Luke Ryan is a 29-year-old Melbourne-based writer, comedian and two-time sarcoma survivor. His debut book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo, has just been published by Affirm Press. A comic memoir about family, growing up and having had cancer twice, the project grew out of his 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Luke’s Got Cancer, and is funnier than it sounds. His work has appeared in a number of publications including Best Australian Essays, The Guardian, Smith Journal, The Lifted Brow, TheVine, Crikey, Kill Your Darlings and many more, and he performs with a sketch comedy outfit called the Lords of Luxury. He also has a law degree, but would rather physically explode than use it.
Why Sock it to Sarcoma?
As someone who managed to notch up two separate sarcomas by the age of 22, I’ve been on the receiving end of more than my fair share of “Sarcoma? What’s that?” lines of questioning. As such I am overjoyed to be able to lend my name to an organisation that refuses to take obscurity lying down. Sarcoma is such a devastating yet under-resourced stretch of the cancer spectrum and I hope that in some small way the work we do together as Sock it to Sarcoma! will ease the lives of all the children and adults who one day may need to answer that question themselves.