Joyce Judith Wadler (born January 2, 1948)[1] is a journalist and reporter for The New York Times, as well as a writer and humorist. Prior to working at the New York Times, she was the New York Correspondent for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for New York Magazine and Rolling Stone. Wadler authored Liaison: The True Story of the M. Butterfly Affair (ISBN 0-553-09213-8) after interviewing Bernard Boursicot, who granted her wide access to information and insight into his affair with Shi Pei Pu.
Wadler has been treated for both breast and ovarian cancer. In 1991, Wadler was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a malignant tumor "the size of a robin's egg" removed from her left breast. The eventual diagnosis was "ductal carcinoma with medullary features".[2] Due to somewhat early detection and aggressive treatment, Wadler called it "[m]y maybe-not- the-best-but-still-pretty-terrific-whatever-the-hell-it-is cancer".[3]
Her memoir about breast cancer, My Breast: One Woman's Cancer Story (ISBN 0671017756; ISBN 978-0671017750) was originally a two part cover story for New York Magazine and later expanded into an award-winning book and made into a television movie starring Meredith Baxter, which won the American Women in Radio and Television Excellence in Programming Award in 1995. Wadler was later also diagnosed with "advanced ovarian cancer" and treated. She is working on a book about her experience with ovarian cancer, tentatively titled Plucky Cancer Girl Strikes Back. She was treated and is in remission.