Meg Kissinger

2026 Keynote Speaker

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.
Her new Substack column, Speak Up About It!, delivers fresh insights and the latest news in mental health care.

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. 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.

Meg speaks at Be The Light Walk starting at 7pm.