Author Reading: Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, Held Together, in Conversation with Col

BOLD Coffee & Books is thrilled to host a reading with Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, author of Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love, in conversation with collaborator Kelly Burke.

Held Together recounts Dr. Thompson’s complicated path to parenthood as a young doctor many years ago, woven into the stories of her patients, friends, and medical colleagues. Their voices speak not just to the challenges of creating families, but to the many ways that families can grow and change and thrive and struggle as they move far beyond those early days. Ranging from devastating to triumphant, from tear-stained to too-awkward-not-to-laugh, from the universal to the nearly unimaginable, Held Together captures the extraordinary moments hidden within ordinary lives and welcomes all kinds of families, born and built and chosen.

Dr. Thompson will be joined in conversation by Kelly Burke, a fellow Portlander and her former patient. Kelly’s compelling and deeply felt story touches on themes of navigating a chronic autoimmune disorder that threatens her personal and professional identities, considering family roles in same-sex couplehood, talking to children about serious illness and death, and recognizing the ways that physical limitations and understandings of self shape the way we parent.

Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, is a family medicine and public health physician who specializes in women’s and children’s health. Throughout her career, she has sought opportunities to use written and spoken words to make complex medical topics accessible to a wide range of audiences. Held Together is the result of a decade-long collaboration with her patients, friends, and colleagues to share stories of the many ways that family life can take unexpected turns. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her free time wandering through green spaces, reading in cozy nooks, playing unreasonably complicated board games, repurposing found objects, and accompanying her husband and children on all-weather adventures near and far.

Arrive at 6:30 p.m. to grab a snack or drink. The event will start at 7:00 p.m.

*****

Event cohosted by BOLD Coffee & Books and Indigo: Editing, Design, and More.