Please join Countway Library and the Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine for a conversation with Kara Zivin, PhD, MS, MA, MFA, about her memoir, Persevered: A Maternal Mental Health Memoir.

Dr. Zivin will be in conversation with Suzanne Koven, MD, MFA, primary care physician, inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Massachusetts General Hospital, and author of the bestselling essay collection Letter to a Young Female Physician. Audience Q&A to follow.

About the Book

One in five women will experience a mental health condition during pregnancy or the first year postpartum, yet these struggles are still met too often with silence. In Persevered, Dr. Zivin, a mental health researcher who faced her own grave battle with depression and anxiety during and after pregnancy, offers a raw and unflinching account of surviving the darkest moments of new motherhood while holding on to her identity as a professional and a person. Weaving together medical records, journal entries, research, and memory, she breaks the silence around maternal mental health and makes the case for better support for mothers, families, and communities alike.

About the Author

Kara Zivin is a professor of psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, and health management and policy at the University of Michigan. She has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and led more than $25 million in research grants, combining research expertise with personal narrative to raise public awareness of mental health conditions and shape the policies that address them.