Meg Kissinger is an award-winning American investigative journalist and a Visiting Professor at Columbia University. She is the author of “While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence”, published by Macmillan on September 5, 2023. While You Were Out begins with the personal story of one family’s struggles, then opens outward as Kissinger details how childhood tragedy catalyzed a journalism career focused on exposing our country’s flawed mental health care. Combining the intimacy of memoir with the rigor of investigative reporting, the book explores the consequences of shame, the havoc of botched public policy, and the hope offered by new treatment strategies.