This conversation with Margi Hofer covers a range of experiences as she worked through the diagnosis and then treatment for Mantle Cell Lymphoma, an incurable cancer. Margi’s age and gender make her an unlikely victim of this disease, and she discusses how that affected her, how her support network came to her aid, her reactions to the current pandemic, and her advice for people going through similar challenges.

A long-time museum curator specializing in decorative arts, Margi is currently Vice President and Museum Director at the New-York Historical Society. She has curated numerous exhibitions and is the author of several publications, including Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman, Stories in Sterling: Four Centuries of Silver in New York, and A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls. She is an adjunct professor of museum studies at the City University of New York's School of Professional Studies. Margi is a graduate of Yale and the University of Delaware's Winterthur Program in Early American Culture.