With cameras and lighting aimed at her, New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova shared her passion for storytelling and research on memory with local media before her keynote speech at Van Meter Auditorium Tuesday evening.

In the second installment of the WKU Presidential Speaker Series, Genova was invited to speak on campus to the public. Genova’s keynote speech, “How We Remember and Why We Forget”, expounded on her life’s research into human’s ability to remember, to forget and what can be done to protect memories, according to a WKU press release.

Genova said her goal was to show that forgetting things, like the location of phones or glasses that get placed down, is “actually a part of being human.”

“Memory is fascinating,” Genova said. “It’s essential to so much of who we are and what we do; from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, and even then, the mechanisms behind memory are fast at work.”

After receiving her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University, Genova became a bestselling author in both nonfiction and fiction. She was the pen behind novels “Still Alice,” “Left Neglected,” “Love Anthony,” “Inside the O’Briens” and “Every Note Played.” “Still Alice,” Genova’s first book, was adapted into a film in 2014 starring Julianne Moore, who won the 2015 Best Actress Oscar for her role in the film.

Genova said she didn’t start writing “Still Alice” until she was almost 34 years old.

“Prior to that, I’d never written any creative writing,” Genova said. “I took one English class my freshman year in college.”

Genova points her draw to fiction storytelling to her grandmother.

“My grandmother had Alzheimer’s,” Genova said, “And as the neuroscientist in my family, I did everything I could to understand it.”

Genova said she did everything she could to understand the condition, from reading research papers by scientists, clinicians and social workers. All of these viewpoints, she said, were from the outside looking in.

“While I learned a lot, what I didn’t learn was, ‘What does it feel like from the perspective of the person with it?’” Genova asked. “What does it feel like to be my grandmother?”

Genova said she realized fiction was a place where “you can walk in someone else’s shoes and experience what it’s like to be someone else.”

“In the absence of a cure, this is really what all of us want with our loved ones with Alzheimer’s: is to stay emotionally connected,” Genova said. 

Genova said writing “Still Alice” was terrifying and exciting. 

“That book, more than any other, has made an impact on the world and how people are able to understand and relate to a very scary neurological disease, and it’s helped make it a little less scary,” Genova said, “It’s also the book that then gave me permission to be a writer and to pursue a career that will continue to tell stories about people who tend to be ignored, feared and misunderstood for what’s going on inside their brains.”

Making neurological diseases like memory loss less scary was an emphasis for her keynote on campus, Genova said.

“The biggest takeaway I want folks to go home with tonight is that forgetting is a normal part of being human,” Genova said. “When they bump up against these moments in their day to day life, ‘Oh my god, I went to the grocery store to pick up milk, and I bought a bunch of things and I came up with no milk,’ or, ‘Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?’ There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Genova said she wants people to understand the clear distinction between everyday, normal forgetting and what might be something to be concerned about.

Though her keynote focused on, and her initial story pulled from, memory loss illnesses like Alzheimer’s, Genova’s other books dive into other mental conditions.

Her newest book, “More or Less Maddy,” is set to hit bookstores early 2025, and centers around a young woman with bipolar disorder.

“I hope that this book, like all of mine, become(s) a vehicle for open conversation and understanding, and that helps destigmatize and humanize this condition,” Genova said.

News Reporter Cameron Shaw can be reached at [email protected].