Lucy Jones will be joining us to discuss her acclaimed new book Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood. During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis. There is no other time in a human’s life course that entails such dramatic change-other than adolescence. And yet this life-altering transition has been sorely neglected by science, medicine and philosophy. Its seismic effects go largely unrepresented across literature and the arts. In this ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, acclaimed journalist and author Lucy Jones brings to light the emerging concept of ‘matrescence’. Drawing on new research across various fields – neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology – Jones shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain and body are far more profound, wild and enduring than we have been led to believe.

Lucy Jones is the prize-winning author of Losing Eden and Foxes Unearthed. Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love & Loathing in Modern Britain, was published by Elliott & Thompson in 2016. It was long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and won the Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award. Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need The Wild was published in March 2020 by Allen Lane (Penguin). Losing Eden was long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and received a Society of Authors’ K Blundell Trust Award. Lucy is a freelance journalist and writes widely for newspapers and magazines.