With author & geneticist Margaret Nowaczyk

In honour of International Women’s Day, acclaimed author and geneticist Margaret Nowaczyk discusses her award-winning essay collection Marrow Memory: Essays of Discovery.

These beautifully crafted essays, full of hard-won truths and deep insights, detail facets of Nowaczyk’s life, from her childhood in Communist Poland to her work as a pediatric clinical geneticist. Whether struggling with English as a teenage refugee or documenting the process of permanent hair dye, Nowaczyk moves seamlessly between scientific and personal writing, bridging these two areas with elegance and humour. Marrow Memory invites readers to marvel at the unexpected beauties of human experience and at language's ability to capture them. Books will be available for sale and signing after the talk.

About the Author

Margaret Nowaczyk was born in Poland in 1964 and emigrated to Canada with her family in 1981, having spent six months as a stateless person in Austria. She graduated with honours from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in 1990. She trained in pediatrics and genetics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, with electives in pediatric neurology at Boston Children's Hospital and Hôpital Enfants Malades in Paris. Since 1997, she has been caring for children with genetic disorders and providing prenatal diagnosis and genetic counselling for adults as a clinical geneticist at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Her memoir, Chasing Zebras: A Memoir of Genetics, Mental Health and Writing, was published in 2021. She has also authored more than 125 peer-reviewed papers in genetics journals.