A Memoir of Hope
Esteemed Editor Jonathan Gluck on Writing His Own Story
FEATURE
WINTER 2026
By Rafaela Jinich (BSJ25)
Jonathan Gluck (MSJ91) has spent more than 30 years shaping other people’s stories. Working for some of the top magazines in the business, he has built a career as a sharp and thoughtful editor, often working behind the scenes. But after living with cancer for two decades, he found himself with a story of his own to tell — and the skills to tell it.
Gluck’s memoir, "An Exercise in Uncertainty: A Memoir of Illness and Hope," marks a shift in a career long grounded in service to others’ voices.
“It’s a memoir about living with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, for over 20 years,” Gluck said. “About three and a half years after my diagnosis, I wrote an essay for New York Magazine. After it ran, a few agents and editors reached out asking if I’d consider writing a book. At the time, I said no — I felt like I’d said everything I had to say in that essay.”
Nearly two decades later, the timing felt right.
“Fifteen or 16 years later, I realized the 20th anniversary of my diagnosis was coming up. That milestone made me feel like I had more to say and also gave the book a natural ending point," he said.
His path to journalism wasn’t linear. After graduating from Amherst College, Gluck took a job at an advertising agency in Chicago.
“I liked it, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term,” he said. “So, I decided to apply to a master's degree at Medill. I was already living in Chicago, so it worked out.”
Gluck credits the MSJ program with laying the groundwork for the rest of his career.
“Medill gave me a solid foundation that helped not just in landing that first job but throughout my career,” Gluck said. He also recalled taking a long-form magazine class with Patrick Clinton and studying under Charles Whitaker, now Medill dean, who had a profound impact on Gluck’s experience.
Gluck started his editorial career as a fact-checker at Parenting magazine in San Francisco, where he worked his way up to senior editor. From there, he moved to New York to become a senior editor at Men’s Journal. He soon found himself at the helm of a startup magazine for young lawyers and law students during the first dot-com boom.
“It was fun,” he said. “Then I got a job as deputy editor at New York Magazine, a dream job, and stayed there for over 10 years.”
That role was both personally and professionally significant, because it was during his time at New York Magazine that he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable but treatable blood cancer. His first piece about the experience appeared in that magazine just a few years after his diagnosis.
Following his tenure at New York Magazine, Gluck held senior roles at Vogue for four years and then joined Hearst’s corporate editorial team for a year. After that, he moved into digital media, spending four years at Medium. Most recently, he joined Fast Company in April 2024.
Throughout those years, the idea of writing a book lingered, but it wasn’t until his layoff from Medium that he had time to commit to it.
“For the first couple of years, I wrote early mornings, late nights, and weekends — just working around my job,” Gluck said. “I accepted that the pace would be modest and tried not to be too hard on myself. Then, in May 2024, I was laid off from Medium. That actually gave me more time to focus on the book, and I finished it much sooner than I had expected.”
Even though his editorial career didn’t focus on health journalism, Gluck said returning to reporting felt natural.
“I’ve worked as a generalist, so I’m used to learning new subjects quickly,” he said. “But this gave me a chance to put on my reporter hat again. I realized how much I missed doing my own reporting.”
Emotionally, though, writing a memoir proved harder than expected.
“There were parts of my story I hadn’t revisited in years, or ever,” he said. “Writing about them could be intense and sometimes painful.”
Still, his decades as an editor gave him a solid foundation.
“Being an editor for 30 years helped a lot. Especially at weekly magazines and daily websites — I’ve seen so many stories and storytelling challenges over the years. That gave me a toolbox of techniques to draw on.”
It also helped him take feedback seriously.
“After guiding so many writers, I knew how important that process is, and it felt like bad karma not to take it seriously,” Gluck said.
The book is deeply personal, yet it’s also intended to be practical and valuable.
“After I published the original essay, people would reach out to say how much it meant to them, whether they had cancer themselves or were supporting someone who did,” Gluck said. “That response stayed with me. I knew that if I ever wrote a book, it could be genuinely helpful to people, and that was a strong motivator.”
For current Medill students and recent graduates, Gluck offers simple advice: do the work.
“Just do as much work as you possibly can,” he said. “The repetitions matter. The more you write, edit, and collaborate the more stories, topics, and people you encounter and the better you get. It may not feel like it matters at the moment, but looking back, it all adds up. Brick by brick, you build something meaningful.”
Now, after decades helping others shape their stories, Gluck is finally telling his own, and in doing so, he’s still building something meaningful.
Rafaela Jinich graduated from Medill in 2025 and is now an assistant editor for The Atlantic.
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