Author Event! Deborah Kossmann's "Lost Kept Found: A Memoir"

Join us on Saturday, March 28th as we host Deborah Kossmann, who will be reading from and discussing her latest book, Lost Kept Found: A Memoir. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase.

About the book:

"In dealing with the terrifying reality of her mother's obsessive hoarding, Deborah Derrickson Kossmann is a writer of uncommon courage and a daughter of uncommon compassion. The reader takes a deep dive into empathy and fear, rage and frustration as Kossmann, a mental health professional, tackles an unimaginable physical and psychological chore. Hoarding has been written about before, but never with such grace."

-Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN

"In this unflinching memoir, Deborah Derrickson Kossmann fearlessly excavates her memories and the wreckage of her mother's home to tell a complex, intimate, troubling story about mothers and daughters, mental illness, and the endurance of love."

-Carter Sickels, author of THE PRETTIEST STAR

How does a psychologist fail to recognize that her intelligent, sensitive, and book-loving mother has created "the worst hoarder house ever seen?" After making the horrifying discovery that her mother had no water in her house for at least two years, Deborah Derrickson Kossmann begins the otherworldly excavation of a childhood home she hasn't been inside for three decades. Moving back and forth in time, from this surreal nightmare of an archaeological dig to recollecting her past and long buried family secrets, Kossmann seeks to untangle a web of complicated familial relationships. In her lyrical and unflinching quest, she comes to understand what's been lost, what's been found and what's been kept in both her own and her mother's life.

About the author:

Deborah Derrickson Kossmann's essays, feature articles and poetry have been published in The New York Times, Nashville Review, Psychotherapy Networker and Solstice Magazine to name a few. She was the winner of the Short Memoir Competition at the 2007 Philadelphia First Person Arts Festival and was awarded a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Poetry Fellowship. When she's not working as a clinical psychologist in private practice outside Philadelphia, PA, she and her husband are devoted servants to Sofia Carmela, a cat with a whole lot of "tortitude." For more: https: //lostfoundkept.com/

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Symposium Books Staff