OLLI 0214 - Busting the Shame of Mental Illness
Course Description
Award-winning journalist and author Meg Kissinger will discuss the lessons she learned in her 40-plus years chronicling the stories of those who struggle and what we can all do to make their lives better. Her best-selling memoir, “While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence,” has been praised for its incisive reporting, boundless compassion and surprising humor. Kissinger spent more than two decades traveling across the country for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to report on our nation’s failed mental health system, winning more than a dozen national honors, including two George Polk Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy National Journalism Award. A graduate of DePauw University, she taught investigative reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a trainer for the school’s Dart Center on Trauma and Journalism. Kissinger will help you see and think about people with mental illness in a new light.
Presenter(s)
Meg Kissinger
Meg Kissinger, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author, will help you see and think about people with mental illness in a new light. Her best-selling memoir, “While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence,” has been praised for its incisive reporting, boundless compassion and surprising humor. It was named as editors’ choice by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Amazon, Goodreads and Independent Booksellers Association. Audible chose it as the Best of the Year. Kissinger spent more than two decades traveling across the country for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to report on our nation’s failed mental health system, winning more than a dozen national honors, including two George Polk Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy National Journalism Award. A graduate of DePauw University, she taught investigative reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a trainer for the school’s Dart Center on Trauma and Journalism. Kissinger lives in Milwaukee, Wis., with her husband, Larry, near the shores of Lake Michigan, her favorite place to plunge, even on the coldest day in January.