse.