From Healing and Truth to Research and Action
A conversation with Kate Price about her new book, This Happened to Me: A Reckoning
Date: Thursday, September 18, 2025 from 3:30pm-5:00pm ET
Location: Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center, Room 413
Join the Wellesley Centers for Women to celebrate the release of This Happened to Me: A Reckoning by Associate Research Scientist Kate Price, Ph.D. She will be joined in conversation by pioneering activist, speaker, and writer and WCW Senior Scholar Jean Kilbourne.
Price grew up in a small mill town with her sister and parents in northern Appalachia. At the insistence of her mother, and through her academic accomplishments, Price escaped the unbroken cycles of poverty, violence, addiction, mental illness, and abuse that had plagued her family for generations. She started a new life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in pursuit of her master’s and Ph.D. But despite having left this dark world behind, it still kept a firm grip on her.
In this exquisitely rendered, transformative memoir, Price describes how she broke free of that which had defined her childhood and went on to create a purpose-driven life and family, on her own terms—eventually returning to the same Appalachian community to use her education and advocacy to help ensure children are given the attention, protection, and services that she never received.
From victim to advocate, from fearful child to empowered adult, and from despair to triumph, This Happened to Me is a story of astonishing resilience and breathtaking determination. Join us for an in-depth discussion of Price’s journey to writing the book and the path she has charted forward through her research and advocacy at WCW. A Q&A and book signing will follow.
Content warning: Price’s book discusses human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of a child.
