About this Event
Celebrating the debut novel by writer and medical student Ellie Rose Mattoon-- The Maverick's Midwife-- which is a perfect blend of these disciplines supported by extensive research into the women of Vienna's famous maternity ward.
In the novel, we meet midwifery student Anna Maier, who wants nothing to do with medical men after losing her sister to the mysterious, rampant doctor's plague known as childbed fever.
But when Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a maverick obstetrician, opens an investigation on childbed fever, Anna sees a chance to find answers to her sister's death. The two begin a discrete partnership-verboten in its crossing of gender lines and direct insubordination to hospital rules-and Anna soon finds herself in anatomy theatres where the only other woman in the room is the cadaver.
Join the author in conversation with Dr. Maya J. Sorini, for a conversation about the history of medicine, and the craft of writing as a tool to bring it to life. The seed of this novel began at Bird in Hand, an extra special layer to this meaningful evening!
Order THE MAVERICK'S MIDWIFE here!
Ellie Rose Mattoon is a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University, where she studied Writing Seminars and Molecular & Cellular Biology as an undergraduate. She was a '23-'24 Meg Walsh Fellow in Austria, where she conducted historical research into Ignaz Semmelweis and the women of Vienna's famous maternity ward. The Maverick's Midwife, forthcoming in November 2026 with Third Rail Press, is her debut novel. Her favorite place to live is out of a suitcase, but Austin will always be her hometown. When not with her patients or her books, she enjoys wandering art museums, baking for her loved ones, and hiking.
Maya J. Sorini, MD MS is an emergency medicine resident, essayist, narrative medicine scholar, and award-winning poet. Her debut poetry collection, The Boneheap in the Lion's Den, won the 2023 Press 53 Award for Poetry and was a semifinalist for the 2024 Poetry Society of Virginia North American Book Award. Maya has a master's degree and has taught in Columbia University's Narrative Medicine program, and continues to work as a freelance Narrative Medicine workshop facilitator and lecturer. Her work has been featured in arts and medical journals, including The Journal of Medical Humanities, Intima Magazine, The Brown Journal of Medical Humanities, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Maya is an emergency medicine resident at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
Event venue & nearby stays
Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, United States
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