On Learning to Live and Write Through Long COVID: The Lessons of Little Women

This memoir essay recounts the author's trip to the home of Louisa May Alcott and to Walden Pond in early March 2020, the same day her daughter fell ill with a not-yet-diagnosed COVID-19 infection. The author and her daughters developed debilitating multisystem cases of Long COVID. As they learned to live and work through their illnesses, Wallace drew inspiration from Louisa May Alcott, who lived with severe chronic illness for more than two decades, during her most productive years as a writer.