Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain and only successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first larger team, Mimi Zieman's team would climb without using supplemental oxygen, porter support, or chance for rescue. She would accompany the climbers as the doctor--and only woman--although she was still in her third year of medical school. Full of self-doubt, Zieman grappled with whether to go but couldn't resist the call of the mountains. On Everest, when three climbers disappeared during their summit attempt, she reached the knife edge of her limits and dug deeply to fight for the climbers' lives and to find her voice.

Sparkling with suspense and vulnerability, Tap Dancing on Everest is a coming-of-age story about the risks we take to become our truest selves. Zieman weaves her childhood as the daughter of immigrants raised in 1970's New York City, her father a Holocaust survivor, with adventure and medicine, capturing the curiosity and awe of a young woman as she faces down messages to stay small and safe and ventures into the unknown.

Mimi Zieman, MD is the author of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely adventure about the risks we take to become our truest selves. Her play, The Post-Roe Monologues, has been performed in New York City, Atlanta, New Mexico, and Cleveland. A board-certified OB/GYN specialized in Complex Family Planning, she's co-authored sixteen editions of Managing Contraception with over one million copies distributed. Her writing has appeared in The Sun, Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, NBC NewsTHINK, The Forward, and other publications. She's spoken nationally and internationally and has been interviewed by major media outlets. Ranking high on her list of favorite things are a good adventure, dancing, animals, and a rich cup of coffee. Above all she treasures her family which includes her husband, three grown children, bonus daughter, granddaughter, and rambunctious pup.