Jennifer Senior: On Grief - Love, Loss, Memory

When Bobby McIlvaine died in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, his loved ones spun off in radically different directions, each mourning in his or her own distinct-and often highly idiosyncratic-way. Twenty years later, Jennifer Senior, a family friend and award-winning reporter, revisits the McIlvaines, examines their present lives, and contemplates what grief really means, in all its jagged complexity. An unflinching essay on mourning and recovery in the wake of an inconceivable tragedy, Senior’s 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning feature On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory is now published as an Atlantic Edition, a line of books featuring long-form journalism by Atlantic writers, drawn from contemporary articles or classic storytelling from the magazine’s 165-year archive.
Prior to joining the Atlantic as a staff writer, Senior (FAN ’14) spent five years at The New York Times-first as one of its three daily book critics, then as a columnist for the Opinion page. Before that, she spent eighteen years as a staff writer for New York Magazine, writing profiles and cover stories about politics, social science, and mental health. Her book, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, spent eight weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list and was named one of Slate's Top 10 Books of 2014. In addition to the Pulitzer, Senior has won a variety of journalism prizes, including a National Magazine award, a GLAAD award, two Front Page Awards from the Newswomen’s Club of New York, and the Erikson Prize in Mental Health Media.
Senior will be in conversation with Heidi Stevens, Director of External Affairs for the University of Chicago’s TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health. Prior to joining TMW, Stevens worked at the Chicago Tribune for 23 years, where she wrote a daily column called “Balancing Act.” She maintains a weekly nationally syndicated column. She also serves as a FAN board member.