Last Nerve

Please join Mindy Uhrlaub and Marianne Lonsdale at Clio's on Thursday August 14th to discuss Mindy's new memoir, Last Nerve.

Six years ago, Mindy's mother was battling Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a rare, fatal, neurodegenerative disease. As her mother lost the ability to walk, her husband was diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma. Without chemotherapy, the cancer in his marrow would K*ll him. Additionally, her fourteen-year-old son was doing drugs, ditching school, and compulsively lying about it. In the summer of 2018, with three first-order relatives in life-threatening situations, she received the news that she carried the C9orf72 gene mutation for her mother’s ALS and would likely develop the disease herself. As she puts it, being diagnosed as a carrier of a fatal neurodegenerative disease was the best thing to ever happen to her.

Last Nerve is a poignant, hopeful story of an activist whose life is upended and then given new meaning by medical adversity.

Mindy Uhrlaub was awarded residencies at Millay Arts, The Hambridge Center, Joyce Maynard's Write by the Lake, Litcamp, and Ragdale for the Arts for her work on her ALS memoir, Last Nerve. Since learning she carries the C9orf72 mutation for ALS/FTD, she has testified before the FDA and the NIH about pre-symptomatic carriers' of ALS need for medical treatment. In February 2023 she was nominated onto a committee at the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine to make ALS a liveable disease. For cofounding the nonprofit Genetic ALS&FTD: End the Legacy, Uhrlaub won the 2025 Harvey and Bonny Gaffen Advancements in ALS Award from the Les Turner ALS Foundation.

Marianne Lonsdale writes personal essays, fiction, and poetry. She is currently at work on her second novel, which promises to be a family saga of love, addiction, and redemption. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, Grown and Flown, and Pulse. Marianne has shared her work publicly at San Francisco's Litquake festival, and she is an alumna of the Community of Writers and the Napa Valley Writers' Conference.

Event Venue

Clio's, 353 Grand Avenue, Oakland, United States