How The Times’s Well Newsletter Comes Together

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Jancee Dunn, a health and lifestyle columnist for The New York Times, has learned from psychologists how to support a friend who’s getting divorced. She’s picked up bargaining tips from a kidnap negotiator. She’s learned to extend her walks by counting the dogs she passes, instead of the passing minutes.

“I’m curious about how people live, and what makes them feel better when they don’t feel good, and what issues are important to them,” said Ms. Dunn, who shares the knowledge she picks up with her readers in The Times’s Well newsletter every Thursday night. “So this is a dream job.”

Ms. Dunn, who has written the Well newsletter since joining The Times in 2022, specializes in demystifying health problems and making the medical world accessible to readers. She shares anecdotes, advice and encouragement, all in a relatable, empathetic voice (and with more than occasional dry wit).

In a recent conversation, Ms. Dunn, who lives in New Jersey with her husband, the journalist Tom Vanderbilt, and their daughter, talked about how she comes up with ideas, how she channels her distinctive voice and the pieces of her own advice she doesn’t take, but should. These are edited excerpts.

What should readers expect when they sign up for the Well newsletter?

It’s very conversational — it’s a dinner party, plus science and personal stories. Above all, it provides useful information. I’m always thinking of little nuggets readers can use.

Paint me a picture of the reader you imagine you’re writing to.

I sometimes use my parents as a stand-in for readers, because they read The New York Times voraciously and have a lot of the same concerns as other readers. My mother goes through every single comment, every single week, because she likes to tell me which ones to respond to. She’s retired; she has the time to do this sort of thing.