A reading of Manufacturing My Miracle - by Jill Viles

Longtime alum of the annual Iowa Summer Writers' Festival, Jill Viles, will read from her new memoir, Manufacturing My Miracle: One Woman's Quest to to Create Her Personalized Gene Therapy. Described by Bloomsbury (Viles's publisher) as "One woman's quest to save her family from a rare hereditary disorder and what it means for our collective genetic future," Manufacturing My Miracle takes readers on Viles's personal journey of getting diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Emery-Dreifuss to learning how to craft her own affordable gene therapy treatment, which she keeps in her freezer "in her rural Iowa kitchen, beside her ground beef and frozen waffles." Ranked as a bestselling book in Genetic Health, Manufacturing My Miracle "explores urgent questions such as: Who deserves access to life-giving treatments? What role should profit play in healthcare? Who is ultimately responsible for payment-private health insurers, the government, or the patient?" (bloomsbury.com).

Jill Viles is a writer, speaker, and DIYscientist™ with a rare genetic mutation that set her on the path for writing Going Viral. Her writing has appeared in Johns Hopkins Magazine, and her scientific work has been published in Gene and Cells. A version of her story appears in This American Life (episode #577), and she was also interviewed by ProPublica and The Atlantic. Jill lives in rural Iowa with her husband, Jeremy, and a lively golden retriever, Yoshi. Learn more about Jill at diyscientist.blog.